Pride and Prejudice and Zombies!

When I first heard about this, I thought it was just somebody's fantastic idea. A friend had posted the quotation: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains" to their status on Facebook, with a credit to "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", which I just thought was them being funny, and laughed out loud. Imagine my surprise when I see in the bookstore yesterday that it IS a book! I snapped it up.

I'm only about a quarter of the way through, but I'm loving it. Pride and Prejudice is one of my favourite stories, and the campy addition of the zombies is just great fun. I'm enjoying Elizabeth as a master of the killing arts, and I particularly loved the "Pentagram of Death" as performed by all 5 Bennet girls. And who would have thought that quiet, book-larnin' Mary would be the one to jump up on the table and attempt to stab Mr. Collins in offence to one of his comments? (Happily she is restrained by Lydia, enabling the sappy Mr. Collins to live another day, and eventually, as I'm gleaning from sneaking ahead peeks at the awesome illustrations, marry a zombified Charlotte Lucas!!) Not to mention that the talent of vomiting politely into one's hands puts me in mind of my sister's ability to vomit daintily into a wineglass. Can't wait to finish it out and see how it all ends, but also couldn't wait to share my delight.

Don't know how much fun it would be if you weren't familiar with the original P&P. My husband enjoyed the Bolly-riffic "Bride and Prejudice" without any foreknowledge of the original, but I believe that to truly appreciate P&P&Z, you might want to know the original. (So, those of you who have finished with The Grapes of Wrath and Season 4 of Buffy, now you know what to do with your free time!)

Seth Grahame-Smith, I take my hat off to you - I'm sure I'm not the only English major who wishes she thought of this idea first! Now, my next request, please add vampires to Little Women! (And not the sparkly, twee Twilight kind, but the real kind, okay??)

Made in...hmmmmm.

All this talk about the big three car manufacturers looking for bailout money, and most recently, Chrysler's threat to move their whole operation out of Canada unless they get X amount of money and the CAW employees take a $20/hour pay cut has me thinking. We have had lots of parts manufacturers in this area. Many closed their doors in the past few years, and the few left are cutting further and further back on staff and hours. Now, I feel badly for anyone who loses their job. But you have to admit that there's a certain... irony? Schadenfreude? (Not sure what the word is I'm looking for here...) in the situation. See, lots of people around here, whom, I'm assuming, work or did work for these parts makers have bumper stickers on their cars that read Out of a job yet? Keep buying foreign! (These are always on Fords and Chrysler products, by the way, not on Toyotas, some of which are actually assembled right here in Cambridge, but that's another post for another day.)

Where the irony comes in is when I see three cars all sporting this bumper sticker parked in a row. In the Wal-Mart parking lot.

Now I get that for some people, Wal-Mart is a necessary evil (or a guilty pleasure!). I'm sure there are some people who would prefer to only buy things made in Canada who shop there because they are barely making ends meet as it is. But maybe don't drive the car with anti-buying-foreign-sentiment proudly displayed on it when you go. Hmmm'kay?

I'm guilty. I don't look for a Made in Canada label. I do patronize my local farmer's market and small, local specialty shops and bakeries, but I also shop Wal-Mart and Costco. Lucky for our family, the loss of manufacturing jobs will not affect us directly. I still feel for the people it does affect, but I don't think the situation will change, and I don't think government handouts to private industry are the way to go. These are growing pains. Have you read The Grapes of Wrath? It's a good picture of the growing pains suffered as North America moved from the agricultural age to the industrial age. Now we're moving from the industrial age to the knowledge age. Can't stop it, and bailouts to private industry are only delaying the inevitable. Manufacturing in North America is no longer smart business, sad but true. How much better would it be to use that bailout money to help people support their families, and help them re-train for the knowledge industry? A lot, I think.

(I also have some thoughts about how ironic it is that unions were formed as a result of some of the issues arising as we moved into the industrial age, but that they may also have sped its passing in the last 20 years or so. But those thoughts are still percolating, and my arm is sore from one-handed typing while Jake sleeps in my other arm. So that's all you get today. Go read The Grapes of Wrath!)