Ultraviolent Jane Austen mayhem

Like many people, I tend to find most classic 19th-century British novels stuffy and a tad boring—interesting social critiques, at times, but often too preoccupied with the disconnects that arise out of stilted courting techniques, and with the long-term effects of bridled, upper-class women. I need more than that.

But at the Gothic Bookstore the other day, one of these books happened to catch my eye. It was clearly one of those old British novels that I have so successfully avoided, yet something was different: While the man on the cover did have on his perfect red Napoleonic-era coat and vest, with his frilled shoulders and his hilted sword, there were also scaly and pulsating octopus tentacles growing out of his face. The book was called “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters” by Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters, and I bought it immediately.

I was, however, a bit curious about one thing: who, exactly, is this Jane Austen lady? She’s listed on the cover before our soon-to-be poet laureate Ben H. Winters—the man who is credited with “co-writing” the novel, which we can only assume means “ghostwriting.”

So I flipped to the “About the Author” section on the back cover, and found out that she, too, has some legitimate claim to literary celebrity. The blurb reads: “Jane Austen is coauthor of The New York Times best-seller ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.’” And, indeed, a quick Google search revealed that this Jane Austen person is actually a popular writer: The zombie book she co-wrote has been a best seller for about 30 weeks, described in The New York Times as “the classic story, retold with ‘ultraviolent zombie mayhem.’”

Wait—the classic story? Is this a canonical zombie novel that I am somehow unaware of? I took to Google once again and found out that, in fact, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” is adapted from a real novel by Jane Austen, and so is “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.” But, unlike the new ones, the originals didn’t have a single instance of rampaging Zombie slaughter, floating mid-air Kung Fu ninja death battles or flesh-eating submerged fang beasts.

So I didn’t bother with the old books. Instead, I took to my recent purchase, the epic of disgusting sea creatures and antiquated social commentary and, upon opening it to a random page, found an illustration with the following caption: “The guests began a screaming stampede for the exit, shoving and fighting past one another to get out of the path of the death-lobsters.” Sure enough, in the picture, the death-lobsters are chopping off the limbs of the well-dressed guests, their bodies maligned in the sharp grasp of the giant red pinchers.

Everyone loves gratuitous blood and gore, but the novel’s true genius lies in the way it uses this ultraviolent tentacled mayhem to reinforce the utter despondency that arises when these corseted women realize there is no way to communicate their pent-up adoration to would-be suitors, as is the case with Marianne’s yearning for the dashing and dangerous John Willoughby.

And the deft juxtaposition of the two modes of storytelling is simply brilliant, especially in the death-lobster scene: “‘Go to him, Elinor,’ Marianne pleaded, insensible of the immediate peril.... With one claw the beast mauled Mr. Carey, carving large gashes from his torso, while simultaneously, with the other claw, it snapped off Mrs. Carey’s feet and hands with four snaps. ‘Force [Willoughby] to come to me. Tell him I must see him again—must speak to him immediately.’” Marianne’s anguished plea to her sister parallels the life-or-death situation of Mr. Carey. The scene elegantly proves that there are two forces vicious enough to rip off appendages: love, and lobsters.

In a Sept. 15 article in Slate entitled “This Scene Could Really Use a Man-Eating Jellyfish: How I wrote Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters,” Ben H. Winters explains the process of collaborating with Austen to increase the number of bone-crunching leviathans in the new version of the novel, and how he went to great lengths to maintain the authenticity of the biological monstrosities that appear in the text. “Poring through my Roget’s, I arrived at the appropriately eloquent and disgusting phrase to describe the slimy stomach of an oversize hermit crab just before it smothers someone to death: mucocutaneous undercarriage,” he writes. Not only does the new version of the novel contain scores of grotesque creatures of the deep, they’re described in scientifically accurate terms. I’m in awe.

So, in short, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is a masterpiece that completely outshines the original. Can’t wait for “Jurassic Mansfield Park!”

Nathan Freeman is a Trinity senior. His column runs every Friday.