After Pride & Prejudice & Zombies hit the shelves in April 2009, it grew to be a bestselling parody novel. “Co-written” by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, it was soon purchased by a motion picture studio to be made into a blockbuster film, all the while garnering praise and a loyal fan base. With the upcoming comic book adaptation, it was not hard to imagine this book as a beginning of a successful franchise. Not even a year later, another Jane Austen title is mocked, this time in Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.
Tentacled Mayhem
Written by Ben H. Winters, this reworking of Austen’s Sense and Sensibility tells the story of two sisters, the sensible Elinor and the romantically inclined Marianne Dashwood. They live in a very different Regency-era England, where sea creatures have violently turned on mankind and no one is safe. The story’s beginning is similar to Austen’s, but quickly embraces many stereotypical sea monster stories.
The humor of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is not a very subtle one. The novel constantly emphasizes the “ultraviolent tentacle mayhem” that is sprinkled throughout. The majority of laughs come from the ridiculous situations the characters are thrown in, as well as lowering the Jane Austen narrative down to a more pulpy, faster read. The text is accompanied by humorous, somewhat graphic drawings that add to the novel’s humor. The reaction to this book cannot be generalized by any means, simply because it depends on the person, and if he or she is into this sort of literature.
How Austen-like Is It?
There is a strange paradox concerning this book in comparison to another bestselling paranormal version of Jane Austen, Mr. Darcy, Vampyre. In Darcy, the language and sentence structures are miles away from Regency England time period, and sound as if written by a young adult fiction author. On the other hand, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is much closer to the language of the time, although it takes itself much less seriously than Amanda Grange did with Mr. Darcy, Vampyre. In fact, it is astonishing how subtly Austen's ideas are integrated into this ridiculous story.
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters will surely find its audience, even if it means riding on the popularity of its predecessor Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. But successful or not, more Austen’s characters will surely find its way into paranormal pulp fiction and over-the-top humor. What’s next, Mansfield Dark?
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