Bennets and Bogeymen: My Valentine’s Day Recommended Read
It’s another one of those “Why didn’t I think of this?” moments, and this one goes out to all of our “Masterpiece Classic” fans here at WETA/PBS. Every woman I know loves Jane 
Austen. Every man I know loves zombies. Seth Grahame-Smith evidently understands this at a deep level, since he has become Jane Austen’s co-author on the stunning new novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
Have you ever seen a cover that makes you want to run out and buy the book like this one does? How could you resists the Regency maiden’s visage scraped down to the bone at jawline? This is intrigue that goes way beyond the lucite platform heels and Sharpie eyebrows of celebrity sites; this is the kind of narrative that cannot be created by a single author.
In other words, it takes a mashup to create the silliest literary juxtaposition ever — and I can’t wait to read it! The author credits? “JANE AUSTEN is the author of Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and other masterpieces of English literature. SETH GRAHAME-SMITH is the author of How to Survive a Horror Movie and The Big Book of Porn. He lives in Los Angeles.” (With Seth’s credits, he might want to take a look at my husband’s latest brainstorm…)
Tell me, would you read a novel that is billed as “The Classic Regency Romance, Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem?” All I can think of is what will come next: War and Peace and Fava Beans with Chianti? The Canterbury Tales Serial-Killer Pilgrims? Wuthering Heights of Psychotic Madness?
Oh, wait; that last one is a tautology.
Although I’m recommending this as the most romantic book possible for both sexes, it is sadly not available for purchase until May 13, from Quirk Books. Three months to wait!
But not for everyone: I’m going to wheedle a copy for myself from Quirk today, and I’ll award that copy (lightly pre-owned!) to the commenter who leaves me the most creative literary mashup in these comments. Heck, if I get a lot of creative entries, I’ll find a way to get more copies of this soon-to-be-masterpiece. Because I love you all on this Valentine’s Day weekend.
on February 13th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Just in time for Mother’s Day (May 10). How touching! As a Jane-ite and unfan of the undead, I find the book’s concept repulsive.
However, your mashup is a great idea, and brings to mind such classic flix as “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man” and “Santa Claus vs the Martians” (which latter I saw in a theater in my tender youth). So here goes…
THE QUICK & THE UNDEAD
HEIDI & THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE
NIGHT OF THE UNDEAD LITTLE WOMEN
THE BRIDGE TROLLS OF MADISON COUNTY
THE THORN BIRD ZOMBIES
SENSE & SUCCUBI
GONE WITH THE WEREWOLF
LA TRAVIATA GOES TO ZOMBIE ISLAND
CAMILLE & THE BLOODSUCKERS
Wow, I never knew this could be so much fun!
on February 13th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Bella, “Night of the Undead Little Women” made me guffaw…the thought of Marmee sending off her little zombettes with darned gloves in their claws…
on February 13th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
I can’t decide whether the main humor of the book is in the concept, or if the book itself will be hilarious, but *idea* of the book cracks me up.
How about Tess of the D’Urbervamps?
Poor Tess Durbeyfield discovers that her family is almost the last remant of a once noble family. She goes to claim kin, but to her horror, she learns that her family’s old name has been taken by a family of vampires. Late one night the devilish Alec D’Urbervamp gets Tess alone on a country road and bites her, and then forces* her to drink his own blood and become part of his clan. Tess’s purity causes her to feel sorrow over her new state, and so she leaves Alec, and soon meets and falls in love with Angel, the son of a clergyman. How will he react when he learns her dark secret?
*Of course, to this day, scholars have disputed whether Tess was a willing victim.
Some other possibilities:
I Capture the Haunted Castle
The Lord of the Zombies trilogy: The Fellowship of the Zombies, The Two Brains, and The Return of the Voodoo Master
The Undead Woman in White
on February 14th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
To Kill a Mocking Bird of Paradise
on February 14th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
How about “Sense and Insenibility–Zombies on the Moor”, or “Northfanger Abbey: Bite Me”?
on February 17th, 2009 at 1:28 am
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Werewolf
The Wonderful Gizzards of Oz
The Bloody, Disembodied Hand of Darkness
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead
Bleak, Bleak House
Doctor Zhivago’s Monster
Charlotte’s Web of Darkness
The Hollowed Out and Sucked Dry Men
Or moving beyong the realm of horror, how about some romance?
Crime and Punishment: Together Again
To Kiss a Mockingbird
One Day in the Arms of Ivan Denisovich
Catch Me in the Rye
A Good Man (and Pair of Heels) is Hard to Find
A New York Designer in King Arthur’s Court
Or mystery/thriller?
The Scarlet Letter-Opener
Who Murdered Virginia Woolf?
The Importance of Finding Ernest
Fantasy?
The Old Man and the Sea Nymph
Griffin on a Hot Tin Roof
Self-help?
Atlas Shrugged It Off (And You Can Too!)
History of Children’s Toys?
The Play-doh of the Western World
Okay, I must stop now or they’ll revoke my English degree.
on February 17th, 2009 at 2:30 am
Most of the reader-submitted stuff is far more clever than “P&P and Zombies”–maybe we should all be writing books?
Princess Bride of Frankenstein
The Mummy of Withering Heights
Jason, the Man in the Iron Hockey Mask
The Adams Family Chronicles
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Maniac
The Heart is a Lonely Vampire Hunter
Tender is the Nightmare on Elm Street
Nostromo vs. Nosferatu
Darkness From Dawn ‘Til Dusk and at Noon
I Spit on Your Kindle
on February 18th, 2009 at 12:18 am
I would definitely pick up I Spit on Your Kindle if I saw it in a bookstore.
on February 18th, 2009 at 8:14 am
And I’d…download it on my Kindle…Well, OK, it would depend on the cover/design. I might buy it in bound form!
I think “The Heart Is a Lonely Vampire Hunter” is my favorite so far of all the “submissions,” although “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead” is a contender, too.
on June 3rd, 2009 at 4:13 am
Ambien….
Ambien with alcohol. Ambien. Generic ambien. Ambien next day delivery where us. Discount ambien. Drugs detected on drug test ambien….
on August 18th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
[...] List. Love it or hate it, Grahame-Smith’s literary mashup is…COMING TO GET YOU. (See my post about making up litmash titles. Some of these are hilarious!) Anyirreverentway, lots and lots of people got excited about this [...]