MB Recommends: ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’

If you’ve been cursing the weather because it’s made going out a horror, we have the perfect thing to make you feel happier about your lot: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. In this new version of the classic book, Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters are also forced to stay indoors frequently but in their case, it’s because zombies are roaming the English countryside.

Not that Lizzy and gang simper and scream when faced by the undead. The Bennet sisters, particularly Jane and Lizzy, are martial arts experts who have seen and survived the 36 chambers of Shaolin (and not on HBO but as part of their training under a Master Liu). So zombies, beware. Readers, also beware because while zombies make their victims’ guts spill, you might do the same while reading the novel because you’re laughing so hard.

This is an England that would have probably made Austen reach for smelling salts, but we love it. Women walk around balanced on their fingers. The posh have dojos to practice in and ninjas to guard them. Lizzy and Mr. Darcy’s love story blooms while brain-slurping zombies intermittently appear out of nowhere. The delights of this novel are many and this little exchange between Mr. Darcy and Lizzy is ranked very high: “She remembered the lead ammunition in her pocket and offered it to him. ‘Your balls, Mr. Darcy?’ … ‘They belong to you, Miss Bennet.’”

And yes, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has been turned into a film (see trailer above).

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, Quirk Classics, Rs 540. Available at Landmark and all major bookstores.