Pride & Prejudice & Zombies: Discuss

I give fair warning that spoilers may be on this thread at large. I may spoil very little even now and say this may be as greatly as unmentionables roam England. Beware and prepared.

Comspki, cat, and whoever else has read and would like to discuss Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith...

Discuss away!

On the What are you reading in July? thread I posted this:

"I was reading P&P&Z the other day when I had to drop my jaw so stunned to be reading what I was reading. I think I may have screamed."

Compski posted this:

"I wonder if your jaw dropped at the same place my jaw dropped :-O"

JP then posted this:

"catbastet desperately wants to know where your jaws dropped because she thinks she missed it."

- -

Goodness. Page 205! And then again tonight while reading on page 305, though it wasn't quite as shocking after having read page 205.

How did you guys like P&P&Z? How did you dislike it?

I'm going to wait until I've finished reading before answering myself. I'm on page 306 and am going to finish reading the moment I sign off LT.

I can't finish it until the weekend.

*digs out book to look up pages 205 and 305*

Ah. I think I considered them more blush-inducing than jaw-dropping. That is, if I'm thinking of the same point you're thinking of. ;)

I liked the illustrations, especially the one on page 150. I liked how the conversations in the original were adapted for the parody, like when Lady Catherine was talking about ninjas instead of nannies.

The "blush" parts were where my jaw dropped, knowing that zombies or not, Elizabeth and Darcy would never broach upon those subjects! ;) I did like the phrase "his most English parts!"

Overall I liked the book. I wished the new parts had been highlighted. I basically have P&P memorized and didn't want to waste my time wallowing through those parts. I was hoping for more plot meddling. *Spoilers* I cheered when Lizzie cut Lydia's head off, but then it turned out she just imagined it. In the end the only major characters effected by the zombies were Charlotte and Mr. Collins and the only thing that altered was how Lady Catherine found out about Jane's engagement. */Spoilers*

I liked the subject choices for the illustrations, but they felt off to me. The wardrobes didn't always seem right and I think the perspectives were sometimes off. Maybe it is because I am not a big gore fan. I didn't mind reading about it here, but I didn't want to see it.

#3 Donna:
We look forward to you finishing reading it! :)

Regarding parts that may make you blush, I was just in no way expecting those things to be in the book. I felt exactly as compski. It was as un-Pride & Prejudice-ish as it could get.

The illustrations were really something. My first thought was of course how gruesome they seemed yet there was also no denying of the illustrator's talent. (Such an unfortunate subject to take upon it!) I soon thought of those illustrations we see in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, though not in a way of having anything gross in them.

I'm not quite sure how many times I've read P&P and have lost count. It's one of my favorites. I had no idea how much of it that I knew word for word until reading P&P&Z, however. I had a great like and dislike for how much of it was the same as the original. A part of me wished I could go through the old stuff quicker to get to what was new. I was slow reading this book but was able to get excited about it whenever I picked it up again to read more of it.

PLOT SPOILERS from this point on in this post.

I do feel awful for how excited I got as I read that Lizzie cut Lydia's head off. There was that embarrassing immediate disappointment following us learning that it didn't really happen. I was waiting for some sort of significant change which I didn't really see much of.

What did you guys make of Mr. Collin's suicide? I wasn't sure I understood it well enough. Was it simply because Charlotte was his wife that he killed himself? Do you think he was unaware of what Lady Lucas knew and how she was delaying the process of Charlotte turning into a zombie?

The blushing parts were the only spots that I really felt didn't fit with the book. They weren't good for the atmosphere.

SPOILERS:

I was kind of glad that Lydia's head didn't really get cut off. I don't know how the story would have progressed without the annoying Lydia.

With Mr Collins's suicide, I thought it just that he had loved Charlotte more than anybody had thought.

I loved the fight scene between Lady Catherine and Elizabeth, when Lady Catherine was trying to get her to never accept Mr Darcy.

SPOILERS

That crossed my mind about Lydia as well. Where would the book be without that horrible letter while Elizabeth is away at Pemberly? Speaking of, I think her time at Pemberly with her aunt and uncle is one of my favorite parts in the original book. I'm always excited to be at that part of the book when I reach it.

Perhaps that is it about Mr. Collins. It may show us Grahame-Smith's perspective on it. We know that Charlotte, in either the original or this version of P&P, doesn't marry for love. It kind of gives a happier ending for her despite the sad note of her becoming an unmentionable. It's like there is a small story right there of their own love versus of the ones P&P more so focuses on. There is the tragedy of Mr. Collin's having to put her to her final death before putting his own life to an end.

Oh, that fight scene was something! I really enjoyed reading that part.

Okay.... I just started the book so I'm willfully ignoring all the previous posts at this point, but did everyone see the LT blog post about the next book Quirk Classics is doing? Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters! Let the hilarity continue!

I didn't hear about that one, but I heard something about Abraham Lincoln and zombies.

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters? My goodness, I wonder if it will be set on boats! ;)

One would think Persuasion would lend itself better to sea monsters with the trip to Lyme and Captain Wentworth and all the other navy men, but then you wouldn't get the alliteration.

I just finished P&P&Z. I think it was very clever to reinvent the story while sticking with the original text, but part of me felt as though the novelty of it wore off after the first hundred pages or so. It's been a while since I read P&P so I think after the first third of the book I was reading it more just to enjoy the story than to be entertained by the zombies. But I was still really amused by the whole thing. My review is here if anyone's interested. :)

Okay, so I wrote a really long post, and then I realized it was a pretty good review, so I copied it and headed off to post it in my reviews without hitting submit here! Instead of saying it all again, here. It's a bit more spoilery than usual for me, but oh well.

#13: It took me 10 pages to be tired of the premise.

I decided to take the following paragraph out of my review because it's a bit spoilery and makes more sense here:

I was also happy when Lydia got her head chopped off and sad when it was just a fantasy, though I figured it would be because Lydia is the catalyst for the happy ending. As for the Collins', I hate to say it, but I think it far more likely that Charlotte bit him at some point and he killed himself rather than turn.

*not reading, not reading*

Spoiler:
Had to jot down this thought as I am reading this book:

I about rejoiced when I read that Eliza chopped off Lydia's head. I had to read it twice. Then read the next sentence and all hope was shot down. Oh well. Hoping to finish in the next 2 days. I can't put it down now. I'm at the part were Lydia is getting ready to set off on her journey.