Zombie Book Club
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Book Review) | Zombie Book Club Episode 15
Put on your best British accent and take a wild ride with us through the bizarre and hilarious world of Seth Graham's "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies". This is no ordinary book club, as we dissect this peculiar blend of Jane Austen's classic romance and gruesome zombie apocalypse. Ever struggled to finish your book club reading due to a hectic schedule? We've got you covered, with plenty of laughs along the way.
Brace yourselves for an exciting exploration of the British Regency era, the British opium wars, xenophobia, fatphobia, and the concept of an ‘accomplished woman’ - all through the lens of zombie doom. Are you baffled by the author's decision to infuse Eastern martial arts and philosophies into this period? So were we! And if you think this eccentric mashup has us polarized, wait till you hear us debate whether it's better to read a random page or use the book as a kitschy coffee table centerpiece.
Our journey doesn't stop at literature and horror. We take a quirky detour to discuss the practicality of martial arts and Eastern weapons during a zombie apocalypse. We even toss around thoughts on how effective a fencing foil might be against the undead. From our favorite zombie moments to the strange spectacle of Bennett sisters wielding katanas, you're in for an episode packed with zest, zombies, and zany discussions! Don't miss out on this fun-filled literary debate that's more entertaining than a horde of zombies at a Regency ball.
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Follow our linktree for social media links, and links to all the places you can find our podcast! https://linktr.ee/zombiebookclub
Follow our linktree for social media links, and links to all the places you can find our podcast!
https://linktr.ee/zombiebookclub
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Zombie Book Club Voicemail
(614) 699-0006
Zombie Book Club Email
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Our Secret Website That Isn't Finished
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Our Merchandise Store (Where you can find our Evil Magic Chicken Zombie Shirts)
https://zombie-book-club.myspreadshop.com
Put on your best British accent and take a wild ride with us through the bizarre and hilarious world of Seth Graham's "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies". This is no ordinary book club, as we dissect this peculiar blend of Jane Austen's classic romance and gruesome zombie apocalypse. Ever struggled to finish your book club reading due to a hectic schedule? We've got you covered, with plenty of laughs along the way.
Brace yourselves for an exciting exploration of the British Regency era, the British opium wars, xenophobia, fatphobia, and the concept of an ‘accomplished woman’ - all through the lens of zombie doom. Are you baffled by the author's decision to infuse Eastern martial arts and philosophies into this period? So were we! And if you think this eccentric mashup has us polarized, wait till you hear us debate whether it's better to read a random page or use the book as a kitschy coffee table centerpiece.
Our journey doesn't stop at literature and horror. We take a quirky detour to discuss the practicality of martial arts and Eastern weapons during a zombie apocalypse. We even toss around thoughts on how effective a fencing foil might be against the undead. From our favorite zombie moments to the strange spectacle of Bennett sisters wielding katanas, you're in for an episode packed with zest, zombies, and zany discussions! Don't miss out on this fun-filled literary debate that's more entertaining than a horde of zombies at a Regency ball.
Link to TomTen Farm and Sanctuary
https://instagram.com/tomtenfarmsanctuary?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Follow our linktree for social media links, and links to all the places you can find our podcast! https://linktr.ee/zombiebookclub
Follow our linktree for social media links, and links to all the places you can find our podcast!
https://linktr.ee/zombiebookclub
ZBC Discord Server
https://discord.com/invite/8hCSb4eg
Zombie Book Club Voicemail
(614) 699-0006
Zombie Book Club Email
ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com
Our Secret Website That Isn't Finished
https://zombiebookclub.io
Our Merchandise Store (Where you can find our Evil Magic Chicken Zombie Shirts)
https://zombie-book-club.myspreadshop.com
Welcome to the Zombie Book Club, the only book club where sometimes the book was a different book written by someone 200 years ago. But then someone decided, hey, let's just add zombies to it, let's add them. I am Dan. Yeah, let's add them. Add them, add the zombies. Add zombies to this sentence. It makes it better. I'm a writer and when I'm not turning 150 gallons of diesel into 1,050 pounds of carbon monoxide in exchange for a paycheck. I'm writing a book about the end of the world, which I realize is ironic.
Speaker 2:I don't know what's more depressing. I'm Leah and I chose Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for this book club, and I regret it. I don't know if that's more depressing than realizing that your 150 gallons of diesel turns into more than 1,000 pounds of carbon monoxide. Dan, that's new for me, but I think I'm going to go with the book today To be fair.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I just measured the weight of the fuel and I assume it all gets turned into hydrocarbons of some kind and I don't know how much those weigh. I'm not a scientist.
Speaker 2:I was going to say how did you get this poundage estimate?
Speaker 1:I just guessed I used. I've been using this app on my phone. It's called Calculator. I've been really getting into it.
Speaker 2:There's like a special formula for this. Cool, cool, cool yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I just I know how much diesel weighs today. I just wanna tell you about pride and prejudice and zombies, the classic, the classic book Pride and Prejudice, that somebody added zombies to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, who is that somebody again. So Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice.
Speaker 1:You know I would have this in front of me, but I don't Hold on.
Speaker 2:I'm pulling it up. We are so professional with getting it right now. We deserve this, we do.
Speaker 1:We worked for this. It's like Seth Dumbadier right Seth his name's Seth.
Speaker 2:Sorry, author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Well, this is bad. Maybe we should just start again or accept our fate of being really Seth Graham's. It's a how? The fucking, only from audible thing that blocks the author's name. Well, for everybody's name.
Speaker 1:Oh, what, what.
Speaker 2:We're a little rusty. We haven't done this for like three weeks. Yeah, this is what I'll say. If you enjoy this kind of a start to a podcast, you should subscribe, because we post our episodes every two weeks on Sundays and this one's a Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. We do a book every five episodes because it is technically a book club and we'll get into why they may not always read the books that we tell you all to read.
Speaker 1:It takes a long time. We're slow. Well, I'm a slow reader.
Speaker 2:And I listen to books and I have had a very busy schedule lately, but Leah, yes, you know I don't always do this.
Speaker 1:Hold on, I I found something here. It's, it's a piece of parchment, it's a letter, it's what appears to be written in a in a in a in a quill, a feather quill ink pen.
Speaker 2:Where did you find such a letter in twenty, twenty three? Well, first of all, I wrote the letter. So I guess I didn't find.
Speaker 1:I found the letter that I wrote.
Speaker 2:And you have a quill. It's on parchment.
Speaker 1:It's on parchment I. I often use a quill pen, like when I'm at work and I got to write down how much asphalt I'm hauling. I use a quill pen. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Is that? How you communicate with your boss is like through letters on parchment?
Speaker 1:And I attach it to a pigeon and I throw the pigeon.
Speaker 2:I mean that sounds about right, considering the quality of the vehicles your boss makes you drive. I have a letter, leah OK what's this letter about?
Speaker 1:All right, well, this letter is addressed to the listeners. Oh, dearest listener, I hope this letter finds you in good health and high spirits. I felt compelled to share with you my thoughts upon a curious tome I recently encountered, titled Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. As you well know, miss Austin's pride and prejudice has long held a chair spot on our bookshelves, hmm. Yet this particular adaptation struck me as a somewhat misguided endeavor.
Speaker 1:The elegant dance of words we have come to adore from Miss Austin was, in this novel, often interrupted with the ghastly groans of the undead. As well as myself, I would think the Syrian landscapes of the English countryside would be quite disturbed by such operations. Moreover, the decision to introduce martial arts into our beloved Regency era was as baffling as a fox attending a hen's tea party, an elephant at a mouse's masquerade ball or a fish riding a bicycle. The esteemed Bennett sisters, in between delicate curtsies, are now brandishing weapons and employing kung fu. I must say the whimsy of it nearly overcame my sensibilities. The amalgamation of zombies within this cherished tale was handled with all the grace and subtlety of a bowl in a china shop. It was like a cactus in an English rose garden, like adding hot sauce to afternoon tea. One could surmise that a more deft hand might have rendered such a fusion intriguing, but alas, the execution was as clumsy as Mr Collins' attempt at courtship.
Speaker 1:Dearest listener, I felt at my duty to warn you of this perplexing narrative before you perhaps, embark on reading it. While the audacity of the concept may peak one's interest, its delivery left much to be desired. Pray, I give you warmest regards to your family. Do write to our Threads account soon with tales of your own exploits, yours most sincerely, mr Dad. Weird that I just found that. I just found this letter, written by me, of course, ten, two hundred years ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I gotta say I kind of love that voice. Should we do that? Should we talk in like British accents for the rest of this episode?
Speaker 1:No, but what I do think we should do is give some shout outs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we should give some shout outs. I mean, I want to respond to the letter, but I mostly want to hear other people have to say and before we do the shout outs, I just want to apologize again because I feel like your letter. It's sort of like the letter that arrived with military soldiers that were fighting for years, not knowing the war was over. We already made people read this.
Speaker 1:Young Johnny was unfortunately taken by the awful Huns.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness. Yeah, it's just. It's too little, too late. I'm sorry if you read it, but we have much happier news than our discussion of Pride and Prejudice today and zombies, like you said, damages and shout outs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll do some quick. We'll do life updates after the end of the episode, but we have some, some shout outs. You don't always have these, but you know what People are talking to us and that's a good thing, because, because we're growing, it means we're growing. I want to give a shout out to some of the top listeners, top listening cities yeah, I don't know what it is about these places, but they for some reason have been searching for people talking about the zombie apocalypse more than other cities. Number one on the list is Atlanta. I don't know why Atlanta needs the zombie apocalypse more than like New York or LA or Las Vegas One concern lies, but in Atlanta it's hot right now.
Speaker 1:That's what's hot on the streets. Second is Smithville Tennessee. Never heard of it, but thank you for listening. Apparently, the entire town of Smithville Tennessee is listening. Yeah, thank you. And Hilliard Ohio. I've heard of Hilliard Ohio even less than Smithville Tennessee, but there's a bunch of people from Hilliard who are listening, so thanks, thanks for listening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean. The truth is, y'all wouldn't know the name of our town, where the fuck we live either.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to put it out there in case somebody shows up at our house, but I will say that I grew up in a town called Copenhagen, new York, and if you can find that on a map, I will send you a peppermint.
Speaker 2:A peppermint candy?
Speaker 1:Yes, I'll send you a peppermint.
Speaker 2:They'll get two peppermint candies that they can also locate Woodville, ontario, which is where I grew up. We'd not have lived there anymore. But seriously, though, like how did you find us? Because we have not done any advertising and it's been really fun to see the virus, the mushroom, the spores whatever way the zombies are spreading Spores all over them. We were eating spaghetti one night and I was being gross and like open my mouth and making Dan watch me. It was like the spores coming out from the last of us in my mouth. Yeah, my silly eye was trying to not spores, right yeah?
Speaker 1:First shout out yeah, let's do it. I have a billionaire recipe from Sea of Arrows on threads. If you don't remember, we did an episode, a couple of episodes back where we talked about eating the rich and I even made a fake advertisement about making, about food made out of rich people. Yeah, I'm going to say it actually sounded to start to sound pretty good. So here's the recipe. So if you guys want to write this down and try it at your next, your next cookout, this might make you next protest.
Speaker 1:Winner. Yeah, it starts with the fire Sacks of tightly wrapped hundreds, so fresh from the mint you can still smell the ink. Stoke a nice hot blaze under a tandoori oven. Next you're going to want to shave the flesh from your billionaire using a very sharp knife Wave, for thin cuts are best. Oh, because next you're going to slap those babies on the walls of your oven and that they'll heat evenly to bring out that delicious flavor that only comes with generational wealth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, billionaires are kind of like Kobe beef or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're very rich flavor.
Speaker 2:I love the sea of arrows. I'll keep it in mind when we have a revolution. Finally, and then we've also gotten some new Apple podcasts reviews, which is fun, yeah. So thanks to the dude abides, triple zero. The dude abides, triple zero says I've been looking for a good zombie podcast for years and I was lucky enough to stumble across this. Me too. Talk about all things zombies, not just books, and they're hilarious. Thanks, I think he's probably talking about you, dan.
Speaker 1:Now you're hilarious too.
Speaker 2:I didn't have any sense of humor before you came into my life. That's the truth. Hope that you do this for years. Eat the billionaires. Yes, I really love that. We're building community around consuming rich people, yeah.
Speaker 1:Big shout out to Zompocalypse on Instagram for sharing with us at. The giant angry zombie in the last of us in the show is called Rat King and apparently there are six stages of zombies in the game. That one's like a level level five. He showed us a picture of it and it doesn't exactly look like that, but I believe him. I believe him If he says that's a rat king, because I didn't play the games.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it sounds like Zompocalypse you know you're talking about when it comes to the last of us. So I trust you, but I do actually want to. This is a thing I never thought I would say. I want to watch game game play at the last of us. Yeah, yeah, because a friend of mine from work said that they loved it and they were also shocked. Their husband asked them for their birthday to watch the game play for the last of us. So I think we might do that. Maybe you have another episode about it and then we'll actually know more about the Rat King.
Speaker 1:You know, it was about 95 degrees and I was sitting in my truck with a load of asphalt on that was about 450 degrees and a sweating buckets covered in covered in asphalt from my fingertips to my elbows. I'm trying to wipe sweat out of my eyes and I get a text from Leah that says Do you know who the Rad Brad is? I don't know he is. I was like I mean, it sounds familiar, I guess. And then I had to spend like an hour going through the lexicon of all the names I know over the years. I'm like who the fuck is Rad Brad? Is he a listener? Is like, is he talking shit about me? Who's this Rad Brad and why is it? Why is he popping up in conversation from Leah Leah's? So turns out the Rad Brad is a YouTuber who does let's plays and did a let's play on the last of us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it hooked my friends and now I want to, now I want to watch it. And then also we got another last of us shout out from a new listener Megan, hi Megan, hi Megan. I will say very excited to say the name of a person that I don't know. If you identify as female, non-binary, whoever you are, whatever you identify as that was, I think, not a man. That was exciting for me. You don't know, I don't love the men. True, megan could be a man's name. I, what do I know?
Speaker 1:Megan could be a guy's name too, Leah.
Speaker 2:It's true. You know what? I'm being super sexist. I'm so sorry. I went. But. But the point is is that Megan made a whole new point of observation with the last of us that I had never considered, even having watched it twice in a row. So thanks to you, and again we're going to have another episode just about the last of us, because it really got down, I talking and we're not going to say more. I'll just leave it there for now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, no more, no more spoilers. So if you're curious what that was tough it shocked me.
Speaker 2:I think I was. Yeah, I had rose colored glasses for the last of us a little bit.
Speaker 1:But yeah, there we go, we had, we had, we had, we had people talking to us.
Speaker 2:Hi, that's exciting for folks who are basically hermits in the woods. So we actually had one more note from Megan to to sort of like pick us off for a pride and prejudice and zombies discussion, which I appreciate. First of all I want to say thanks, megan, for saying that we make your bad days and anxiety spells better, because thinking about us on the apocalypse is less stressful than the shit in anyone's head. That's a quote from Megan, thank you. But apparently Megan used to work in a bookstore and they say I've officially given up on pride and prejudice and zombies. They call it P, p and Z, which I really like that acronym, yeah, I've always loved old books.
Speaker 2:There's something fascinating about reading old ideas, customs and writing styles. So I like Jane Austen for what she is and I've read P and P many times. But I find the zombie stuff jarring and added in so poorly. They really shake you out of the story. When those books first came out and several of us tried to read them she's talking about her colleagues at a bookstore we had no success. Still can't get through it, even years later.
Speaker 2:I feel that and we agree, megan. Neither of us finished this book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't finish it, Leah did. Leah was like I'll finish it, I'm going to, I'm going to read this book. And then she got to basically where I am and you were just like no.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I couldn't. There was still like nine more hours. I looked into three hours, three and a half hours of the audio book and there's nine and a half more and I just I couldn't do it.
Speaker 1:Real quick. Before we get into the synopsis, I want to say that I didn't stop reading because it was bad. I stopped reading because it was boring and, yes, at a certain point I was like I don't need to know how this ends. I don't need to. I don't need to read this for another five and a half hours to know that at the end, Mr Darcy and Elizabeth get together and there's probably a big zombie fight. But it'll, it'll go the same way every zombie fight goes. Because Elizabeth is a master martial artist, Mr Darcy is a quite talented warrior as well.
Speaker 1:Like is there a million zombies? Is there a? Is there a mega zombie? Is there a tank zombie? Is there a rat king? Like that's the only thing that could happen that would. That would like make this Like, even even give them a chance of making the zombie fighting even remotely interesting. Yeah, it was disappointing. I really wanted to love it.
Speaker 2:I love the concept of it, so why don't you put the I've into the summer and then we can talk more about what we love? Yes, the summary. Where is it?
Speaker 1:What am I looking at? Ah, yes, future me edit all that out, so OK. So Pride and Prejudice and Zombies this is a Parody novel of the first of many parody novels that came out around this time, and Seth Kram Smith, in 2009, wrote this. I appreciate, at the very beginning of the book there's an, there's an author's forward and without that forward, of him describing like where the idea came from and how much fun he had writing it and how, basically, 85% of the book is just Pride and Prejudice, and then he just added stuff. For the book there's Pride and Prejudice and then he just added stuff to it to make it a zombie story.
Speaker 1:Without those things, I would have been like fuck this guy, fuck, fuck, fuck. Seth Kram Smith. This is, this is a piece of shit. But because I knew that, I went in with an open mind and an open heart and I'm like, ok, this is something that wasn't just a money grab, this is something that somebody thought was ridiculous and they went for it because it was. It was funny to them and they wanted to do it. So I give, I give them consideration for that fact. So, yeah, this is an alternate version of a Regency era England where a plague has caused the dead to rise as zombies. I would call these like mystical zombies, because they're rising up out of the grave, like there's a supernatural element to the zombies. Yeah, here's a big twist which we'll talk more about, but the Bennett sisters have been trained in eastern martial arts and use weaponry to fight zombies. There is, while, while the author was talking about how they imagined the book being, they also imagined it being a lot like Crouching Tiger, hidden Dragon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, not me that right away.
Speaker 1:I can tell you that I feel like this book could have also been called Pride and Prejudice and Kung Fu. They could have left the zombies out entirely and just had it be about Kung Fu, and it would have accomplished the same goal of it being ridiculous and a mashup. The story follows the same basic plot as the original Pride and Prejudice, with Mrs Bennett's intent to marry off her daughters to wealthy gentlemen in the romantic relationships between Jane and Mr Bingley and the developing relationship between Elizabeth and Mr Darcy.
Speaker 2:Can I just say that I love that they use. You have first names for the ladies and last names like they're always referred to as Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy, just saying yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know it's. I know it's like how people talk to each other. In that time I guess I wasn't there, but it really threw me off.
Speaker 2:You were, you wrote a letter because they're like.
Speaker 1:And then Mr Bingley said, and then Mr Darcy said and Mr Collins said I'm like, who the fuck are these?
Speaker 2:people. There were too many people. I was confused. Is this the guy?
Speaker 1:she wants to date? Or is this the guy that is this guy's dad? Are we talking to Mr Mr Darcy? Like, please don't call me Mr Mr Darcy, that's my father's name. Hmm, call me Mr Darcy. First name Mr Mr Darcy. In addition to of, in addition of zombies fighting as the back it up, the addition of zombie fighting adds action and humor to the narrative, although the themes of class, marriage and manners remain. They certainly do. They certainly do.
Speaker 2:You know, Dan, I was thinking about this as we were talking and I know we have like an outline for how we want to do it, but I really think we should actually break it up to pride what we liked about it Prejudice Well, we didn't like about it but also where there was a lot of fucking prejudice. Yeah in this book and zombies, maybe the parts that were just really extra terrible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the zombie parts, the rotten Corpse bits.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so are you up for going with me?
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's, let's do that.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about the pride part. Where do we have pride in this book? Where do we like it?
Speaker 1:I thought it was funny. It wasn't always funny, but it was an, it was. It was an absurdity, you know. So you know there was. There were times where you could almost forget that there was zombies or kung fu added to it, because it's just Elizabeth talking to Mr Darcy or Mr Bingley or talking to Jane or Mrs or Mr Bennett or Mr Collins or any of the other, mother or Mr rich white dude.
Speaker 1:As long as they're of the same class, they have to speaking roles, anyways, you would. You know, they're just talking as if they're like, oh, and then we'll be going to the bowl, and, and then there would just be a point where it's like, excuse me, while I, while I backflip over this zombie and decapitate it with the deadly arts.
Speaker 2:I think I actually I will say this I remember reading Pride and Prejudice for school and as I was re listening to the book I was thinking thank fucking God I don't have to write a paper about this again. I think I might have had like some like negative associations with this book from just the high school drama, but I think like having the humor intermingled and just the absurdity was definitely for a solid first 90 minutes I was like this is great, like I can't believe that into this. This is actually kind of funny because it would just have these ridiculous matter and some zombie stuff and I love the first line. The first line is is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains?
Speaker 1:I don't agree with that as a universal truth, but yes it is in pride and precious.
Speaker 1:It's an interesting line, I will say I must say yes, I thought it was all in all. It's like it's one of those things where if you say that you're reading a book called Pride and Prejudice and zombies, it immediately makes the person that you're talking to immediately interested in whatever that is. Yes, because you hit them with the pride and prejudice partner like yeah, I know that one, mr Bingley. And then you say and zombies? And they're like wait, is this a sequel? What is this? What happened? What happened after? I am curious. You explain it and they're just like I immediately need to read this.
Speaker 2:And clearly like it was successful as a bestseller. There are sequels I'm not sure how many and part of me is curious to read a sequel. That's like 100% a Seth Graham Smith book to see.
Speaker 1:I think they're written by different people. Oh really, Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They're sequels.
Speaker 2:But yeah, clearly, clearly, people, some people really love this. They made a movie. Yeah, actually we were like we were talking about whether or not we should watch the movie as a way of preparing for this podcast, but those were like, oh my God, the book was so bad.
Speaker 1:I don't think we could do it yeah.
Speaker 2:And then I watched. We watched like two minutes together and it's actually those two minutes could be fooling us.
Speaker 1:We're pretty great, so it's also the two minutes of the book that we're really entertaining too.
Speaker 2:True. And then Mr Darcy falls in love with Elizabeth because he sees her fighting prowess.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Amongst the horde of zombies.
Speaker 1:I think that her muscular arms don't make her look too unfeminine.
Speaker 2:Yes, because they're still alive. And small yeah, you look for small arms.
Speaker 1:If you're a woman, what else do we like?
Speaker 2:Anything else we feel pride about, I'll just say, you know a good, good job for giving this a try. I think like it was a fun exercise. I can imagine if I was writing it I would have enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know that's. My pride is that the author enjoyed writing it and people enjoyed reading it. I remember people unironically reading this in like coffee shops and at bookstores because they were like. They were like. I am the embodiment of Wednesday Adams and these are the types of books I read.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's definitely like you know. You kind of know who you're meeting. If they've read my private prejudice and zombies, yeah, it tells you a lot about the person and I wouldn't hate a person that told me they read the whole thing. Yeah, I like you and I kind of admire your ability to Stick with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if my space page said right at the top that their favorite book is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, you also knew who you were dealing with. Very much Does that only do, did they say they like it? But clearly they haven't read all of the book.
Speaker 2:I am curious has anybody read the whole book? I want to know who you are if you have. But let's get to the prejudice part, because there's a fuck ton yeah that's a much wider midsection in the prejudice part. Yes, Starting with fat phobia.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, there's so much fat phobia and what's interesting to me is like I thought about me, you know, maybe I'll go back and see like what did Jane Austen write versus what Seth Gram Smith write? And then I was like I'm not putting that much effort into this. So I don't know who said it, I just know there's fat phobia, particularly with Mr Collins, the preacher, who happens to be with cousins, because marrying cousins is perfectly acceptable for the filthy rich in Regency area Britain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the richer you are, the closer to family you can marry. Yeah, and if you have all the money, you can just marry your siblings.
Speaker 2:Keep it in the family or your parents. I mean, that's basically all of porn nowadays anyway, so they just, they just got on it sooner.
Speaker 1:They're like this is going to be hot in, like in 2020.
Speaker 2:It's really not, but it is the state of our world today. But so, yeah, so Elizabeth like just hates fucking Mr Collins the preacher. And there's this one point where they're at a ball and she just says, quote, unquote, he was more interested in the buffet than the ball and she described him as very round. And then her dad calls Mr Collins fatter than the Buddha himself.
Speaker 1:Did her dad meet the Buddha?
Speaker 2:I don't. I mean, this is one of those lines where I'm like was that in the original? I feel like it's not, which means that that was some like fat phobia and racism, modern day, like it was very weird. It was a weird line, but interesting. Yeah, I thought that Buddha is cute. I'm going to say it I love a fat Buddha.
Speaker 1:And you know, that kind of leads me into something that is part of part of my prejudice the weirdness of including Eastern martial arts and philosophy into the Regency era I feel like there was. There was like England already had a martial art system. It was called fencing and musketeering, like they already more sense.
Speaker 1:They already waged war, and I feel like you could have just you could have just built on like, if, if the Regency era is the image that you're going for and that's like what you're the story you're trying to tell, like these types of things would have made a lot more sense and would have added to the nostalgia of the Regency era literature, instead of like having to explain how the Bennett sisters were sent to China to train with with Shaolin monks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it makes so little sense. And then there's like lots of random racism as well, where Mrs Bennett called the mom blames the quote Chinese devils for Elizabeth saying no Mr Collins wedding proposal. And Dan, you and I had quite a debate because you're like, well, our character is racist and I'm like, yeah, I don't know, was that?
Speaker 1:a necessary line.
Speaker 2:And then I was like looking up when the opium wars were between Britain and China and they're after the Regency era, but I get, I mean like I guess I can imagine, sure, in that timeframe I bet you there was a lot of xenophobia.
Speaker 1:I'll say, oh, yeah, Of course. Yeah, I mean there was like the. They were trading spices all over the world at that time. I mean I don't know exactly the history of of England and China both, but I feel like China was one of the few non colonized.
Speaker 2:Well, that's why the opium war is not to like get into a history lesson here. The opium war is a really important because China was like a really I'm going to try and be brief a really powerful force in by the mid 1800s and was had a lot of influence globally. So, and obviously the Great Wall was a real thing, impossible. The British opium wars was the British basically like fighting along the sea line of China over opium. So it's a long story short. That was how, like, hong Kong became not part of China, ok, and I believe Taiwan as well. Don't quote me on that. It's been a while since.
Speaker 2:I read my history on opium wars I mean sure I'll believe it. Yeah, it was so. There was like some colonization, like informal colonization of the shore area of China through the opium wars by the British.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, leah, I don't know how you felt about this topic, but there appears to be some amount of anti feminism in this very feminism based book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think you know Jane Austen was great for her time and it was still really painful to read and like think about what my reality might have fucking been, or like what my answer Reality would have been in the early 1800s. Wow, I mean like there's a lot of shitty stuff about the world today, um, but I'm really glad. I'm glad that I was not a rich white woman in 1800. I think it was pretty shitty.
Speaker 2:There is one part where Mr Darcy says, like what is an accomplished woman? And it's like an impossible feat of things. So to be an accomplished woman in the early 1800s, you have to be not only a master of the female arts but deadly as well. You have to be thorough. You have to thorough knowledge of music, drawing, singing, dancing, well trained in fighting styles of Kyoto masters, of course this was obviously added modern weaponry and tactics of Europe, certain something in their air. They're walking, their tone of voice and all this. She must add something more substantial to the improvement of her mind by substantial reading. That is what an accomplished woman is.
Speaker 1:Well, I got to say at least. At least, the things that he considers to be an accomplished woman are things that involve her mind and her character, and instead of, just like, she has to have tiny wrists.
Speaker 2:Well, she has to have tiny muscular arms, though and he does talk about her form quite a bit she has to have tiny feet. I mean, that was a thing in some places, that's true, yeah.
Speaker 1:Probably more so then because, like you, had to cover your ankles.
Speaker 2:This is the beginning of like trying to make women do it all like no, thank you. I'm definitely in the girl nap, Go get a nap, don't like conquer the world.
Speaker 1:This was the the era of like you have to girl boss, but you'll never be a boss or work yeah.
Speaker 2:And then I think it was Elizabeth who said this, but I'm not 100 percent sure. I'm pretty sure it's another woman saying is about women. The Mr Darcy has the trickery of a woman in him and they were like a number of quotes like that that were just like, I'm sure, from the original book and just demonstrate that, even though Jane Austen was ahead of her time in many ways, it's still this idea that women are like trickery and overly emotional and objects to trade for marital reasons.
Speaker 1:Or objects to fight zombies for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what was your favorite part of like Of the feminism?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I love, I love anti feminism or feminine.
Speaker 2:It was like was there a feminism on what you liked?
Speaker 1:You know, I mean the main character, lizzie. Did they call her Lizzie in the original? I don't know. That's a very like modern name nickname for Elizabeth. Anyways, I did like that. She was a lot more modern in her, in her thinking. She wasn't just like I have to, I have to find a man. She was more of the mindset of like what do I need a man for? I'm 27 now. I'm basically an old woman, I'm a spinster. And if, if Mr Darcy wants to take me on a date, he better fucking impress me.
Speaker 2:And Mr Collins is a hell. No, yeah, he will. I really enjoyed when she was like, when he was like, oh, you're just saying no to me in my first proposal, because that's what women do, I wouldn't say, no, it's time, I'll return, and she's basically like, if you do that, I'm going to chop your head off, so I might not want to try again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I do appreciate that, because that was definitely a time and place where it's like your father tells you to marry Mr Collins. You marry Mr Collins. He's your only choice. You're 27. No one else is going to have you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, only the fat preacher, and being fat is terrible. Yeah, and she's also actually. I think Elizabeth is not very religious, now that I think about it, or the way that Seth Gram Smith describes her, because she talks about how, like, mr Collins is like oh, you can just like, pray the zombies away, and Elizabeth is basically like, no, yeah, only swords work for that. So they were not a good match.
Speaker 1:Not many people I think are a good match with Mr Collins.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, her friend didn't end up marrying him, I think I remember correctly. But it's interesting because even though she defies her mother and says I'm not marrying him, then her mom threatens to never talk to her again. Which is this really interesting example of like internalized patriarchy and misogyny, but then the only way that narcissism, yes, oh yeah. I mean the generational trauma of narcissistic behavior is well earned in our society. But then her dad is the reason why she doesn't have to marry him, right, like she still doesn't actually have the autonomy.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:He's kind of sad because he's the one who doesn't want her to marry him, and he doesn't want her to marry him because he looks like a fat Buddha. That's the reason.
Speaker 1:Oh, this kind of makes me feel bad for Mr Collins.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I'm saying I don't think he was that bad of a guy. Who knows.
Speaker 1:He was kind of gross. Yeah, that's true, he was kind of a gross dude that didn't take no for an answer. Yeah.
Speaker 2:There was another prejudice. I noticed that I felt. Anyways, I was just annoyed reading about rich people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know my personal feelings about zombie, zombie stories in general is that these are stories that that critique modern society. They critique things like capitalism, generational wealth. Yeah, and levelism and feminism and all of these things that like we have in our society, that don't really have a place when you take society away and everybody has to depend on each other or fend for themselves just to survive and this book didn't have those things. It's like the zombies came and they ate everybody and the wealthy remained, perfectly fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were still doing having fucking balls and were able to travel all the way to China and Japan, while they're zombies. It makes no sense, but I guess only the rich could do that. Get on board and that's probably the privilege for the rich. This is why we should have eaten the millionaires back in the eighteen hundreds. Yeah, we know that we wouldn't have billionaires today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's no DNA evidence back then, so they never would have caught us.
Speaker 2:That's really true. Oh wow, Missed opportunity. What are you thinking, ancestor?
Speaker 1:This is what happens when you procrastinate.
Speaker 2:This will happen when you leave it to the next generation to figure out you got take ownership.
Speaker 1:now you got to eat those billionaires yourself.
Speaker 2:If we don't eat those billionaires, then the people here, a few generations now, are going to have fucking trillionaires to deal with. I'm just saying, or no earth at all. Who knows what will happen. But the one moment that I thought was like really well done by Seth Gramsmith and I felt like was, I believe, his critique of their wealth, was this moment when they realized that the servants that were making their dessert for this ball had all been eaten by zombies. Only two zombies got like 12 different servants, but they didn't give a shit about the servants. They were upset that there was blood on the cake. That's what I've said. It doesn't help. I think it's moved on about their day.
Speaker 1:It doesn't help to help to make us like the characters, Like I could have imagined that from some side. Characters like if Mr Bingley said that shit, but you know Elizabeth was right there with him. Like ah, the cake is fucked. Yeah, yeah, I just it was, it was some more servants and tell them to make another cake and clean up this goddamn blood.
Speaker 2:Or why not harness the zombies to make the cakes for you? Yeah, why? They seem intelligent enough, perhaps, I mean maybe Maybe.
Speaker 1:Yes, these are different, different zombies. You know, maybe they can make cakes. Another another bit that I would bring up is that for purists of Jane Austen, I kind of feel like enough and I've seen and I've seen people say this is that the dramatic changes and the absurdity of it kind of trivialized the original and I kind of felt like that was a little bit true. But but more so than that, I kind of felt like it made this sort of like a gimmick, it's like a novelty gimmick, and I don't feel like this book was designed necessarily to be enjoyed as as a story like you're not going to share parts of the story with people and be like this. This blew my mind and said it's something they kind of just leave on the coffee table and when people come over they look at it and they're like what's that? And then you're like, oh, I have a book that's called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, because, that's true, I am the embodiment of Wednesday Adams.
Speaker 2:You know what? I want a physical copy of this because I think it is great for a coffee table book, even for us. Like, can you imagine just being like I'm having a shitty day, I'm going to randomly open Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and read like one page? I feel like if you know the basic plot, it could be entertaining as like a random pick a page and read it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it has to be hard cover. It has to be like a like a like a gold leaf to leather bound hard cover, first edition that we put on on a bookshelf right above the mantle of the fireplace, next to our high backed chairs.
Speaker 2:Yes, the fire glowing in the background, that sounds wonderful.
Speaker 1:Allow me to read you a passage from Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
Speaker 2:I mean honestly, that would be great. If you want to, you know what, I might just start listening to it while I'm going to sleep, Elizabeth jumped over the zombies and decapitated them all in one fell swoop.
Speaker 1:She was a master of the deadly arts. The word the deadly arts comes up so often in in this book. Like every other sentence, it's like. It's like have you mastered the deadly arts? According to the deadly arts, I'm required to do this now. I mastered the deadly arts, and in Shang Ma China.
Speaker 2:It was just really absurd. There's no other word for it than that. I mean, I don't know, I'm not. I'm not a purist, I'm not someone who, like, holds this book up and it's as this, like really amazing thing. I'm sure there's lots of literature folks that do, but I'm not one of them, so I don't mind that it's become absurd.
Speaker 1:Well, I am a purist of zombie literature and you know I'm currently reading a book that defies what I'm about to say, but and I think it's good but typically there's a certain, there's a certain story that zombie readers want to read, and it's a story about survival. It's a story about the breakdown of society and a story about who we are when the chips are down, and I don't think that probably the story is about the who we are when the chips are down, and I don't think that Pride and Bridges and Zombies was that, but I do think it could have been. I feel like, instead of this mashup I mean no disrespect to the writer, because they clearly decided to do this on purpose, but I feel like it would have been a lot more interesting if we took the characters of Pride and Bridges and Zombies and crafted an all new story around them.
Speaker 2:I wonder what the sequels are. You know I don't think so. It's just still more going to balls and like talking about inheritance and marriage.
Speaker 1:I think what this book did is it kind of burst the idea of a new concept entirely. I forget what the other, what the other versions of classic literature were that they just it's just like tale of two cities and werewolves, you know, like the whole bunch of these just popped up and I don't exactly remember the titles of them anymore because I read this like two months ago. But the sequels to this are just more of this, where it's just like. I don't know, maybe they are reimagining because like there's no sequels to Pride and Bridges is there, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't think so. Been a while since I thought about that, but I don't think so, and that's why, like that might be interesting, but I'm not willing to. I'm very selective about what I watch or read, because I'm aware there's so much out there and after having read three and a half hours, listen to three and a half hours, I think I'm done with this particular honor. But it was interesting and I'm glad I gave it a try. It did give me some chuckles, yeah. But, dan, is there any other prejudice you'd like to mention before we move on to zombies?
Speaker 1:Yes, I thought I talked about this already, but I guess I didn't. This decision of the writer to train the benefiters in martial arts felt anachronistic, which is a word that I learned recently. That's a big word.
Speaker 2:It's got a lot of syllables.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm gonna use it every time that this situation pops up for me.
Speaker 2:Right, this is what you were saying about how they like they had things in Europe that would have been perfectly Honestly, they could have, like, used guillotines. There's so many great European battle weapons.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I mean I'd you know I'd like to see a zombie guillotine moment, but I feel like that's just one scene, takes a while to reset one of those things. But yeah, like the halberds, broadswords, rapiers, fencing like a fencing foil is actually an incredibly good zombie fighting weapon Because you fight from a distance, it's lightning fast strikes and it's has a strong piercing tip so you can pierce through that skull real quick. Draw back and Go on for your birthday, dan. I don't. I don't want offense, but instead, like they had katanas, they had, they had Kunai, they had shurikens, daggers and All kinds of Eastern weapons, and they explained it away by, like mr Bennett, sending his daughters to train with the monks again.
Speaker 2:If they're zombies, how the fuck did they make it there and back? I don't know.
Speaker 1:Before the zombie outbreak. No, I mean, I guess the zombie outbreak just isn't as dangerous as like as as you would think it would be.
Speaker 2:It seems very. It seems kind of like incidental to what's happening. Yeah, let's, let's finish off with them. Zombies I have a favorite zombie moment from the book. I wonder if you do. I've not written this down. I.
Speaker 1:Mean. The opening scene was decent. I did like when the zombies came out of the cellar because it actually explained that. Actually explained an incident where somebody was forgetful and that's what caused the zombies to come in and eat all, of all of the servers.
Speaker 2:Yes, the seller to open because they were fucking dying of heat exhaustion.
Speaker 1:To go they want, they wanted to let the the cool air in from the basement and then zombies are there. That was the only time that, like it kind of made sense. There was also. There was also a character that popped up and listening to the audiobook. It was brilliant because this person was infected but like slowly transforming over time and and everybody else, like you know, the, the, the person, the narrator, is doing a, you know, doing a typical regency era English Accent that you would expect. But when they get to this character, who's like suffering from, like, like like brain rot and like trans transforming into a zombie, they're like like Business and that made me laugh pretty hard that's actually the dog, the voice that Dan uses to narrate our dog's thoughts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those are pretty great. My favorite moment I'm curious if you've even got to this part was when it was Christmas time and they have this family that visit the Bennett family. Do you remember this one, dan? Yeah, the family that's visit the Bennett family every year to do Christmas Carol for them, and then at some point they realize but they're all zombies. That was my favorite moment.
Speaker 1:That was a good moment, because that was one of the few times where they had an emotional response yes to them being zombies. Then they show up. They showed up and they used all of their new Christmas Christmas weapons to kill them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was a couple other times they got an emotional reaction when they had there was a bride that was a zombie, and then there was a baby that was a zombie. They were upset about it as well. That one was. So there were some good zombie moments, but not enough, and that was apparently the feedback. Apparently, the version that I was listening to was the new and improved, more zombie version, and I would have wanted more.
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Speaker 2:Drink responsibly or don't how many, how many zeds Would you give this book? We're going with ten or five.
Speaker 1:I'm going without a ten. I have to go, have to go out of ten. I'm gonna give it six out of ten Because I do think that, like the first half of the book, like you can read it and have a bit of enjoyment from it and it is funny and it is interesting and Novel for what it is.
Speaker 1:But, as far as it being a good zombie story, it's not. It's not a good zombie story. It's also not a good kung fu story. In fact, this is one of the few times where I give it less stars, because if you take the zombies away, it's a better story. Wow, I mean literally, it is.
Speaker 2:It's a classic. For that I would give it ten zeds as a coffee table book. Now that I think about it, I actually really, really do. You want to purchase a physical book because I think it could be fun to randomly pick up and read, like at different parts. But I was also gonna give it a six. I can't say five because I did enjoy it For the time that I listened and then I just couldn't keep up, I couldn't pay attention. So that's going to stop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, agreed, I. You know, I, I listened to these audiobooks while I'm driving a truck in the middle of summer, built with asphalt, and there's just a point where I'm like I, I just can't anymore. I know where it's going. Nothing is going to surprise me anymore. I've I've read the book in its entirety and I'm halfway through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was. It was just slow. It slowly died, kind of like that person who slowly got bit yeah, you know it's bit in the beginning by zombies and then it just kind of petered over me. I'm really curious if anybody. I've already said this, but did you read the whole thing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know you and Megan didn't anybody else. Did Elizabeth hook up with mr Darcy?
Speaker 2:Was there a hot and raunchy sex scene after zombie killing? I hope so. I would have redeemed it for me. Just let me know a page number that is if there was, maybe they consider possibly holding hands.
Speaker 2:It was. I will say like, especially with today's Media, even though there were zombies mixed in, it was too slow pace for me, I think. Look, if I had to go back and read the original, I was like, just get together. It's not that interesting that you two kind of like each other but don't also have animosity like. This is like every rom-com which I don't like either. It was, like you know, an 18 or 19 or 17 something. Yeah, 17 century rom-com.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is a rom-com.
Speaker 2:I don't think, mr.
Speaker 1:Darcy. Is that great that's. That's also a part of my bad, my, my, my prejudice, yes, is that Mr Darcy redeems himself just because he's not as big of a piece of shit as Elizabeth originally thought he was. That is his yeah arc, yeah. By the end he's like miss Elizabeth. I kind of care about people, mr Darcy, and then they get married.
Speaker 2:There's my beef with. Like so many classics I had to read in high school. Same thing with oh my god, I'm forgetting what it's called oh, the great Gatsby. It's just like rich people that you hate that's, I feel. Like there's so much like classic literature. It's just rich people that you hate as you read about them, but that's why we have a zombie book club and not a classic literature. Yeah, I'm really sorry that I suggested this one, but it was interesting.
Speaker 1:I know a thing, though, for zombies with pride and prejudice Do you think this is a good time to bring up the next book we're going to read?
Speaker 2:Um sure, and then we can do our life update. That sounds good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I've been reading it and I think this will be a good next book, which will be episode 20. This book is called the girl with all the gifts, by mr Kerry, and I've been really enjoying it, especially the audiobook version, because it's it has like a soundtrack to it, which I think adds a lot of mood and excitement to it, which is really great. But this is, uh, it's it's about. It's about a girl. Well, she's got a lot of gifts, what's?
Speaker 2:one gift, give me one gift.
Speaker 1:I don't want to tell you one of the gifts, oh, no, okay, you're gonna make it a secret, that's fine. One thing I will give away about this book is that it's really interesting because again, another 2009 Zombie book. 2009 was a big year for zombie books, apparently, but this one Includes the Ophiocorticeps oh they are fungal zombies before it's time, I wonder if we know the first zombie book was that had fungal zombies.
Speaker 2:I mean, this is the first one, I think it yeah, I'm curious if mr Kerry got some like Not some coin for originating this idea. Probably not.
Speaker 1:It's not enough to probably copyright that apparently there was a movie made of this, of this book. I've not seen it or heard of it, but somebody said that they love the movie and I'm like, okay, now I gotta look for it.
Speaker 2:Check it out. I'm excited for this one. I'm also gonna attempt to read it. We'll see how I do. I'm really hoping I'm more successful than pride and prejudice and zombies and, and we'll also have some new episodes coming up about writing more with the loss of us, because I am just obsessed and who knows what else we'll talk about between now and episode 20. We've got four other episodes, oh, and we're gonna have a special surprise guest coming soon, so Stay tuned for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I A life update, Leah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. For those of us who are listening just to hear what Dan and I have been up to here, it is yeah, other than putting tar on the ground that you do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know my life, my personal life update is that I am working hard to not have to put tar on the ground anymore and I don't know what thing is going to make that possible. I want to start a mushroom growing business. I want to edit podcasts for a living. That's a new thing that I'm kind of looking into now because I do have experience as an editor. It's just, I kind of put it on the back burner for a long time because of some things that happened in the past. And then there's this podcast, and then there's writing a book. I got a bunch of things going on and who knows what'll happen, and I hope one day I do not have to climb back in that hot fucking truck anymore.
Speaker 2:That'll be the day I will be celebrating as well when that happens. I've also been working too much. The summer has kind of sucked in my but my feet are getting better for those way back who've been listening since the beginning when I can play my plantar fasciitis yeah, slowly getting better. Had a small setback because of the best moment Probably for me in 2023 was that we went to visit Tom 10 Farm and Sanctuary in New Hampshire last week.
Speaker 2:I was basically hiking for three hours through the 60 acre farm under over like uneven terrain in Hills, but 100% worth it, because last year I lost my horse. We both lost Atlas suddenly and he was like my best friend for 13 years. It's really devastating, but, to be frank, he cost a lot of money and I knew that I didn't want to have that expense of crew in my life after Atlas. So we decided to donate a portion of what we used to spend on him to Tom 10 Farm and Sanctuary as a way for me to like have an outlet and connection to cute animals, but not be personally financially responsible 100%, or a very large animal that often has accidents and hurts itself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when a horse at that farm needs to see the farrier, we're like good luck with that. We've already given you our money. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We've donated monthly, so I don't feel too bad, although I do sometimes chip in for specific things because, for example, so they have 75 different farm rescue animals, all the way from horses, goats, cows, both dairy cows and beef cows, pigs oh my God, the pigs were so great. Yeah, pigs of both sizes.
Speaker 1:They had small pigs and big pigs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the pigs that people eat and call it bacon. Yeah, just so sad. What else did they have, dan chickens, roosters, black cats, bunnies, black feral cats, actually specifically Goats, goats, oh donkeys. Donkeys, they had a llama red pajama, yeah.
Speaker 2:They had cocks, alpacas, they had cocks. They did have cocks. So they have so many animals, and all of these animals are rescue animals. Either they were in really diverse circumstances and they needed a safe place to land, or they were about to be slaughtered and they were rescued. But either oh and horses, of course, they had a lot of horses there, horses of horses, yeah, horse a horse, of course, and it was honestly my happiest day of 2023. I just loved being able to see animals that were safe, given everything they needed. They like, honestly speaking of like billionaires. These animals have won the fucking lottery, like their lotives, especially when they've gone from like really dire situations where they were starving or they had, you know, they were literally standing in like four feet of their own shit and now they're like endless beautiful pastries. They've got little things they can scratch their bodies on. They have amazing veterinary care, they have friends, but the same species as them is just amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Leah. What was your favorite animal that you met?
Speaker 2:That is such an awkward question for me. All of them. You must choose, I think, marsha, marsha the pig. So Marsha the pig story was that a local pig farmer, and I'd like, for those of you who don't really know a lot about where animals come from, that you eat. I'd like you to ask yourself the question what is the last time you saw a pig that is for eating? You don't, because they're in these horrible fucking sheds in insanely cramped conditions.
Speaker 2:And I won't even get into the details, but Marsha had this really weird life where, for a local farmer here, she was like put on display to be like this cute pig and people got attached to her, surprise, surprise, and they didn't want her eaten. So they basically begged that would like come and visit the farm stand. They begged Tom 10 farm in sanctuary to keep her and now she's this like I don't even know Dan like 700 pound pig and she's a big pig. She is big and she is out there with three other what would have been meat pigs that were rescued for different reasons and like living the fucking life. They've got mud. She the head, she took a shower, she had mud bath.
Speaker 1:Oh, they were spraying her with a hose. She loved that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was just like so amazing to see a pig that's happy because they are so rarely, rarely given the life that they deserve, so that meant a lot to me.
Speaker 1:I like the goats. I don't know if I like them the most, I don't know, it's hard to say, but the goats really liked me. They did.
Speaker 2:I think one day I might succumb and get some goats. They're really fun. La la la mancha was really fun. They some goats. The La Mancha goats no ears. They weirded me out, but apparently that's how they're born.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they kind of look like Shrek a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're super cute. Yeah, and I definitely became fast buddies.
Speaker 1:The horses really liked me too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got a good selfie. You know we should post the selfie if we're feeling it one day in our stories of you and me and one of the horses. That was the other thing I learned. So Atlas, it was a rescue race horse. He has a long and very shitty history the horse that died a few months ago in the racing industry. One of the things that they cut his vocal cords so that he wouldn't be able to win any more.
Speaker 2:What I didn't know about race horses is that his mom, most moms that give birth to foals to then race again, don't actually raise their own foals. They breed other mares to be their babies, brood mares, and then they kill the babies of the brood mares because they're considered a byproduct. And that was so sad to me. I had no idea and like Atlas's mother was, I think, like a $2 million winner. So I know for a fact that, like he was taken from her and then she was, he was raised by some other mare who had had her actual baby killed for me or glue or whatever. So you know, I think what's kind of interesting for me when I thought about it is like farm animals on the whole are sort of living through an apocalyptic level of terribleness right now. I think we like 72 billion land mammals a year that are living in heinous, fucking yeah.
Speaker 1:That's an absurd number.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like a farm sanctuary like this is kind of like a bunker of safety for them, for the very few who are lucky to live there. So if you're feeling so inspired, I would definitely go and check Tom 10 farm and sanctuary, will put it in the show notes, maybe throw a little bit of cash their way If you're feeling so inspired, or just follow and like learn the stories of these animals because they're really, really special.
Speaker 1:They do a good job of telling you these animal stories. I wasn't expecting that from the tour. Like I was like, yeah, I'm going to go see some fun animals. And then they told each of the animal stories, like where they came from, like which auction lot they came from, how they got them. Like there's and there's so many like legal battles too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Because of a. Well, what was fucked up is that there was a number of animals there that were from a rescue technically a nonprofit rescue that then was abusing the animals they rescued. So you've got to be careful where you put your money too. But yeah, you can go on Facebook, Instagram I'm not sure where else they are and you can just read the stories of these animals. Highly recommend. It's pretty powerful stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and speaking of how happy you were, I really loved it because I would ask Leah, like how are your feet doing? And you were like I'm so happy, the animals are so nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't care. I knew that I would probably have a bit of a setback with my feet, but I didn't care, because I really miss spending time with farm animals. As a farm person myself, I raised cattle, I put them on the slaughter truck, and so it's been an interesting journey with me in thinking about the fact that animals are friends and not food in my life now. So it was just really. It was really really special.
Speaker 1:And all the animals are so nice because, like they're all rescues, like our dogs are rescues Atlas it was a rescue. It was a rescue and you know, with rescues you see a lot of well-deserved fear come from them. So like, sometimes they're not so friendly, sometimes they don't want to come near you, sometimes they don't even want to make eye contact with you. And all of these animals were so nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean the ones, except for there were some feral donkeys that they're working on getting to trust people still. Yeah, but yeah, for the most part, it was clear that they have built so much trust with people, and the fact that there was like a whole flock of wild turkeys that lived with the pigs and did not give a shit about the fact that there were 30 of us that just like traipsed over to where they were, just tells you about the magic of a place like that.
Speaker 1:I didn't even know that.
Speaker 2:I thought they were rescued turkeys, no they just choose to live there because they know they're not going to get shot. Yeah, and they probably benefit from some of the feed that the pigs get. So I have a zombie question to just round this out. Back to zombies, thanks for listening to my rant about animals. I'd be like the other podcast I would have that. I'd just be like let's talk about how much animals that are not human are great. But I'm curious, dan, of all the farm animals you met at Tom 10 Farm and Sanctuary, which one do you think would be most equipped to survive the zombie apocalypse?
Speaker 1:Oh boy, I do not know the answer to that. I've got mine. I mean horses in general.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They can run fast. Yeah, they could run fast and they? They spook easily. So they see a rotting corpse coming at them. They're going to be in the wind, they'll just be, true, and there will be no catching them.
Speaker 2:It was always so upsetting in the walking dead where they get the horses. I was like this is not realistic. Yeah, but I think I love horses but I would go with goats just because of their they're fast and their climbing ability Goats are always really great survivors Also, they can eat just about anything. Yeah. If there's cockroaches of far more Much cuter, much, much cuter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they can eat. They can eat bushes. They can eat things that are typically poisonous, like like hemlock. They love them.
Speaker 2:They will eat the shit out of some hemlock Wow. I wonder if they can eat foxglove. What a badass creature. Let's get goats. One day, when we're done with traveling, we'll get goats.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean there's people whose entire business models are renting out. They're heard of goats, and goats will just clear out, like if you just pen them in the in an underbrush location, they'll just eat all the underbrush, instead of like having to go in with machetes or bush hogs or whatever and clear it out. Those eat it all.
Speaker 2:Which is great if you can keep them in, because they are master escape artists.
Speaker 1:They're. They're crafty and tricky and very smart.
Speaker 2:You know, I will say I'd give it for pigs too, because Marcia, for example, knows how to escape her pasture and she goes and visits other animals on the farm. So pigs are also pretty smart. Maybe they'd be okay.
Speaker 1:Pigs are very smart.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they are like equivalent to a seven year old human. Yeah so smarter than most humans, probably. Well, you've got your zombie homework folks. Episode 20, the Girl with All the Gifts by MR Cary. Don't forget to subscribe If you leave us a review. We would love to read on the podcast. We also love interaction on threads, yeah.
Speaker 1:Also, if you don't want us to read it, that's fine, yeah.
Speaker 2:Tell us like fuck, no, don't do that. Love to hear what you think about pride and prejudice and zombies, and make sure to write and review wherever you listen to us. Thanks so much, y'all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also a follow us on Instagram. We do some stuff on Instagram, but also I've been, I've been doing the threads. Follow us on threads.
Speaker 2:Dan's been threading it up. Yeah, I've been reading Dan's threads.
Speaker 1:That's Zombie Book Club podcast. It's the same on threads and Instagram.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's all on our link tree. Come say hi, join the horde.
Speaker 1:Yeah, join the horde, get bitten by a zombie and then bite someone else. That's what's happening in.
Speaker 2:Atlanta and where were the other two places before? We've been in. That's what's happening? They're biting people. I think that's what's happening. They are so. Thank you, we appreciate you.
Speaker 1:We have an answer now.
Speaker 2:Keep biting yeah.
Speaker 1:Keep biting people. Thanks for listening. Goodbye, bye.