Sense and Sensibility is one Austen book that I have never been able to manage more than a mild sort of liking for.
It turns out, all it ever really needed was a dash of Lovecraft and a liberal helping of sea monsters to make it work.
True, the first 100 or so pages are a bit dull, but that is as much Austen's doing as it is Winters', and after that, the sea monsters provide lively interludes to wooing, gossiping, and false confidences. Lots of people get eaten, and there are plenty of bodily fluids splashed about.
Two wistful afterthoughts:
1) In Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Elizabeth is a noted zombie slayer. In Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, Elinor is a noted driftwood carver. There really is no comparison.
2) Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters provided what I wanted and expected--a light read and some laughter. There is just a niggle at the back of my mind, though, that is suggesting that a real combination of Austen and Lovecraft would be truly, breathtakingly awesome, worth reading multiple times. Oh well. It was fun!
Oh, and hey, here's the book trailer:
Showing posts with label Jane Austen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jane Austen. Show all posts
Monday, January 18, 2010
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
I wasn't sure about this one at first.
It wasn't the concept, which delighted me, nor the cover, which, while gruesome, is absolutely perfect. It was the fact that it wasn't a complete rewrite: Grahame-Smith had the temerity to leave a lot of Austen's words in, intact, which sets him the daunting task of matching his skills against one of the masters, and I didn't think he was up to it.
He isn't, not all of the time. Early on, I found the conversational revisions jarring; instead of insulting one another in subtle, overtly polite ways, people were downright rude in a very modern fashion. I almost gave up.
But when it works, it works very well: The scenes where Austen's text is left pretty much alone and contrasted with the zombie mayhem are marvelous fun. My favorite occurs when Elizabeth visits Lady Catherine de Bourgh and the latter goes into the familiar examination of household minutia while apparently oblivious to the fact that Charlotte is slowly turning into a zombie.
And the discussion questions are hilarious.
A book for the ages? Probably not--but then, no one at all is expeccting it to be, so that hardly matters. Fun? Definitely!
Am I looking forward to Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters? Oh yes.
And Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer? Oh, I'll give it a try.
It wasn't the concept, which delighted me, nor the cover, which, while gruesome, is absolutely perfect. It was the fact that it wasn't a complete rewrite: Grahame-Smith had the temerity to leave a lot of Austen's words in, intact, which sets him the daunting task of matching his skills against one of the masters, and I didn't think he was up to it.
He isn't, not all of the time. Early on, I found the conversational revisions jarring; instead of insulting one another in subtle, overtly polite ways, people were downright rude in a very modern fashion. I almost gave up.
But when it works, it works very well: The scenes where Austen's text is left pretty much alone and contrasted with the zombie mayhem are marvelous fun. My favorite occurs when Elizabeth visits Lady Catherine de Bourgh and the latter goes into the familiar examination of household minutia while apparently oblivious to the fact that Charlotte is slowly turning into a zombie.
And the discussion questions are hilarious.
A book for the ages? Probably not--but then, no one at all is expeccting it to be, so that hardly matters. Fun? Definitely!
Am I looking forward to Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters? Oh yes.
And Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer? Oh, I'll give it a try.
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