Northanger Abbey Knock-offs and Blasphemy

[olde_fashioned]

So, last night while perusing my friends-list, I saw this entry in one of the communities I watch. After reading what quickly revealed itself to be a thinly-veiled assault on the concept of Intelligent Design as well as Christianity, THIS EXCERPT actually made me angry.

Let me show you why. A few quotes from the above linked pages for illustrative purposes -- please note that this is the author's idea of a good opening line for another one of those Jane Austen "mashup" books that have been so prevalent lately (ala Pride & Prejudice & Zombies):

In the beginning was the Word—also known as a very big banging marvelous sort of Expletive—a circumstance wherein God created the universe.

So God creates life out of nothingness by uttering a "very big banging marvelous sort of Expletive"? Hmm, interesting. I seem to have missed that portion of Scripture -- must make note to bring up at next Bible study!

.The latter ["the upright great apes called humans"], created most in His Image, immediately proceeded to “ape” for all they were worth—in other words, to create in turn—and were directly responsible for the manufacture of virtue and taste, style and erudition, and henceforth the knowledge of Good and Evil...

I suppose it's pointless to mention that Good and Evil already existed before man had knowledge of it?

To provide this teeming Creation with some modicum of order and supervision, God also created angels and demons and nephilim, and occasional great serpents and dragons, all of which he initially imbued with common sense—the one precious and infinitely rare faculty that the rest of the Creation was sorely lacking.

Now while I'm the first to point out the idiocy of most members of Creation, "in the beginning" it was not "lacking". Anyone who actually bothered to read the Scriptures might actually notice that according to God it was all "good", and since God is perfect and without fault, this means if He says so then His creation was too. (That was before the introduction of sin brought about by man, but this isn't my main thrust, as the excerpt's point of view is that Creation was imperfect to begin with, which is Biblically unsound, and, did I mention -- entirely pointless in a Jane Austen spin off???)

Common sense was not as common as the Deity might wish for. Indeed, not even angelic choirs were entirely free of a certain vice known as silliness.

"The Diety"??? That's like saying "the dog" or "the cat"!! I can only imagine what the rest of this "novel" (if it can indeed be deemed such) will contain if this is only a mere paragraph! And I thought P&P&Z was bad in its treatment of religion...*shakes head*

Does anyone see how much this ties into the plot of Northanger Abbey (JA's chronologically first and most naive completed novel outside of her juvenilia)? For those of you not familiar with the story, it's a Gothic parody that JA wrote imitating the popular fiction of her time. Somehow I managed to miss the part where JA is insulting religion and making a farce and mockery out of the first passages of Genesis delineating Creation (FYI Mr. Collins doesn't count).

There are few things that truly incur my anger, but blasphemy and intolerance hypocritically masquerading as otherwise are two of them. Even on a non-religious front, I'd still be annoyed, because someone has taken JA's work and hijacked it for religious effrontary and a means to political ends.

So consider this my official I-do-not-endorse/recommend/suggest/approve-of-this-book post, as promised in my own comment in reply to this situation.

Would someone please explain to me how standing up for one's religion makes me a ''fanatical'' and ''homophobic bigot''? (The parts of NA touching on homosexuality must have entirely slipped my mind, or else been deleted by elves, because when I last checked it wasn't there, not even in the modern mash-up excerpt or Andrew Davies' recent sex-laden screen adaptation.) I am never failing to be amazed how those most adamantly professing "tolerance" are among the most intolerant. It seems that anything save devotion to a religious ideal, and reverent mention of said ideals, are the only things not worth speaking respectfully of these days.

You know, I'm getting rather tired of the whole let's-steal-Jane-Austen's-works-and-insert-some-lackluster-material-every-few-paragraphs-and-call-it-a-day type "books". P&P&Z was a raging success initially because it was a new idea -- I should say, rather, a cleverly-packaged-existing idea, because the notion of taking someone else's writings and passing them off as your own has been around for a very very long time -- it's known as plagiarism. I read it and was sorely disappointed though I came with only modest hopes of enjoyment, and I plan to expound on this later in future when I can manage to get a proper review written up.

Your friendly neighborhood fanatical homophobic bigot signing off (who, btw and fyi, just so happens to have a great many books post-1905 gracing her shelves)! ;-P

Comments

[ceallaighgirl.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not sure about plagiarism, I'd call it more like parody or something along those lines.

But yeah, the first book was a funny idea (not that I've read it), but doing that to all the books? DUMB, old hat ideas. Especially hearing those excerpts. Sounds ridiculous and like it's in there just for the sake of being offensive.

[olde-fashioned.livejournal.com]

I call it plagiarism because I did read it and it's 80+ Austen's work. And half of Seth Grahame-Smith's "work" is devoted to infusing Eastern religions and having Lizzy Bennet make callous anti-Christian/anti-God remarks.

Wanting to like the book as something potentially along the lines of what JA would have enjoyed herself, I'm sorry SGS decided to turn it into a "statement" instead of what it ought to have been -- innocent fun.

[ceallaighgirl.livejournal.com]

Aah I see. Well that just sounds lame, because I like the concept, I like the idea of random unexpected humour (well obviously expected to some degree considering there is 'zombies' in the title), but if it's like that . . . yeah, lame. I mean, I don't mind stuff I like being changed around for the sake of humour if it's GOOD parody. But if it's just badly done, then that's pathetic.

[seventh-stage.livejournal.com]

'There are few things that truly incur my anger, but blasphemy and intolerance hypocritically masquerading as otherwise are two of them. Even on a non-religious front, I'd still be annoyed, because someone has taken JA's work and hijacked it for religious effrontary and a means to political ends. '

perfect thesis of my thoughts as well, yet man is not the end of all things.

i hope this can cheer you up too, the batman things were epic though.. i would but that t-shirt!:

http://seventh-stage.livejournal.com/131608.html?mode=reply
http://seventh-stage.livejournal.com/131380.html?mode=reply
thanks to you the later post (and more to come) was possible!

[sommertiara.livejournal.com]

Oh dear! Another one of these books. I will never read any of them that is certain.
It is strange how the parts about religion and homosexuality were completely non-existent all the times I read the book as well.
And you are right, I am not religious and this still upsets me, it is plagiarism nothing else.

[epea-pteroenta.livejournal.com]

The whole idea of P&P&Z is kind of distasteful to me. It's a relatively amusing idea that's been totally cashed in on. The joke is funny in the idea not in the execution. And that they then did it for the other books... I just have no interest. Bad theological insertions don't seem out of place. I don't want to read it at all - I know it'd make me angry!