Forty Years of Zombies

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”

So begins the newly-released book that promises to become the next cult classic: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It is exactly what it sounds like: most of the original text of Pride and Prejudice, newly edited to add in zombies. It works better than you might think: the scene where Elizabeth faces off against the ninja bodyguards of Lady Catherine de Bourgh was particularly funny. Let me make a dramatic claim: while the content of this book is perhaps not very important, the existence and popularity of it is, in fact, significant.

Short review: I enjoyed the book very much, and laughed constantly while reading it. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys Austen but doesn’t take the new author’s meddling too seriously. Potential readers take note, this book is definitely rated PG-13 for some gory violence and mild innuendo.

Long review: How in the world could someone seriously argue that a silly book about Regency-era zombies be important? Primarily for this reason: geek culture, while not always accepted by popular culture as a whole, always influences it, and always shows the spirit of the age. A book like PPZ is firmly entrenched in the geek culture, and as such, has a lot to tell us about our current ideas and beliefs.

First, why zombies? Geek culture is currently interested in three classic monster archetypes: vampires, werewolves, and zombies. These can be roughly seen as the Erotic, the Bestial, and Death. They are things that our culture both fears and worships. The erotic vampiric ideal is easily seen in things such as Twilight, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Anne Rice’s classic novels: unremittingly sexual and appetitive in nature, it is easy to see this archetype’s effect on current culture.

The bestial werewolf, though not predominant in the culture at the moment, is definitely an undercurrent: they are evoked in the Twilight series, the Harry Potter stories, and the Underworld movies. The bestial is rooted in anger and violence, and a lingering doubt that humans are, in truth, anything more than animals, and the fear that the savageness can break through our civilized veneer at any time.

Both of these archetypes are portrayed in interesting ways in popular culture, but for the moment, I want to limit the discussion to zombies. Since the release of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead in 1968, zombies have been part of our cultural subconscious. In the last few years, zombies have begun to be one of our most prominent monster archetypes: from books like the Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z (a book I cannot recommend enough—one of the few truly intelligent uses of the zombie mythos that I have seen) to movies like Shaun of the Dead and I Am Legend to games like Resident Evil, zombies are everywhere.

I generally find zombies less interesting than other monsters: they are nothing more than reanimated corpses, mindless, always eating and always decaying. They have no motive other than food (which, since they are already dead, cannot nourish nor energize them and only serves to underline their inherent mindlessness), and are only truly a danger in large numbers since they are generally portrayed as slow-moving and stupid. But zombies seem to reflect one of our greatest fears: the fear of death. Zombies are the living dead, the horror of the grave risen up and walking around in the land of the living. They are a secular ‘momento mori’: “As you are, I once was. As I am, you shall become.”

The horror of zombies is a fear of death, a dread of the fate that awaits us all as our bodies return to the elements. For the Christian, zombies have little power to frighten: death, even decay, cannot harm our souls, and the swarms of living dead rising from their graves seems like a poor mockery of the final resurrection. But how many, in this age, really and truly believe in the glorious bodily resurrection? The decaying face of the zombie, skull grinning through the rotting flesh, seems to make the promise of life beyond death appear pale and faint, a story told to pacify children after a nightmare.

This will sound familiar to readers of C. S. Lewis’ book, Perelandra. Near the end of the book, Weston tells Ransom about his experience of being possessed by the Un-Man.

‘That’s why it’s so important to live as long as you can. All the good things are now—a thin little rind of what we call life, put on for show, and then—the real universe for ever and ever. To thicken the rind by one centimeter—to live one week, one day, one half-hour longer—that’s the only thing that matters. Of course you don’t know it: but every man waiting to be hanged knows it. You say, “What difference does a short reprieve make?” What difference!’ ‘But nobody need go there,’ said Ransom. ‘I know that’s what you believe,’ said Weston. ‘But you’re wrong. It’s only a small parcel of civilized people who think that. Humanity as a whole knows better. It knows—Homer knew—that all the dead have sunk down into the inner darkness: under the rind. All witless, all twittering, gibbering, decaying. Bogeymen. Every savage knows that all ghosts hate the living who are still enjoying the rind: just as old women hate girls who still have their good looks. It’s quite right to be afraid of the ghosts. You’re going to be one all the same.’

Which is the dream, and which the reality? Our current culture disbelieves in any promise of joy, particularly a promise in which the effect is not yet seen. We tend to believe that the fair is always a copy of the foul, and that every beautiful thing is a façade for some horror. Even though it goes against the implications of both the creation and final redemption of this world, Christians buy into this deadly assumption: it’s soaked into the culture, and we drink it in with almost every film, game, and book. This is not to say that we should not participate in the culture: rather, that we should be aware of what is in the culture, and what is true. (I could make an incredibly geeky Dune reference here, about it being our job to transform the poison into the Water of Life, but I shall refrain. For now.)

We have ditched the Danse Macabre, waived the wakes, and rejected the Resurrection, but the natural fear of death will not be denied, and it will come out. The current obsession with zombies is a reflection of this desire to do away with death, while refusing to acknowledge that God is only one who can do so. Physical life becomes something that must be maintained at all costs, even if it means sacrificing others, and death becomes the greatest evil that can befall a man, instead of the doorway that all men will pass through. There is no joyful self-sacrifice in a world like this, and the weak, sick, or old are only burdens to slow down the strong. Sound familiar?

So why pay any attention to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? If it doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, you shouldn’t bother reading it: the humor will only be an irritant. But I would still recommend picking up some zombie story (again, I recommend the book World War Z for a more thoughtful portrayal of zombies), and interacting with it. Zombies are one of our culture’s predominant myths, and an excellent portrayal of our fears of death and loss of the hope of life eternal. Understand the myth, and you will understand the men.