Guest Post: Pride and Prejudice and (a few) Zombies

Today's guest post comes (after persistent pestering) from my daughter Monkey. I have been asking her to write reviews of books she reads for years, she has quite different reading taste and I hoped it might add some variety in content and style, and always before she has resisted me. We have had an interesting time discussing the relative merits of the original and the more recent zombie version of this classic text.

When I went into reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies I expected nothing more than light entertainment, and in that respect I was in no way disappointed. I won’t bother going into a description of the plot because if you don’t at least know the basics of what happens in Pride and Prejudice then you must have been hiding under a rock for the last 200 years or something to have missed such a big part of culture so instead I’ll talk mostly about the Zombies part.The occasional inclusion of the undead walking in search of their next meal of brains added a kind of less subtle humour to the book (the subtle kind being already included by Jane Austen herself). So one could say it was funny, and if that is all you are looking for; a few laughs, then this is certainly a book I would recommend. However, being quite familiar with the original text that is derived from, Pride and Prejudice itself, I could not help but notice a great number of things that bothered me. As with any book you enter a new world and must accept the parameters of the story, first you take in the world set by Jane Austen 19th Century England, with then the added bonus that Seth Grahame-Smith has included the Zombies. In addition to the Zombies you get all that would be different in a world that includes Zombies, for instance the militia stationed at Meryton for a large chunk of the book is now stated to be there for the quelling of the armies of the undead. Also many young men and women (the Bennet sisters, whom the story centres around included) travel to the Orient to learn the art of death. I accepted all of this, however I did find it unclear since the idea of young women being skilled in battle seemed to be presented as being both an accomplishment such as young ladies were expected to have and, at the same time, was looked upon as improper as they were expected to give it up if they were married. So I allowed myself to enjoy the world that Seth Grahame-Smith created but I felt that in his laziness he perhaps did not bother to consider the world that Jane Austen had set it in, that he had not bothered to put research and thought into the non-Zombie related edits he made. I will give an example that stood out to me significantly (I know many might think me a ridiculous pedant for noticing and making comment on this but accuracy is important to me): in chapter twenty-one when the girls are making their usual walk to Meryton with their muskets at the ready they are alerted to the approach of the Zombies by a number of woodland creatures crossing their path to escape them, among these animals he mentions both a chipmunk and a skunk, being British this stood out to me immediately: we do NOT have chipmunks or skunks in this country, so this edit totally disregards the country in which the book is set. I appreciate that the author being American would not automatically know this as I did, but I do find it inconsiderate of him to not even bother to check, and you might hope that an editor or someone might have noticed and suggested it be changed but I guess not. The other major thing that disappointed me about the book was that the inclusion of the Zombies did not influence a lot of the story. I felt like all they were doing was popping up, being killed and then everyone just went along as they did before. Of course the events within the story, and the beginning and end points, had to be the same, but in my opinion the Zombies could have done a lot more to influence those happenings instead of just being a background feature. The one exception to this (SPOILER ALERT) is that Charlotte Lucas is infected with the strange plague and this becomes part of the reason why she decides to marry Mr Collins, I would have liked it if there had been more additions like this, the Zombies being the reason for why certain things happen.

All in all, as I said to begin with, I did still enjoy the book, and I am certainly looking forward to seeing the film adaption next week especially with the opinion that Zombies are much more suited to the medium of film, so may be even more enjoyable. 

Guest Post Number 2: How to make marshmallows

Today's guest post is written and performed by Tish and Monkey.

We have recently discovered just how fabulous home made marshmallows are. Plus how incredibly easy they are.
The first thing I will tell you is that if you don't have an electric whisk you will need a second person. The second thing is you will definitely need is a sugar thermometer.
So here are your general ingredients:
12 oz of caster sugar, plus 1 tablespoon
2 egg whites
6 leaves of leaf gelatine (do not substitute with powdered)
1 tablespoon of liquid glucose or golden syrup
2 tablespoons of icing sugar
2 tablespoons of corn flour
150ml of water
pinch of salt
your choice of colour and flavouring (today we are using vanilla essence and blue food dye but rose water is also really nice)

This recipe is from of this book, which has lots of lovely things in it:

Sweet Things by Annie Rigg.

The first thing I reccommend you do is prepare the tin to put the marshmallows in. Use a 9inch square tin. Take a piece of baking parchment or grease proof paper and grease with sunflower or vegetable oil. Next stick your paper into the tin, I use a couple of bits of sellotape but you can do it however you like. Now mix the corn flour and icing sugar together, sprinkle some into the pan and shake around so that all of the paper is covered (the oil will stick it on), and pour out an excess into a bowl and set aside for later. it should end up looking something like this:

Next we will prepare the gelatine (you can use leaf pectin but good luck finding it because I can't). Take all 6 of your leaves and place in a big jug of cold water and leave to soak for 10 mins. Then take it out and pat dry, it will look a bit like plastic (as you can see below), set this aside.

Now place the egg whites, 1 tablespoon of caster sugar and pinch of salt in a large glass mixing bowl (I don't recommend a plastic mixing bowl as I'm not sure how they would react to boiling sugar being poured into it, might melt). 

Set this aside for later, DO NOT WHISK YET!!!

Now put the rest of the caster sugar, water, and golden syrup into a small pan and turn to a medium heat until the sugar is all dissolved.

Once the sugar is all dissolved turn the heat up to full and put your sugar thermometer in. Keep stirring so it doesn't burn. You are aiming for 120˚c, when it gets to 90˚c you should get your second person to start whisking your egg whites as you have about 4 mins to go. It will go very quickly from 100˚ to 120˚, inside about 2 mins. As soon as you reach 120˚c you need to take it off the heat and take out the thermometer.

Now straight away put your gelatine into the hot syrup, it will bubble up and go crazy, keep stirring. It will settle down in a couple of seconds, keep stirring as you carry it over to the egg whites.

Hopefully your assistant should have whisked your egg whites to stiff peak point (meringue style). If not just keeping stirring so it doesn't set and tell them to hurry the hell up. You want the syrup to go in hot.

Now pour the syrup directly into the whisked egg whites, as you do have your assistant keep whisking.

At this point you can add your flavouring and colouring (about a cap full will do). Keep whisking for about 3 mins until it is glossy and holding the shape from the whisk. Make sure you scrape the bottom as the syrup can settle a bit.

Now pour your mixture into your prepared tin. Leave for about 2 hours, then cover with cling film and leave for another 4 hours to set. Don't put it in the fridge, just somewhere cool.

Once it is set you need to find the bowl of corn flour and icing sugar. Sprinkle the mixture over a large tray or chopping board, then turn out the marshmallow onto the tray. If you did the first bit right the paper should peel of perfectly. Now take a big sharp knife and cut the marshmallow into cubes. After the first cut the knife will get a bit sticky so I recommend putting some of the corn flour/icing sugar mix onto the sticky blade. After you have cut it into cubes role them in the mixture so they're coated and not sticky. Then just tap off the excess.

And voila, you have marshmallows! Ours turned out green and very soft this time. Their consistency can vary but they're always lovely.

Now you will also find yourself with left over egg yokes, which you need to use; we prefer to make cheese straws but you can make whatever you like.

Little Bee - a guest post

I was wandering Atlanta airport looking for something not to get interested in half knowing all the time that I would. But it was the challenge, to look at so much tat and not find anything worth turning over. I was sorely tempted with two screwed up balls of paper .. one bright pink and the other brown .. I nearly succumbed to them. But in the end I failed.

It was one of those chromium plated book alcoves that seem to cling to the wall of one of those mindless nowhere tunnels in the hope that some totally confused idiot would pause and, out of some mixture of desperation and pity, buy something. I did.

Chris Cleave wrote Little Bee

well he is a Guardian writer you see
so it was obvious
this little book would appeal to me

It is an amusing horror story
and in parts its rather gory
in a matter of fact sort of way
but once I even turned away

But Little Bee is Nyjeerian who stowed away
and so she lived to survive another day
though she watched and saw her beautiful sister
sent away with the sharp blade of a machete.

As an asylum seeker
she seeks the lady who gave
her middle finger for her life
and that is all I tell you.

Sent to me by my dad, Don Frampton (pictured here), who despite owning a computer for many years cannot fathom out how to leave a comment on a blog:-) but I am glad because I like the idea of having guest bloggers. I have tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to get Creature to write about the books she reads. Hopefully it might happen again sometime.