I’ve never read the works of Jane Austen, and having recently finished Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, it can be argued that I still haven’t. Her books were never assigned reading in any English classes I took, which is probably just as well. During grade school, I disdained anything that was assigned to be read. I liked (and like) reading for pleasure, but despised being told what to read. By treating certain authors in hagiographic fashion, while ridiculing the works of others, English teachers unintentionally alienated me from a large body of literature. I didn’t have any reason to read the works of Austen, Shakespeare, or others on my own, because I held my literary tastes to be different from those of my teachers. However, in the decades that have passed since the torture of high school, my acceptance of literary works has grown broader, and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has given me the opportunity to read Austen, after a fashion.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a gimmick to make money from a piece of public-domain literature. Updated with the presence of zombies (using plenty of faux Regency-era euphemisms), it becomes Pride and Prejudice meets Shaun of the Dead, and is meant to appeal to people who might otherwise forgo Austen’s works. In this cheeky mashup, the sisters Bennet, having been trained at the Shaolin monastery, are charged by His Majesty with defending Hertfordshire from the menace of “unmentionables.” Yet the story isn’t too far removed from the film Bride and Prejudice, so I assume the book isn’t a total butchery of the original work. One of the effects of reading this book is that I’ll probably read the original Pride and Prejudice in the next few months, to see how the two compare. I wouldn’t be surprised if sales of Austen’s books rise in correlation to the popularity of the updated version.

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