Book #127: Tex

Book #127: Tex by S.E. Hinton

October 30, 2014

This is the book I've been reading at work. I've heard it said that The Outsiders, by far Hinton's most famous work, is the only one worth reading. But I had a student in the past who liked that so much when we read it in class that he went on to read some other of Hinton's works, and he enjoyed those, too. And I think that those who say The Outsiders is her very best book to be mistaken; Tex, for one, is just an enjoyable. 

Tex, or Texas, is similar to Ponyboy in some ways. About the same age, mostly cared for by a seemingly overbearing older brother, a bit of a troublemaker but with some depth to redeem him. Tex is a great character.

Some of the themes of this book are similar to The Outsiders as well, but there are many differences as well. In rural Oklahoma, just outside of Tulsa, there's not so much the distinctions in social class or the cliquiness of the urban-set text. This is more of a family drama than a social commentary, so I could see why The Outsiders has perhaps more literary merit. It doesn't make Tex's story any less compelling, though.

Tex loves his horse Negrito, so he is devastated when his brother Mason sells the horse, and his own. Why would he do this? Because he and Tex have been left alone as widower Pop has been traveling the rodeo circuit. I didn't get much of a feel for Pop; on the one hand, he's rather thoughtless, but he's not a mean drunk, plus he raised a child who wasn't his own. But Mason, a senior who is a basketball star, is a fascinating character. Serious-minded, he's desperate to get out of their small rural community, but he also feels that he's the only one who can care for Tex. After their big fight, during which Mason beats the shit out of his little brother, he feels horrible. He's obviously a young man with a lot of complex emotions, and Tex crossed him at the wrong time. It's clear that Tex loves and respects his brother, and he comes to understand him more by the end of the book, and quickly forgives him selling his beloved horse and kicking his ass.

Tex considers a lot about who is meant to stay in their little world, and who is meant to go. A fortune teller at the state fair puts this in his head. He is told that he will stay. This in itself only seems to bother him a little bit, but he considers the fate of others in his life. His girlfriend Jamie is told that she will go. He knows that Mason is meant to go, too. An old friend, Lem, was meant to stay. But he'd gotten his girlfriend pregnant, and in the 1970s in Oklahoma, there was only one respectable thing to do. He's in Tulsa since their families aren't supportive, and Tex feels sorry for him. Lem isn't happy; he should have stayed.

Tex goes through some heavy stuff in this book: all that family drama (and then some!); his first girlfriend, who happens to be his best friend's younger sister,  with a disapproving father to boot. I find it bizarre that the Collins kids call their parents by their first names, and yet their father is so strict. They only ever address him as "sir"; maybe they do it behind their backs, a cathartic and subversive gesture of disrespect. I don't know if it was explained. The Collins kids were an interesting influence on both Mason and Tex, and I would have wanted to read more about them. 

Besides all the family issues and girl trouble, Tex is looking into the future as he anticipates tenth grade, the official first year of high school in his community. He at least lived somewhere populated enough to have two separate buildings for junior high and high school. My first teaching job was at a school with all grades in one building. Very small western Iowa town, very rural, but I did imagine some similarities between what Tex and Johnny and their crew got up to (jumping motor bikes, riding around in trucks and meeting at a car wash or something on a Saturday night, occasionally smoking weed or drinking) with what my former students might have been up to themselves. I'm not going to pretend that underage drinking is just horrible, because it happens. However, Tex's observation that he'd rather ride with a drunk driver than an overly cautious stoned one was disturbing. If that was normal in his world, I imagine that kids dying in drunk driving accidents was all too common. Kind of like babies having babies, as Tex's mother must've only been about seventeen when she had Mason. 

What's great about Tex as a narrator is how frank he is. He's very honest, almost unflinchingly so, and isn't really afraid of much. But he admits when he is afraid. I'd have a hard time believing that everybody wouldn't love Tex (except maybe his teachers...I love the English teacher who gets him excited to read books about horses). He doesn't mean anybody any harm, and the antics he gets into are mostly harmless. Okay, he did steal a car once, a couple of years before the story starts, but it sounded like he took a careless neighbor's wheels for a brief joyride and got caught putting it back. Mason's concerns for his brother are understandable, but I think Tex will be all right. 

I plan to recommend this book to my students. I think that while The Outsiders has made its way into a typical American language arts curriculum, Hinton has kind of been ignored as an outstanding young adult author. Her works are accessible and still have appeal for adolescent male readers. Conveniently enough, this happens to be the exact demographic that I work with. 

Book #126: Candy

Book #126: Candy: A Century of Panic and Pleasure by Samira Kawash

October 29, 2014

This random library pick jumped out at me because of its cover: candies of all colors of the rainbow, like wax bottles and citrus fruit-shaped gummies, arranged around the colorful title. Candy. Kawash is right when she observes that almost everyone likes candy. At work, we placate or reward the kids with candy; a coworker keeps the school staff's candy jar filled with fun-sized chocolates. I don't eat as much of it as I used to, but I do love those mini Twix bars. I also got myself a bag of my favorite candy, cherry sours, from a local candy shop this past weekend. I work out five or six days a week and I've dropped 20 pounds in the last few months, so I don't stress about a little candy.

It took me a little while to get into this book, but overall I found it fascinating, and in line with my views on food. Kawash must have done a lot of research (the references section is a big chunk of the book itself), as she not only discusses the history of mass-produced candy in the U.S. and changing attitudes toward candy, but also the history of food processing, and how this is a huge reflection on the changes in our culture in the last century. We are, after all, what we eat.

Essentially, the candy industry, and mass produced foods in general, have a history of manipulating the public through advertisement, appealing to whatever the concerns of the day are. Mainly, this involved (and still involves) promoting certain products as "healthy" that clearly aren't. The promotion of candy as "good food" was found to be bogus, and the author points out that candy has pretty much dropped that charade...while other products (cereals, energy drinks, gummy snacks, frozen meal products) have picked it up. Not that it's anything new, or unique to the candy industry: Luckystrike cigarettes did it, and other early processed foods as well, claiming health benefits that weren't true. Today, claims can be made for processed foods because of chemical manipulation, and while what's going into your body isn't natural, it "technically" meets standards.

Kawash points out instances of processed corn products being used in food and edible products since around the time of the world wars, but doesn't get into much detail on the fact that it's due to the overproduction of corn (and soy) that have already been chemically altered. Good Lord. This book, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, both leave me feeling pretty certain about where all this cancer is coming from. It's not from candy, and while much of it is from cigarettes, it definitely has more to do with the unnatural foods that we eat. But I've gotten into this topic before; I've tried to be better about eating natural foods, and I do okay, but it's easier to put together a salad from a Hy-Vee bag and grab an Amy's vegetarian burrito (processed shit, I know, I know), than to cook a whole meal. But overall, I think I do an okay job with watching what I eat, but not counting calories...and not shying away from pastry and candy as treats.

Okay, so I read something the other day that did make me feel concerned about candy. An article read that something like 70% of the beans or whatever that are used to make major-brand chocolate come from slave plantations in Western Africa; the website foodispower.org has more information on this, and other food products that get supplies through such human rights violations. Kawash only once mentions that sugar and chocolate have a connection to slavery, and the implication was that this was a thing of the past. Clearly, this is not so.

I was most interested in the historical views on diet and nutrition. John and Will Kellogg were mentioned a couple of times; I knew Kawash's references because of a silly episode of Drunk History, in which the Wilson brothers, Luke and Owen, played the bickering brothers as they ran their sanitarium and John invented Corn Flakes or whatever. As Kawash explained Kellogg's theories on diet and health, it actually made a lot of sense to me. Besides the celibacy stuff; sex is part of a balanced life too, of course.

This book wasn't entirely what I expected, but I did get what I expected out of a quality non-fiction read. This book was on a display shelf at the library, and was probably a librarian's recommendation. I'm going to start paying more attention to those. I'm also going to try to be more mindful about the foods I eat. I have made great strides to improve my overall health recently, but continuing to cut back on processed foods is my next goal. And maybe, just maybe, I'll eventually quit smoking.

Book #125: The Thin Man

Book #125: The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett

October 20, 2014

Phew! What a day it's been. It was such a relief to go to the gym after work and sweat out some stress, and finish this quick, classic crime noir. Apparently it was Hammett's last novel; he wrote several during the 1920s and early 1930s, I think, but the main characters in this book are his most celebrated.

Nick Charles is a retired private eye. I don't know what he and his young wife Nora do for a living; one sarcastic remark from him suggests that she comes from money. They constantly banter, and have a light-hearted relationship fueled by alcohol, and her love of excitement. Their conversations are fun to read. Though Nick is a brilliant detective, he isn't to be taken seriously by his wife. She is frequently praised by other men, and Nick doesn't let his pride show in his throwaway responses. They seem good together. In some ways, they remind me of Kenzie and Gennaro. Nora isn't involved directly in the murder investigation, though she helps her husband to reason aloud.

But the Wynants are worth remembering as well. See, the "thin man" is a kooky inventor (like of synthetics or something chemically) named Clyde Wynant. Years before, not long after he'd hired Nick to work a case for him, he'd divorced his wife and gotten out of contact with his kids. Wynant's daughter, an emotionally unstable young woman named Dorothy, remembers Nick from all those years ago when she runs into him at a bar at the beginning of the book. She starts to hang out with him and Nora, just as the news breaks that Clyde's assistant and lover was shot dead in her apartment. Coincidentally, it was just before Mimi Jorgensen, Clyde's ex, was going to see her. Mimi witnesses her dying, in fact, as she wasn't shot very expertly.

Dorothy isn't the only nutty one in the family. Her brother Gilbert is obsessed with the macabre aspects of human nature: cannibalism, incest, the like. But he's a harmless geek, as Nick finds out. Gilbert seems to admire Nick's world weariness; the same subjects that thrill him are nothing to Nick.

If Clyde is really crazy, Mimi could give him a run for it. Her emotions turn on a dime, and she's violent at times; she beats up on her 20-year-old daughter, for instance. And she lies constantly. Nick sees right through her, and she hates it. The Wynant family definitely have their share of drama. Yeesh.

What baffles me is this: why would the murderer want Nick on the case? To deflect suspicion, knowing that Nick was associating with the Wynants, and to try to bar him from the car would be suspicious? I don't know. That's my only real beef with an other complex yet neatly assembled plot. For it being so brief, I felt like the Charleses and the Wynants were very compelling characters. 

The interactions between characters was fascinating. Besides the very most heated moments, people were polite to one another. Mimi and Dorothy were the most "modern" because they let their emotions guide their behavior. Nick takes part in polite rituals but seems impatient with them. The use of the term "polite speeches" made me think of Mr. Collins, his over-the-top attempts at graciousness coming off as ass-kissing and overkill. 

I would like to read more classic mysteries. More Sherlock Holmes, more by Hammett, and others. I've said here before that I am always impressed by a well-crafted mystery, and I want to read the works that still surprise readers and inspire mystery writers to this day.

Book #124: What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank

Book #124: What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank by Nathan Englander

October 18, 2014

I added this book to my library ebook "wish list" about a year ago. The title of this short story collection caught my interest, and it is, indeed, a very "Jewish" book. When I was looking for a book to read, I remembered that Englander had written the story "Free Fruit for Young Widows," which had stood out to me in the 2011 greatest short stories collection. That story is, in fact, the last one in this particular book.

The collection has several stories of moderate length (20-30 or more). None of the stories were bad, and a couple were brilliant. I especially enjoyed "Camp Sundown." This story was a psychological thriller. A middle-aged director of a Jewish camp that serves both children and relaxation-seeking elders has to deal with a shocking situation. An elderly woman, a Holocaust survivor, and her friends are convinced that a fellow camper is a former Nazi officer in disguise. The situation gets more and more tense as the elderly demand justice, while the director, who may even believe them, just wants to let it go. It's the last week of the summer, after all. What the elderly ultimately do is insane, and Josh, the director, is stuck in a no-win scenario. It's never confirmed whether or not their suspicions were founded, leaving many questions.

The title story, the first in the collection, is very interested. What do they talk about when they talk about Anne Frank? Who could be trusted to hide them, in case of a second Holocaust. The serious conversations between a Florida Jewish couple and their guests, a Hassidic couple visiting from Jerusalem, were lightened by the fact that they were all stoned. But the dark "game" leads to a tense situation with the Hassidic couple, as the wife Shoshana doubts the morals of her husband Yuri.

I also liked "The Reader," about an unnamed author, past his hay day, and his unsuccessful book tour. His only attendant at any reading is the same obsessive old man, who both annoys and inspires the Author. He still has, at least, the one reader, enough to keep from from quitting his career.

Overall this was a great collection. I was drawn to "Free Fruit for Young Widows," so I'm glad that I read the book from which it originally came. I would be interested in reading more from this author.

Book #123: The Secret Life of Bees

Book #123: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

October 16, 2014

Double-entry day! This recently-popular novel was my gym/home read this week, another one to breeze through. I could never find a copy at the library whenever I would seek it out, and I only got an electronic copy after being on the waiting list (albeit a short one). I have very mixed feelings about this book.

On the one hand, I love the voice of Lily, the narrator. She's a sarcastic, angry child, and no wonder. She accidentally shot and killed her mother when she was a small child (which was totally her parents' fault, and Lily's own guilt over it is heartbreaking). Her father seems to be mentally ill. He shows no affection to his daughter, and tortures her for punishment (the kneeling bare-kneed on grits thing...shudder-worthy). He's quick to anger, and Lily is pretty scared of him. It's amazing that she's as bold as she is.

At the very least she's had Rosaleen, who was basically plucked from T. Ray's peach orchard and given the task of raising the kid. Rosaleen is pretty bold herself, a straight-talker who isn't afraid to stand up for herself. The simple act of dumping chaw juice on the shoes of some rude white men set the plot into motion.

So at least Lily, smart but an outcast, lost and missing the mother she hardly knew, had a strong female influence. She loved Rosaleen enough to bust her out of police custody. But Rosaleen can't link Lily to her mother, so her search leads them to the Boatwright sisters and their bee farm.

The Boatwright sisters are quirky. They celebrate a feminist-sisterhood power sort of take on Catholicism, lots of Mary worshiping. It's pretty cool that they found their own way to be spiritually fulfilled, and they even have a small congregation (mostly black women, a couple of men, and Lily white...haha) to worship at their idol, a black wooden statue of a woman raising her fist...something that fell off of the front of a ship. Their rituals are, to the worshippers, symbolic. If a huge chunk of the plot had been devoted to these services, though, I would have been annoyed.

The biggest issue that I have with this book is the continued stereotype of black women "saving" traumatized white kids. None of the Boatwright sisters married, so no kids of their own, which is convenient for having Lily come in as a sort of adopted daughter. Undoubtedly, a good-hearted woman could care for and love any child in need of it, at least that's what society wants us to think. I hesitate to call that yet another stereotype, but...

I suppose the whole race issue shouldn't matter; it is central to the plot, being the 1960s (think: after JFK's death, but before MLK's), in South Carolina. Indeed, June Boatwright herself takes issue with her sisters caring for white children, but comes to love Lily. I liked the overall tone of the book, as it was both light-hearted and heavy, but I take issue with the whole "Mammy" stereotype. August especially, the sage head of the family, was a bit of a stereotype, being ever-wise and ever-loving, selfless in her interactions with this white child. And in a way, Lily seemed like she felt entitled to the Boatwright sisters' love. Everyone needs love, but she was so greedy for it. What about Rosaleen, who'd always been there?

So while I enjoyed reading this book, that overall issue bothered me. I did, however, appreciate August's saying that a girl, a woman, has to be her own mother. She has to learn to love herself and draw strength from herself. I hear that. 

So the bees were meant to be symbolic in some way, as were the references to Mother Mary. I guess to motherhood or the power of females, maybe? I did like the idea of inhabiting a world with few men and lots of women. Ha!

Book #122: Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Book #122: Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

October 16, 2014

After plodding my way through the last Harry Potter book over the last couple of months at work, breezing through this book makes me feel accomplished. I grabbed it off the shelf on Monday, read it during the 10 minute sessions of reading that I give my students each day, and finished it within the first few minutes of the day this morning. I'd been meaning to read it for years, ever since my interest in YA lit was sparked as an undergraduate. We have most of the books in the series at work, so it was a great excuse to finally get to it.

It was pretty much what I expected: funny, quick to read, and easily accessible for struggling readers. I've seen snippets of a couple of the movies (very funny, too) while babysitting my nephews; I especially love a scene where Rowley and his mom dance to "Intergalactic" at a school dance. That must be from a different book.

What I've noticed in the movies, and this book, is that Greg has his head up his ass. He's both insecure and completely lacking in self-awareness. This would be a great book to use to demonstrate dramatic irony; for instance, Greg is really bad at reading other people's feelings, like not realizing when Rowley is upset with him. Greg isn't always likable...just like many middle school-age boys. Hell, nothing wrong with a realistic narrator! Who said that the "hero" of a kid's book has to be an angel?

Greg and Rowley's schemes reminded me of the kind of shanigans that my friends and I would get into as kids. Especially the haunted house idea: elaborately planned, but the execution left much to be desired, of course. This book was published 10 years ago, so I wonder if today's middle schoolers, with their cell phones and what not, could relate to Greg and Rowley, who play video games but don't game out 24/7. Their parents wouldn't allow it. 

Rowley is a great character. Greg takes him for granted, and of course that's something an adult Greg would probably regret after he and Rowley have grown up and moved on. Honestly, how many of us took our childhood friends for granted? I definitely did, but at least with the cell phones and what not, they are not total strangers in my life now. Ironic?

Anyway, Rowley in the book, and in what I've seen in the movies, is more genuine and secure. On the surface he's just your average dorky kid, but really he's damn cool because he keeps it real. He doesn't give a shit about being cool, which is what makes him cool. I'll admit I was more like Greg, concerned about my social status. Not to the point that I'd rank myself amongst my classmates by number, but to lesser extremes, I'd consider who was "above" or "below" me in the social scheme of things. I fucking hated middle school, but how much of that hell was my own creation?

The somewhat insulting title makes sense when you consider the fact that Greg Heffley is your typical middle school brat. I was one myself; so were you, most likely, and if you weren't, I might have been your friend but taken you for granted. Greg is hilarious; he brings the humor, and Rowley brings the heart.

Book #121: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Book #121: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

October 12, 2014

Almost exactly 15 years ago, I began reading the Harry Potter series. I'm done with it now, and overall I was satisfied with how it ended. I mean, Harry killed Voldemort, which is what was supposed to happen all along. Many people say that the final book is the best in the series, but I disagree. Good, perhaps almost great, but not the best. I'll mainly focus on the stuff that nagged at me.

First off, it was Voldemort's own stupidity and pride that killed him in the end. He's pretty much a dumbass; a powerful wizard, sure, but really lacking in perspective when it comes to other people. For instance, he keeps accusing everyone, like literally everyone, of lying to him. Paranoid much? For sure; when Harry is inside Voldemort's head, he hears him thinking that he can't trust anybody. Plus, he's convinced that he's the only one who knows about certain places at Hogwarts, like the room of lost items and the Shrieking Shack. You'd think that he'd figure that, in the thirty or so years since he left school, that some other curious, clever students would go exploring, too. He really seemed to think that he was that much smarter than everybody else, and that was really his downfall.

I didn't really get Harry's reasoning as to how the Elder Wand was truly his, as the argument about it transferring from Dumbledore to Draco Malfoy didn't really hold. But fuck it, he then kills Voldemort, so whatevs, right? I don't know...

I wanted Percy to reunite with the Weasleys, but the way it was executed was cheesy and awkward. It would have been cool if, for instance, he'd been a spy in the Ministry for the Order, but his family didn't know until the last minute because they needed to keep up appearances, since Arthur had to go into hiding after the whole scene at the Malfoys's house. The whole scene was just bizarre, maybe a failed attempt at some lightheartedness and comic relief before the big battle.

Some characters die, of course, and I remember some die-hard fans getting worked up about Fred. I would have liked to have seen a lot more of George after that, missing an ear and his other half. Rowling made a point of having a brief epilogue showing Harry and Ginny with their kids, Hermoine and Ron, and even a married Draco, and briefly mentioned Neville's job as Herbology professor, why not more of the other characters? After Voldemort went down, the ending overall felt rushed.

Especially since much of the book dragged. Harry Potter belongs at Hogwarts, and the continued unsuccessful search for horcruxes while they camped out and bickered in the woods wasn't the most exciting. It's appropriate that the final battle took place at the school, that Harry killed Voldemort in the Great Hall. I almost would have rather spent the year at Hogwarts with Neville, seeing his continued resistance of the Death Eaters working there with Snape (not bad after all, as I always knew) as headmaster. 

Oh, and the backstory about Snape's longtime love for Lily explained so much. Don't know if it makes him more sympathetic or more creepy...I guess both. 

Book #120: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Book #120: Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

October 10, 2014

Abraham Lincoln said that this novel started the Civil War. The author was an abolitionist and writer, who apparently published many books. This is, of course, her best known, and it certainly was influential, as it called on American Christians to fight against the horrors of slavery. This novel is a classic, of course, and while it has its flaws, its influence cannot be ignored.

What I do wish, though, is that the story focused less on Tom, and more on the Harris family. See, Tom and little Harry were to be sold to pay off their financially irresponsible master's debts. Eliza asked Tom to go with her as she and her boy fled, but Tom did not want to "betray" his master. Right there, I could see why "Uncle Tom" has become a derogatory term, though it isn't true that Tom kowtowed to any white person, as seen in his showdowns with Legree. Tom drew his strength from Jesus; his story, heavily religious and loaded with melodrama, was definitely meant to stir the hearts of Christian readers. It got to be a bit much; as Lietenant Dan would say, it was all "Jesus this and Jesus that. Have you found Jesus yet?" Eliza, reunited with her husband George, is religious herself, but at least she and her husband had the grit to run, and made it to Canada. Tom's pious passivity grew tiresome, to one like me who isn't all religiousy.

However, the author makes a great point about slavery that might be applied to any institution that gives anybody a lot of power over people. The point is, people are flawed. Whether it's the devil's influence or just how we are, people tend to greed, selfish, sloth...Deadly Sins indeed. If we can't run our own lives, then nobody has the right to own anyone else's life, to control how they live. The author points out that most "Christians" are hypocrites who turn their backs on the true teachings of Jesus, and in that she is correct. I'm not all about quoting scripture, and I certainly don't attend church, but Jesus himself did know what was up. He, and others throughout history who acted selflessly, who sacrificed and focused on helping others, whether in the name of religion or just because they were more enlightened than anybody else. So whatever I may feel about the heavily religious overtones of the text, it at least has a very real message about human nature.

I should note, though, that I think it's pretty messed up that the author refused to support the publication of Harriet Jacobs's memoir Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Jacobs really lived it, her perspective was invaluable, and I'm very surprised that she didn't get the endorsement of such a self-described Christian abolitionist. So honestly, I feel like Jacobs's work is more worth the time to read than Uncle Tom's Cabin, if it came down to a choice between the two. 

Book #119: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Book #119: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith (and Jane Austen)

October 2, 2014

When I'd previously written that I wanted to read something light-hearted, even silly, this is what I went for. Mission accomplished. I found myself wondering at times what the point of this book was. Then again, what's the point of any of the innumerable Pride and Prejudice inspired works, which could almost be a genre in and of itself? At worst, this particular book is high-quality fan fiction. That's more than can be said of other popular texts.

So I wasn't all that enamored with Grahame-Smith's Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, but he's at an advantage here because he's using quality source material. He integrates the zombies into the story masterfully. I found a couple of scenes to be annoyingly tailor-made for film, but I otherwise found it to be well crafted. The Bennet sisters are Shaolin-trained zombie slayers, at a time when a zombie plague has been going on in England for over half a century. Sounds nutty, and yet it's very well integrated into the original plot. It would make sense that, in the case of a massive zombie attack, practical Mr. Bennet would want his five daughters well-trained. Indeed, for both young men and women to be trained in the "deadly arts" is just another accomplishment, like playing the piano well or being a skilled horse rider. And in spite of the zombie attacks, social order is more or less maintained in England. Keep calm and carry on, indeed.

Grahame-Smith also makes the ridiculous characters even more ridiculous, like Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Collins. Mr. Darcy is a little vulgar, making a play on words that brings to mind the lyrics of AC/DC's "Big Balls." Wickham suffers a terrible fate, and he's a more obvious philanderer on top of being a dishonorable gambler and gold-digger. Some of Austen's humor is "modernized" (made less subtle and more crude), but more or less maintaining a genuine tone. The little details that Grahame-Smith adds, simetimes utterly ridiculous, made me laugh out loud.

The best part of the book was Charlotte Lucas's infestation with the zombie plague. I always liked that character, but her being all zombie-like at Rosings...it's just too fucking funny. I like her reason for marrying Collins in this book better than the original: that she wanted a clergyman for a husband who would behead her and pray for her properly when the time came. In fact, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy's growing respect for each other as skilled warriors made a lot of sense, too, in this context.

I don't think this book could be fully appreciated without an appreciation for the source material. I definitely think that Grahame-Smith wrote this reverently, that he appreciates Austen's work himself. It also helps to be a huge dork. I'm willing to own that; I enjoyed this ridiculous book. I certainly have no interest in reading any other such mash-ups; this randomness was probably enough for me. But for someone who likes Jane Austen but doesn't take it too seriously, I would recommend this book.