Many know Pride & Prejudice is my all-time favorite book. Between the book (which I have read and reread) and the movie (which I have rewatched many times) I can recite most of the lines uttered by the characters by heart.
I have never read a redo of Pride & Prejudice because I didn't want a book that means so much to me to be tainted or destroyed by another author who doesn't have the same amount of love and respect for this novel as I do.
It was with great trepidation I picked up this audio book at the library. In the introduction the author explains how he uses Jane Austen's original manuscript and just changes words, paragraphs, or basic themes in the book but still leaves large portions of the pages untouched. That statement excited me. I could still have my novel much like it has always been! So I popped it into my car stereo.
The book starts familiarily. In fact, I recite lines from it while driving down the highway,and soon it changes. At first I frown. That's not how it goes I protest. Then I begin to laugh because the new word- zombie- seems so out of place in the halls of Longbourn, the Bennet family home.
At times gruesome with talk of decaying corpses, decapitated heads, and pus filled sores and other times hysterically funny- "What? No ninja?" Lady Catherine DeBourgh exclaims when finding the Bennet sisters were brought up without one, I thoroughly enjoyed this audio book from start to finish.
The voice of Katherine Kellgren is perfect for the voices of the Bennet sisters as I have always imagined them to be: Jane's shy and gentle, Elizabeth's strong and determined, Lydia's silly and immature, and Kitty's more serious.
Read this book knowing it will not be the same book you have come to love through the years but accepting that sometimes I little bit of change is okay.
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Zombies? I just can't see it in Pride and Prejudice. I have the book in my HS Media Center. I'll have to give it a try. (Visiting because of the Comment Challenge 2010)
ReplyDeleteI keep seeing this book everywhere, so I guess I need to get it and read. I liked your comments, which makes me want it all the more. Thanks
ReplyDeleteI'd been excited to read this one, but actually I found that I was a little disappointed by it. I thought the writing was great and everything was integrated together really well. But in the end I felt like I wanted MORE ZOMBIES. WAY MORE ZOMBIES. And I have to say, the cover kind of creeped me out. Wondering now if it would have been different to have heard it read than to read it myself, madly searching each page for a change?
ReplyDeletemadelynruth,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the lack of zombies at the end of the story. I felt kind of let down by that as well. On the other hand, I'm glad they stayed true to the love story.
I bought this one after Christmas. I'm waiting for the perfect zombie mood to read it.
ReplyDelete