Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Aloha,

For Hallowe'en, the Beamers gave themselves a trick that turned out to be a treat - Seth Grahame-Smith's "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", a quirky update of the Jane Austen classic that proved to be surprisingly funny and faithful to the original. Our longest and loudest arguments, in fact, were over the ways in which "PPZ" showed itself to be superior to the original (at least to our benighted modern ears and eyes).

Adopting the premise that the England of "Pride and Prejudice" is under constant zombie assaults and that the five Bennet daughters are all practitioners of the "deadly arts" of Shao-lin combat, "PPZ" re-enacts the comedy of manners of finding suitors for the hands of Jane and Elizabeth, the elder sisters, when a pair of eligible bachelors move into the neighborhood, complicated by an amorous cousin in line to inherit Mr. Bennet's estate (Mr. Collins) and flirtatious younger sisters (Kitty, Lydia) who chase after the officers of the militia regiment stationed nearby. The balls and country rides of the original are reproduced, with brain-chomping zombie mayhem and acrobatic katana duels. Whether the zombie outbreaks are necessary to most of the book or not (and we disagreed about how much comic relief they added to the narration - Liz noted that after the middle of the book, zombie scenes tended to slow down the pace unnecessarily), we all enjoyed the style and perfect tone of voice that Mr. Grahame-Smith maintained, much in keeping with Austen's prose. And, in some places, he provided slightly better explanations for plot events or character revelations, notably by introducing the "strange plague" (the zombiefying infection), which could more reasonably give Mr. Darcy pause about Jane's suitability as wife for his friend Bingley. Fran pointed out that Charlotte Lucas (aka Mrs. Collins) suffering the strange plague and turning undead became a visible metaphor for the way in which marriage to Mr. Collins under the watchful and condescending eyes of Lady Catherine de Bourgh would drain the life out of her. Linda B. simply enjoyed the amusement of Charlotte's deterioration happening in plain view and not being remarked about in polite company. Of course, the plethora of bodily fluids being splashed about also tickled Linda's funny bone. Robin went more for the verbal humor, such as Lizzie's and Darcy's double entendre conversation about his (musket) balls. Many Beamers enjoyed the postscript "Reader's Guide" and its questions, some of which are applicable to either version ("7. Does Mrs. Bennet have a single redeeming quality?") "PPZ" displays its comic turns on many levels, high and low, as we found.

Overall, the changes in "PPZ" (aside from the obvious) were small but interesting, mainly consisting of making characters a bit more extreme in their behavior, such as adding the crime of threatening to beat a deaf stable boy to Wickham's various youthful indiscretions (for which Darcy broke both of Wickham's legs). Eileen felt that this outsizing was helpful to 21st-century readers who might not react in sufficient outrage to the ill actions that would scandalize the original 19th-century audience. Our discussion about Mr. Bennet's fitness as a father (over which we split about 50-50) took us off into considerations of how women of the period were treated in matters matrimonial, a key issue in deciding whether Jane was or wasn't (or even could be) sufficiently demonstrative toward Bingley to have earned Darcy's approbation instead of his disapproval. In any case (new or old), Mr. Bennet's lack of providing for his daughters' future is a flaw which even he acknowledged. Of course, if we pushed too hard, we came right up against the basic impossibilities of the book (such as how England survives as a nation with half of the countryside overrun by shambling brain-eaters, or why any burials are performed when burning corpses eliminates the zombie problem before it starts). But a Beamer meeting without abstruse arguments held at high volumes (or without home-made cookies) just would not be a genuine Beamer meeting. It does help that we had a book that held the attention of most of us reading it ("compelling", Chris was moved to describe it), whether we had read the original or not. While knowing both certainly increased the ability to spot the sly humor (like catching the brief mention of crutches in Wickham's portrait during the tour of Pemberley), "PPZ" provided enough comedy and drama to make reading it alone worthwhile. Mr. Grahame-Smith borrowed from Jane Austen and borrowed well when he stole the Bennet sisters' story and added his modern touches.

Our November book will be "Federations", an anthology of galactic empire space opera stories. Jon, its selector, recommends that the Orson Scott Card ("Mazer in Prison"), John C. Wright ("Twilight of the Gods"), Alastair Reynolds ("Spirey and the Queen"), James Allen Gardner ("The One with the Interstellar Group Consciousness"), and Cathrynne Valente ("Golubash, or Wine-Blood-War-Elegy") stories be read by all Beamers for discussion. His personal dislike of several of the other stories should not dissuade anyone from reading them and bringing them up at the meeting, repeatedly if desired. For December, we will be "In the Garden of Iden" with Kage Baker's time-traveling cyborgs, visiting Elizabethan England. When the new years turns, we will go off to sunny climes as "Beggars in Spain" with Nancy Kress.

- Eugene, always ready to snag another literary allusion or home-made cookie ...