It is a truth universally acknowledged...

[stubbleupdate]

...that Pride and Prejudice is one of the more adapted, aped and otherwise adopted texts in our great cultural library. I mean, there's Lost in Austen, Bridget Jones' Diary, The BBC Adaptation (bought it in Zavvi's firesale. Might watch it sometime), there's Bride and Prejudice, there's I Love You Because, there's Armstrong and Miller's take on it, etc etc.

Of course, the fact that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a novel adaptation with the insertion of a Zombie subplot should be as Bill as the hills, but it was also made into a graphic novel.
These pages are all out of sequence and not connected in any narrative. Just things that I snagged from a USA Today article.





Reading it is... slow progress. But then, I always find that reading Austen is like pushing a really full shopping trolley - it's an almighty push to get started, but once you do build up momentum it's difficult to stop.

Has anybody else picked it up?

Comments

[starwolf_oakley]

I liked "Bride and Prejudice." It was my second exposure to Bollywood, after "Monsoon Wedding."

[stig]

Really? I thought it was a horrible slog of a film. Lacked the emotional depth of the original book and added that dull 'Americans good, Britishers bad' trope.

Besides, I thought it was made by Miramax, merely in a Bollywood style?

[newnumber6]

I read the novel version and was sadly disappointed.

Same criticism I have of Austen's work normally: needs more zombies.

More seriously, I was disappointed at the "we've also all been trained in martial arts and swordsmanship" crutch, which turned the story very much into "Pride and Prejudice, except every so often a zombie attack strikes out of nowhere and they kick ass and go right back to the story."

To use a comics reference, I would have far, far preferred a "What If" approach as opposed to an Elseworlds. In Elseworlds (generally speaking, there are exceptions for both types), they make some change to the setting, but generally the same set ups and stories get told. Batman in the 1900s is still Batman, has a Catwoman, etc. In "What If", they take some specific change and then everything develops from that point.

So what PaPaZ was the Elseworlds approach. You could google the plot of the original PaPaZ and you'd know pretty well exactly how the story would go, with the only surprises being how they insert the zombies and ninja fights. But what I wanted from PaPaZ was for the zombie apocalypse to start during the plot, maybe even derail the plot completely, have the characters not know how to cope right off the bat, and certain aspects of the original story coming back (maybe compressed in time, instead of taking place over months or years they take place over a single night where the zombies are out in force, maybe since they're being forced to hole up together and so they can't avoid each other) but with nothing being guaranteed. I guess most of all I wanted the zombies to have a POINT to the story, not just being a gimmicky afterthought.

I imagine the graphic novel adaptation would be somewhat more tolerable but I can't see myself picking it up.

[squirle]

I'm kinda over zombies. Wake me up when they're doing the sequel, "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters"

[stubbleupdate]

To me, it's a good idea in small doses.

The line about It was Mrs Bennet's job to find a good marriage for her daughter.s It was Mr Bennet's job to keep them alive is funny.

As a joke stretched over a whole novel it's very, very thin, especially when the subplot is just shoehorned in awkwardly.

[greenmask]

Elizabeth Bennet in that kind of eye make-up gives me the lulz, I gotta say. Interesting art otherwise, though I feel it need colours or at least more involved greyscale.

Never cared for Pride & Prejudice, personally, but it's interesting to see how people adapt it.

[his_spiffynesss]

Wondering how long till the guys who do the Army of Darkness comics jump in on this trend and we get Pride and Prejudice and BOOMSTICKS

[sevarem]

Going against the tide here, but I kinda loved the hell out of PaPaZ. Yeah, it was definitely stretched thin at points and it really did need more zombies, but it still cracked me up.

I think I'll give the graphic novel a pass though. Half of what I liked about PaPaZ was the snarky social commentary the author wove into the book, a lot of which would likely get left out of a comic adaptation.

[minervasolo.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, it almost became a wall banger when chipmunks and a raccoon made an appearance. I was already getting annoyed at the jerks in quality between Austen and the zombie author (can't remember the name, can't be arsed to look it up), but errors like that just made the gimmick a little too transparent. There were nice ideas, like Charlotte's slow change, but there was very little continuity or consistency in the added parts, and very few attempts to even vaguely integrate them into the original plot.

(sorry, rant. You have no idea how much those chipmunks pissed me off. Well, you probably do now.)

I haven't read it, but Jane and the Damned by Janet Mullany sounds like the kind of thing you wanted from PaPaZ.

[khamelea]

And here I thought Bridget Jones' Diary was Pride and Prejudice with zombies.

[kaete]

That art is quite pretty but terrible for a black and white comic. It would work much better colored. Makes me wonder if they artist knew it was going to be black and white when he/she was working on the lineart.

[mad]

I bought the novel and kinda got bored a few chapters in, TBH.

Also, the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice is the best.

[unicornicopia]

The novel cracked me up too. There are a couple of really hilarious moments that really had me laughing.

[unicornicopia]

Also, the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice is the best.

Motto.

[alas]

Yeah, totally looks like it was inked for colour, and then they just threw some half-assed toning over it :( .

[newnumber6]

I'm guessing it's some sort of "chipmunks and raccoons don't exist in England" issue? Being a North American I never even noticed, just one of those things I don't think about, but I can see how that would rankle once you ARE aware of it.

And Charlotte's change was about the only thing I found interesting about the book.

[darklorelei]

Yeah, I never finished the novel.

[icon_uk]

Yeah, I think that's what's put me off reading it too. I'm not a huge fan of Jane Austen at the best of times, but throwing zombies into the mix was more of a Poochie moment than anything else.

[icon_uk]

It's the like Disney's Winnie the Pooh, which throws in a beaver, a porcupine, a possum, a gopher and a turtle as natural fauna when Britain doesn't have any of them (Tigger, Kanga and Roo, are at least explained in the books as being outsiders)

[icon_uk]

Nah, that just makes you long for a zombie attack to put you out of your misery.

[bruinsfan]

I'm willing to cut them a bit of slack, however, given that the animals in question are sentient, able to speak, and wear clothes. Clearly zoological verisimilitude was not high on the list of priorities...

[icon_uk]

True enough, but AA Milne didn't even create them, so why did Disney add the wrong continents animals in?

[clemon]

I actually read the comic. As an fan of the original works, I sort of liked it. The art was generally ok with the slight effect of all the girls having the same face.

Ho hum.

[sandoz_iscariot]

More seriously, I was disappointed at the "we've also all been trained in martial arts and swordsmanship" crutch, which turned the story very much into "Pride and Prejudice, except every so often a zombie attack strikes out of nowhere and they kick ass and go right back to the story."

The "also, they're ninjas" subplot was the worst part of the book--so jarring and racist and unnecessary.

[hybridhelen]

I still own the BBC adap with Jennifer Ehle (and that guy...what was his name...oh yeah! Colin Firth XD) on VHS, and I will never ever part with it, I love it so. I also love the original novel - I often dip in to it for a few pages...and my oldest copy falls open naturally two pages into Chapter 16, when they go for a walk and actually talk to each other properly.

With all this in mind, I am at a loss to explain why, although I picked up P&P&Zombies (novel) as soon as it came out, I still haven't read the thing yet!

Maybe I'm just worried that it won't work as well as Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair....?