P&P&Z

[bironic]

Seemed high time to try reading Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, and I have to say, so far I'm not impressed.

The opening line was great, but about 35 pages in, it feels like Grahame-Smith siphoned out all the biting (pun intended) social commentary of P&P, the feminism and the irony, and then inserted the zombie gimmick but didn't make the two parts comment on each other. What do zombie tropes illuminate about the original story? What does P&P have to offer to zombie genre conventions? There have got to be clever answers to these, but I'm not seeing them in the narrative so far. It reads more like a single joke on repeat. Like horror scenes that for no reason other than playing with unexpected genre mashups interrupt a lesser version of a comedy of manners.

Friend of a friend at dinner last night described a plot point later in the book that makes use of the zombie conceit to explain why little sister wanted to marry Mr. Collins. That sounded good. Just not sure it's enough to pull me through ~300 more pages....

From the sound of the few reviews I've read, the movie suffers from similar shortcomings.

Have any of you read it? Does it get better?

Comments

[seascribble]

That's pretty much my exact complaint with the book. I was underwhelmed by the whole thing, honestly.

[bironic]

Ah, alas. Disappointing that the book isn't great, but heartening to hear that my impressions are accurate. :)

[happydork]

It's been several years since I read this, but from my memory of it, you're exactly right -- only with a tonne of bonus ablism later on. I don't think you miss out on much by stopping now.

[bironic]

All right, that's three for three. I'll trade it in for something else at the library. Plenty of better books in the world to read.