Books - "Pride and Prejudice" and "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies"

Compare the first lines from these two books:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

And

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."

There you have the differences between Jane Austen's classic, and the hysterical zombie infused version co-authored by Seth Grahame-Smith.


I had never read "Pride and Prejudice" so I decided to read these two books in tandem: a couple chapters of the original followed by the corresponding chapters in the Zombie version. This was certainly an enjoyable experience, if not more than a little redundant. Gramhme-Smith's book contains 70% (at least) of the classic story in word-by-word verbatim (which is why he only gets a co-author credit alongside Miss Austen herself). P&P&Z is also a tiny bit longer, to allow more space to dedicate to crazy zombie killing mayhem without losing any of the original story.

As for the original work itself, I had a very nice time reading the story. It was witty and romantic. P&P&Z had all the same wit and romance, but also many more laugh-out-loud moments that appealed to the 13-year-old boy in me. Not only does the new version have zombies and ninjas, it also has a lot of poop, barf, and balls jokes. The balls jokes are particularly amusing, (e.g. “Balls are always a subject which makes a lady energetic” and “I find that balls are much more enjoyable when they cease to remain private.”) although I wish that Gramhme would have made the characters ignorant of the puns instead of writing about how they'd snicker at themselves.

If I were a high-school English teacher, I'd give my students a choice between reading these two books. I think it would create a fun conversation between those who chose to read the classic and those who chose to read the zombie version. Those who read Gramhme's version would still be able to ace a proficiency test on the classic, as essentially all of the original language and plot-points are encompassed in the Zombie book.

Greg and I both are greatly looking forward to "Sense and Sensibility and Sea-monsters" that will be released later this week from the same publishing house as P&P&Z.