VintageGent’s Menswear Daily

Mark Twain…Zombie Link?

Tina Kubula sent me a post via Twitter from Bryan’s Book Blog where he reproduced the The 50 Best Author vs. Author Put-Downs of All Time from Examiner Michelle Kerns. Pouring down the list, I was someone edified to see so many authors raise an eyebrow to Pride and Prejudice. While the book was certainly a refreshing change to fair contemporary to the writing, being that Elizabeth doesn’t instantly fall into the arms of the charming Mr. Darcy by page ten, much of my senior English honors class noisily slammed our books down after the final page and said, “Um….so? Why couldn’t they just get on with it.”  Clearly, our raging hormones, despite our bookworm tendencies weren’t mature enough for the nuance.

At criticism #31, I stumbled past Mark Twain’s opinion of the said work.

31. Jane Austen, according to Mark Twain (1898): I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice, I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone.

I can’t help but think his comment inspired “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” to be written, had only I found this prior to mash-up author Seth Grahame-Smith did.