If you haven't seen the rise of zombies in the last year you've probably been hiding from their bloodthirsty quest to take over classic literary works. The recent phenomenon of combining literary works that under public domain with pop culture monsters has taken off with the publication of Seth Grahame-Smith and co-author Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The book which takes the classic Pride and Prejudice story line and blends it together with exactly what the title states, zombies, is creating an entirely new genre which has been rightfully labeled as mash-ups. These works however aren't what many would likely know as mash-ups. Instead of the musical mash-ups which in many cases are simply taking vocals from one song and combining them with the beat or music of another isn't the goal for these works of fiction. These mash-up authors try to stay away from simply putting two opposites together just to make something that sounds new. "What many readers fail to realize is the complexity of the work that goes into creating a mash-up novel," says Zac Evan's 23, a staff member of Forbidden Planet a New York City based comic store. "It's really opening up a new realm in which very modern ideas feed on classics, and for many people I know make them (the classics) more fun to read." Because of these factors the works are quickly gaining popularity but also credibility. We are now seeing a shift in the way books are both written as well consumed.
What you can expect from a novel such as Grahame-Smith's is close attention to the original works minor cultural criticisms and intentions but he has interwoven his own literary motivations of pop culture to create a separate text from Austen's. The mash-up isn't throwing away the original text completely but rather using it as the foundation by which the author builds a new and loosely accurate portrayal of the novel. Herein lies the main argument against this new form of writing. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for example in many critics eyes strays too far away from the text to say that Grahame-Smith has created an accurate portrayal of the novels motivations and has placed zombies into the novel to generate a criticism more so of the book itself. The book in this sense is much less a new look on the novel but rather a new form of literary criticism. Despite the criticism the book as of April 9th, 2009 rose as high as the third spot on the New York Times best-seller list and now expects a sequel as well as multiple other adaptations fro other classics by various authors.
This mash-up craze is opening the flood gates to even more books from this genre being created that seem to be praying on Grahame-Smith's book's successes. As these books popularity increases they may prove to be influential in shifting how we approach modern works of both fiction and nonfiction. These literary mash-ups are not the only a new form of writing but a new form of literary criticism. With new ways of writing continuously being brought to life or in this case brought from the dead we don't know whether this style will have any longevity or lasting impression on literature but it certainly is pushing the envelope of what can be written and successful.
Following the idea of change it may come as no surprise that in Japan another literary phenomenon is taking place. A movement not about altering classics but about how novels are actually written. What is emerging is books now being written through text messaging. These full fledged novels called keitai, are composed by the furious thumbs of young teens which eventually turn into full length hard copy books. What's more astonishing than the production of these novels is the success that has been generated by them.
In fact according to the LA Times the 15 year old author known as "Bunny," a popular author for the genre has sold 110,000 copies of her book and generated a gross income of $611,000. In fact five of last years top ten selling novels in Japan were originally cellphone generated. The popularity of this new genre at first was thought to be un-noteworthy, but the rise and prevalence of them as legitimate works of fiction has propelled the genre to recreate how we think about writing and the consumption of literature. "In a new modern culture we are ingesting both fiction and nonfiction alike in very different ways and it seems to be a very natural progression for writing," says Nkosi Bandele a literary professor at the New School University in New York, who went on further to talk about the necessity of creating new forms of writing in order to keep the art moving forward. "These works should be taken seriously whether or not they were written using another texts words or on a cell phone, each form has its merits and values." These books which can be read via cellphone are just the cusp of how books are being consumed. Now with the recent development of Kindle, an electronic device much like an ipod which stores books and other texts digitally, we are making works more easily accessible and fitting to the modern reader. Literature is adapting to the modern world and we are quite literally eating it up.
Whether these new genres of literature are going to reshape how we both approach and create works is undecided but what has become clear is that modern writing is drastically changing. No longer are we limited to works generated solely from our own inspiration but we now have the capabilities to take a work such as Pride and Prejudice and place it within popular culture. Works such as Seth Grahame-Smith's may in fact revitalize old literature and re-inspire us to pick up the old text. We're not simply reading these texts but attributing them to our modern sensibilities. As for keitai it shows us that not only is what we're writing changing but how it is we write that is also moving forward. Skepticism on whether this is the right direction is still prevalent, however with the successes of both these styles it appears that which ever direction it is that modern literature is facing it's moving quickly.
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