As an aside (oh yes, it is perfectly acceptable to begin a post with an aside), I would like to draw your attention to the right of this blog, where my progress bar for Goodland, Phase: Edit, has reached its goal. My Manager/writing buddy/fearless leader is now in possession of it, and I await her most excellent notes.
Moving on. Friday was my birthday, and my most astute husband picked up the hints I'd been meticulously dropping for weeks and bought me what I really wanted: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies! So delightful. I am a Jane Austen purist, at heart. I do not like people trifling with Dame Jane (okay, maybe she's not a Dame per say, but in my imagination she was actually knighted - she would have preferred that). I don't enjoy the idea of having her beautifully crafted works dumbed down into two hour movies that do no justice to her brilliant characters or her subtle commentary on class. There are but two exceptions to this, the BBC A&E miniseries Pride and Prejudice, starring Colin Firth (the real Mr. Darcy), and Emma Thompson's most excellent Sense and Sensibility, which represents the very best of Jane and Thompson both. I'm not one for The Jane Austen Book Club, or Becoming Jane - A whole movie about a woman we know very little about, and who led what can only be assumed to be a very secluded and lonely life - I think not. Me thinks they had to make up a lot of stuff. That being said, I couldn't be more excited to read this Zombie-laden version of Austen's classic work. I think it displays the very best of classic literature tampering, at once ridiculous and hilarious, utterly stupid and yet completely genius. Were Austen alive today, I think she would be extremely diverted.
However...
I have come across one tiny, minute point of discontent with this, my soon to be most favoritest book ever. That is, the portrait Quirk Classics (or whoever it is who owns them) chose for the cover. We are to suppose it to be Elizabeth Bennet, the heroine of this tale, be it with or without zombies. She is displayed with deliciously gory detail, which I immediately ascertained to be nothing short of spectacular, and had I not been already reading Emma, I would have abandoned my current book and begun reading this one right away. But I am of the opinion that one Austen should never be slighted for the other, so I resolved to finish Emma before beginning P&P&Z! Taking up my copy of Emma, I saw something familiar. I went back to my new book and discovered the truth. Holding them side by side, it was revealed that the portrait of the zombified Elizabeth Bennet was indeed not Elizabeth Bennet, but her complete character opposite in almost every way, Emma Woodhouse! Who has no relation to that work at all. So now what? Is it Emma, or Lizzy? Penguin Classics seems to think it Emma, while this Quirk Classics (whoever they are) seem to disagree. I, being the tie breaker, have to side with Penguin Classics, who claimed the portrait first, and therefore are in the right. So Quirk Classics has mistakenly, or blatantly, chosen Emma Woodhouse for their zombified tale where Elizabeth Bennet should have been present. This is my sole complaint. And it is but a trifling one.
Okay, tell me you see it.
2 comments:
I do believe you are correct in your complaint. Perhaps this plays into the story? Of course, I'd always imagined Emma a little more coquettish than what's on the cover of the Penguin version; that being said, I'd always imagined Lizzie to be a bit more, well, boringly dressed than the portrait as well. Maybe the portrait is neither Emma nor Lizzie but some extra who shows up in passing in both novels, named or not, and who becomes a zombie in P&P&Z! I bet that's it.
Also, have you seen The Jane Austen Book Club yet? I know I've recommended it to you. After all, it's not a reimagining of Austen's work; it's about a group of people enjoying, discussing, analyzing, and learning from her work! Plus it has Hugh Dancy! HUGH DANCY!
Perhaps we need to schedule a Jane Austen movie night in which we watch both The Jane Austen Book Club and Sense & Sensibility. And maybe the lake scene from the Beeb's P&P. Yes. Definitely that. What say you? Perhaps as a NaNo kick-off party or something?
didn't all women look the same back then?
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