Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, as with many new and intriguing ideas, the media, and those who follow cult classic ideas, have been savoring to get a taste of this great potential mashing. Sadly, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies does not live up to expectations.
Love, Romance, and Zombies in the Regency Era
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies follows the plot of the original manuscript to some degree. The main characters are still essential for the plot to advance and Seth Grahame-Smith does try to stay true to the romantic sub-plots that make Jane Austen classics wonderful to read. The witty banter between Miss Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy can still be read, at times, with the same fascination that the original has inspired in countless men and women. The love stories incorporate all the necessary elements needed for the novel to resemble the original while still being completely different do to the rise of the zombies or "unmentionables."
Death, Horror, Destruction in the Faux-Regency Era
Pride and Prejudice and Zombie's author, Seth Grahame-Smith is given the difficult-at-best job of incorporating the ideas and cultural understanding of Regency England with the recently popularized ideas of Zombies and other dark motifs. However, after reading the novel, one wonders if Grahame-Smith has ever read the original work of Pride and Prejudice or watched any one piece in the canon of Zombie movies(Night of the Living Dead) or novels(such as Max Brook's Zombie Survival Guide or World War Z).
Grahame-Smith, seemingly, grasp onto everything that is enjoyable about zombies and Regency Romances and swiftly decided to leave these items from his novel. The zombies are not scary. The romance is contrived.
Fighting Zombies in Regency Dresses
Grahame-Smith decided that what Pride and Prejudice needed more than zombies was the women to be great kung fu masters. Taking the physically impossibilities of fighting zombies with fist and feet, Regency dresses would be incapable of the movement that would be necessary for these events to occur. To furthur confound the piece of work, Grahame-Smith seems to be fighting to mix the jargon of Regency England with the American Lingo of today.
Lack of Pride in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies's complete and utter loss of follow-through in the development and research of this novel makes one wonder if the novel was created to promote the author himself or for solely revenue production. Whatever the reason, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a great idea that was not realized. If you wish to read this novel, your local library may be the best avenue to explore.
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