Hey, kids! Welcome back to the Book Report.

I want to talk about about a book that, when it was first published, took the literary world by storm but I couldn’t stand reading when I was forced to get through it in high school. Now that it has been updated and revised, however, it’s an absolute joy to get through.
The book I’m talking about is Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen.

First published in 1813, the book was an immediate success. Jane Austen called the work “her own darling child” and spoke of its protagonist, Elizabeth Bennett, “as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print.” History has, more or less, agreed with her. In 2003, the BBC conducted one of its largest surveys to determine “The UK’s Best Loved Book”, and it placed second behind The Lord of the Rings.
(Side note: Have you noticed how The Lord of the Rings consistently gets a mention in these Book Reports? It’s because it really is that good of a book, and you should go read it if you haven’t yet)
As a love story it works fine, but I am inclined to agree with Charlotte Bronte when she calls the novel “…a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses…Miss Austen is only shrewd and observant.” (written Jan 12, 1848 to Fraser’s magazine, in response to their review of Austen’s book)
It is a good criticism. Jane Austen wrote clever characters doing clever things in clever situations, and surrounded those clever people with idiots so they might appear more clever. The trouble is that just because it is clever doesn’t automatically make it any good. Even the main conflict of the story, the squaring off of Darcy’s pride and prejudice against Elizabeth’s (get it?), is more a battle of wits than anything and doesn’t go any deeper than simple miscommunication.
What this story really needs is a conflict of apocalyptic proportions.

In 2009, Jane Austen’s novel got a much needed face-lift (so to speak), when Seth Grahame-Smith updated her “classic Regency romance” to include “Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem” with the newly revised Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. And so the story got the conflict of apocalyptic proportions it so desperately required.
The story essentially remains unchanged (in fact, Mrs. Bennett remains almost completely unchanged), the only difference now is that when the story is about to get unbearably boring, a zombie attack (called “unmentionables” in the story) comes around to liven things up.

One thing I really appreciated about the book is that it helps clarify the satire in Austen’s original text. Hiding just beneath the love story is subtle humor poking fun at the superficial lives of the landed gentry. The trouble is, it can be difficult to tell exactly how superficial they really are when the main conflicts of the story scratch barely beneath surface-level problems. Watching the rich, land-owning elite of the early 19th century resolutely hang onto their “manners” in the face of global apocalypse in the updated version brings out the satire to the point of hilarity.
It doesn’t hurt that the book has kung-fu in it now, too.

For those who prefer their literature in video format, there’s good news for you, too. Richard Kelly (the writer and director of Donnie Darko) and Natalie Portman (do I really need to list any credits?) are set to produce the film version of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies with Portman to star as the historically popular heroine. The project is still under development, but I expect you’ll hear more from Sgt. Angle as things progress on this front.

That’s all for this week!

Still paddlin’ the old knew…
_-Akatzen-_

Hey kids, it’s Akatzen with another Book Report for you!

Today I want to talk about a particular device authors use when they wish to hide or mask their identity for any of a variety of reasons: the pseudonym.

Pseudonym: n, SU-doh-nim. A false name. (Derived from the Greek, pseudonymon)

Sometimes an author uses a pseudonym to separate their personal life from their work. Sometimes, a pseudonym is created because more than one author worked on the book, such as the detective novelist Ellery Queen, actually authored by two cousins: Daniel Nathan and Manford Lepofsky. Their work covered 42 years of detective writing, heavily influencing the genre. The cousins also wrote four novels about detective Drury Lane using the pseudonym Barnaby Ross.
A group of 20th Century mathematicians created the pseudonym Nicolas Bourbaki to publish their work as a collective.

Two of the most famous pseudonyms, or pen names, are Mark Twain and Lewis Carroll (covering for the identities of Samuel Clemens and mathematician Charles Dodgson, respectively)
Charlotte Bronte originally published Jane Eyre (and also Shirley) under the pseudonym Currer Belle. Her sister Emily originally published Wuthering Heights under the name of Ellis Belle. Many of their characters were inspired by neighbors, and so they published under the pseudonyms to avoid embarrassing them.

One popular French author, Romain Gary, started publishing books under the name Emile Ajar to see if people liked his books because they were good or because he was popular. Turns out they liked his books no matter who was writing them.

Who else uses pseudonyms?
Stephen King published his early non-horror novels as Richard Bachman because he wasn’t sure readers would accept his break from genre.
Popular storyteller O. Henry was a pseudonym used by William Sydney Porter.
Jane Austen published Sense and Sensibility using “A Lady” as the author.
Eric Arthur Blair is more recognizable as George Orwell.
Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum published as Ayn Rand.
Fantasy author Robert Jordan was the pen name of James Oliver Rigney, Jr. He also wrote under the names Reagan O’Neal and Jackson O’Reilly.
And, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, when Dave Eggers writes with his brother Christopher, they use the names Dr. and Mr. Doris Haggis-On-Whey

And, I’m sure you’ve noticed one or two of the writers on Semantink use pseudonyms.

Pseudonymitry is a time-honored practice, and while a reader may sometimes wonder, “who are you, really?” most often the mystery is part of the appeal.