Jane-sploitation*

This has got to stop.

The publisher who brought us the explicably but undeservedly popular Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has moved on to its next target: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.

The concept itself makes me wearily angry but the publisher's press appearances make me furious.

First, the concept, from the Canadian distributor's website:

"SENSE AND SENSIBILITY AND SEA MONSTERS expands the original text of Jane Austen’s beloved novel with all-new scenes of giant lobsters, rampaging octopi, two-headed sea serpents, swashbuckling pirates, and other seaworthy creatures."

People, if you wanted to combine Austen and sea monsters, the logical novel would be Persuasion. That you opted for the catchy alliteration and easy title recognition confirms that you don't really care about the original text. Thankfully there are no more Austen novels with the "X and Y" title structure to be used.

Next, there's editor Jason Rekulak's absurd claim that he's resisting the trend to do something with vampires: "I know there are a lot of vampire fans, but the genre feels exhausted to me." Because remember, when he published P&P&Z, zombies weren't trendy at all.

Instead, he draws on a genre that hasn't been overplayed, mainly because it's not an actual genre (note also the sentence fragment):

Whereas Sea Monsters allowed us to draw inspiration from so many rich and diverse sources—most obviously Jules Verne novels and Celtic mythology, but also Jaws, Lost, Pirates of the Caribbean, even SpongeBob Squarepants!

Spongebob Squarepants might be a little tongue-in-cheeck (unless little Margaret Ferrars breaks into a plaintive rendition of "Where's Gary?") but the rest of the listed inspirations (Celtic mythology?) are too diverse to be brought together into anything cohesive.

But who needs cohesion when we have—wait for it—originality!

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies fans are counting on us to deliver something original, and I don’t think they will be disappointed.

Following up a bestselling Austen literary mashup with another Austen literary mashup? Very original.

And how does one achieve such originality? By employing the Grandpa Simpson method of literary adaptation: a little of column A and a little of column B. No, I'm not exaggerating:

Quoted in the Guardian story, original here:

"I thought it would be funny to do a 'new and improved' version of a classic that kids are forced to read in high school," he [Rekulak] told Publishers Weekly. "So I made a list of classic novels and a second list of elements that could enhance these novels—pirates, robots, ninjas, monkeys and so forth. When I drew a line between Pride and Prejudice and zombies, I knew I had my title and it was easy to envision how the book would work."

Because a title is totally a strong enough concept to base a book on. And because classic novels need improving: "Fix me, Jason Rekulak! Fix me! Readers throughout the decades and centuries didn't know what they were missing by reading Moby Dick without robots!"

We have crossed a line from the mashup, in which disparate elements are brought together to create a cohesive and new original, and are well into exploitation terrority, in which a popular author in the public domain is used to sell half-baked, poorly written books. It is disrespectful to the Austen, to Austen's novels, to those who appreciate the novels, and to anyone who values real originality and creativity.

The first defence against such criticisms is that extreme Austen-lovers have no sense of humour and take themselves too seriously. But bad writing is not "literary mashup" and exploitation is not originality. Someone needs to put her foot down and that someone might as well be me: Stop it, Quirk Books. It's fine with me that not everyone likes Austen. But there are a lot of people who like Austen very much, and they would prefer that she be left alone.


* credit for the term to the Guardian caption writer