Friday, April 17, 2009

Dump your ashes elsewhere

Jane Austen's house

The folks maintaining Jane Austen's house have requested that fans stop having their ashes dumped all over the place. Apparently, it's not unusual to find mounds of ash littered in the grounds of the place, especially in the herb gardens, every morning. And I'm not talking about cigarette ash or ashes from burned leaves; these are ashes from freshly cremated deluded devoted fans of the British author.

I don't own a single novel by Jane Austen, much less read one. Every time I pick an Austen book at the local bookstore, I cringe at all the gossipy dialogue. The slow pacing doesn't help either. Like most people, my exposure to Austen's works come from the movies. My favorite is still Clueless, which is based on Emma (although the one with Gwyneth Paltrow is good too).

Nevertheless, I am early anticipating that our bookstores would finally have Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I've always thought that Mr. Darcy's character is overly romanticized. Will he get to kick some zombie ass in this book? I can't wait to find out.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

re: the ashes dump. Ew.

re: Pride & Prejudice & Zombies - I'm expecting it in the mail next week and am excited for it!

Anonymous said...

Wow, they really want to spread their ashes there? I wonder what Jane would make of that? I always thought her best writing is actually in her letters. Will be interested in what you make of the zombie book, I havn't read it but it seems to be getting a bit of a mixed reception. I wonder how it will go down with the teenage market I am assuming it is aimed at?