Zombies dressed in empire-waisted gowns and riding pants are attacking bookstores everywhere, and they're hungry for young brains.
A fixture on The New York Times' paperback trade fiction bestseller list for the last two weeks, Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith's "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance -- Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!" (Quirk 2009), transports us to 19th century England, where life is just like a scene from America's favorite BBC mini-series starring Colin Firth, except for one small detail: a plague of zombies has overtaken the country. The King's army and militia combat the "dreadfuls," and the Bennet sisters, trained in "the deathly arts" of zombie slaying by a man named Master Liu, do their part to defend the provinces.
"Zombies" stays faithful to the basic plot of Austen's original. The main thrust of the novel is still the gradually-unfolding love between Elizabeth and Darcy and the Bennet girls' adventures, but Grahame-Smith makes sure to incorporate zombies at every turn. For example, Elizabeth Bennet is especially talented with the katana, a type of Japanese sword, and her talent impresses the handsome Mr. Darcy. Darcy's bitter Aunt Catherine, who tries to prevent her nephew from marrying Elizabeth, is a world famous zombie killer who keeps a team of ninjas on call at her estate.
In just one of the book's many memorable scenes, the Bennet sisters defeat a horde of "unmentionables" (Grahame-Smith's favorite euphemism for the cannibalistic undead) at a country ball. Filing into a "Pentagram of Death" formation, the girls fight off their assailants by swinging daggers with one hand, while concealing back-up weapons behind their gowns with the other.
For the most part, Grahame-Smith faithfully imitates Austen's prose style, but he adds touches of humor that would scandalize the 19th century English novelist. No matter how real the threat of zombies is for you, there's something inherently funny about dainty English ladies wielding daggers behind the smalls of their backs. Grahame-Smith adds to the humor of his premise with the use of deadpan, high-flown prose:
"As Mr. Darcy walked off, Elizabeth felt her blood turn cold," he writes. "She had never in her life been so insulted. The warrior code demanded she avenge her honour. Elizabeth reached down to her ankle, taking care not to draw attention. There, her hand met the dagger concealed beneath her dress."
Grahame-Smith's bizarre and hilarious send-up cashes in on two pop literary trends whose followings typically don't intersect: cult science fiction and Austen romance.
Since films from each of these genres, including "Twilight"(2008) and Joe Wright's "Pride and Prejudice" (2005) have achieved massive box office success, surely, "Zombies" is blockbuster material.
