Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
November 10, 2010
This was a hard book to finish, although I'm glad to have read it. It was a challenging read because there is nothing more revolting to me than a passive-aggressive - and the characters themselves are all passive-aggressive. Yet it's fodder for the meta-oriented.
Isn't civility really a form of slave morality? Imagine a prosecutor files false charges against your client. Filing criminal charges is devastating to the client. And yet if the client's lawyer wrote a letter saying, "You're a scum bag mother fucker and I hope you die," he'd have a judge up his ass for incivility. Yet what is truly uncivil - ruining a guy's life by falsely accusing him of a crime, or writing a snarky letter?
In today's narcissistic world (which is no different from the 1800's scenes depicted in Pride and Prejudice), appearances supersede substance. If someone fucks you over, you're supposed to smile at him. Thus, we can best understand civility as being a slave's virtue.
After all, only a master would demand civility. If you treat people appropriately, there will be no need for incivility. If you don't want a guy flipping you off, don't cut people off in traffic. If you don't want me yelling at you, don't make a right turn into the crosswalk when I have the right-of-way. And if you do, don't dare say I'm the bad guy for verbally abusing you in front of your wife. No, you won't get out of the car, and she notices that. Next time, do the right thing. You can only be humiliated when you do thinks worthy of humiliation.
Deliberate or not, the addition of zombies added a deep element to the original text. The women were not just fighting zombies: They were fighting each other. Isn't argument a form of fighting, and yet why are fighting methods used differently?
When dealing with zombies, the women were aggressive-aggressive. They were remarkable and respectable women. Yet when dealing with each other, they were passive-aggressive. Imagine living with these shrews? I'd rather fight zombies. When is it appropriate to man- or woman-up, and deal with someone aggressively? Why must we be so polite with others socially? And is going to a ball so great that we dare not offend someone lest we not get invited again? You mean my punishment for offending you is that you won't invite me back? The horror.
The status angle - the balls and invitations - coincides perfectly with the New York/status scenes depicted in the must-read Bonfire of the Vanities. The two books are nearly 200 years separated. What's changed? Anything?
One could write a grad-school essay exploring these themes, but I limit my posts to 15 minutes. I do recommend the book, which takes substantially longer than 15 minutes to read.