Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
My sister made a video for my children once that we called "Jurassic Park for Kids". She cut out all the really scary scenes where the children were imperiled and kept just the beautiful placid cool ones of dinosaurs up close, with enough of the narration to make the story hang together. It was a masterpiece that transformed a work best suited to teen-agers (or older) to the level suited for small children.
Seth Grahame-Smith's version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is the inverse of this work. It takes a brilliant comedy of manners best suited to romance-lovers and people who admire dense prose capturing the vagaries of human relationships, and slathers a blood-thirsty disposition and an enjoyment of hairy balls on top, creating a work that could be of passing interest to teen-aged boys.
I'm not sure what I expected, actually. I mean, doesn't the title say it all? My advice: if you can read Jane Austen, just reread the excellent "Pride and Prejudice" and catch up on what this work adds to the canon by standing around in a bookstore reading the two page "Reader's Discussion Guide" at the end of this work. There. You've got it.
If you cannot read Jane Austen, then, yes, read this. Jane Austen is really worth reading and this author captures the essence in important ways. For example, in this version the great reveal that they love each other happens just after Jane has sank to her knees in front of him.
"Jane immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand that her sentiments had undergone a material change.... Had Jane been able to encounter his eye, she might have seen how well the expression of heartfelt delight diffused over his face...."
Jane Austen needs close reading, but she's worth it when you puzzle out what she's saying. This work merely added a dimension that most of us wouldn't have seen in the original. Who knows. Maybe it was there all along.
Seth Grahame-Smith's version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is the inverse of this work. It takes a brilliant comedy of manners best suited to romance-lovers and people who admire dense prose capturing the vagaries of human relationships, and slathers a blood-thirsty disposition and an enjoyment of hairy balls on top, creating a work that could be of passing interest to teen-aged boys.
I'm not sure what I expected, actually. I mean, doesn't the title say it all? My advice: if you can read Jane Austen, just reread the excellent "Pride and Prejudice" and catch up on what this work adds to the canon by standing around in a bookstore reading the two page "Reader's Discussion Guide" at the end of this work. There. You've got it.
If you cannot read Jane Austen, then, yes, read this. Jane Austen is really worth reading and this author captures the essence in important ways. For example, in this version the great reveal that they love each other happens just after Jane has sank to her knees in front of him.
"Jane immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand that her sentiments had undergone a material change.... Had Jane been able to encounter his eye, she might have seen how well the expression of heartfelt delight diffused over his face...."
Jane Austen needs close reading, but she's worth it when you puzzle out what she's saying. This work merely added a dimension that most of us wouldn't have seen in the original. Who knows. Maybe it was there all along.