{"id":152,"date":"2009-07-21T13:24:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-21T13:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/07\/of-mice-and-men-and-mummies.html"},"modified":"2009-07-21T13:24:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-21T13:24:00","slug":"of-mice-and-men-and-mummies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/07\/of-mice-and-men-and-mummies.html","title":{"rendered":"Of Mice and Men and Mummies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span>I&#8217;m pretty sure every writer<\/span> has this experience. At least, I hope so. You see a book on a shelf, or read about it in a magazine, and think: <span style=\"font-style: italic\">Wow. THAT is a great book idea. I totally could have come up with that. I totally could have written that. Why didn&#8217;t I? Why why whyyyyyyy? <\/span><\/p>\n<p>And then you lapse into a fit of envy and self-loathing because some other author is finding great success and you wish it were you.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not alone in that, am I? Please say no.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_HXZOhc9ASlo\/SmYJvitDX2I\/AAAAAAAAAUc\/QeFOGyz8HPc\/s1600-h\/Pride+Zombie.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px;float: right;cursor: pointer;width: 132px;height: 200px\" src=\"https:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_HXZOhc9ASlo\/SmYJvitDX2I\/AAAAAAAAAUc\/QeFOGyz8HPc\/s200\/Pride+Zombie.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>Because I feel that way, on so many levels, about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1594743347?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=jasoboye-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1594743347\"><span style=\"font-style: italic\">Pride and Prejudice and Zombies<\/span><\/a> (Quirk Books), by Seth Grahame-Smith and, um, Jane Austen. It&#8217;s a retelling of the classic <span style=\"font-style: italic\">Pride and Prejudice<\/span> story, in Jane Austenesque language. Only this time there are zombies in it. And now <a href=\"http:\/\/www.quirkproductions.com\/\">Quirk<\/a> has released another piece of delightful Austen+Magickal Creatures parody fiction: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1594744424?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=jasoboye-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1594744424\"><span style=\"font-style: italic\">Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters,<\/span><\/a> by Ben H. Winters.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, in greatly derivative fashion, I have been brainstorming additional ways to add vicious mayhem to classic literary works (with or without zombies). Had Quirk contacted me, this is where I would have gone&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">Of Mice and Men and Mummies<\/span> (John Steinbeck)<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">The Old Man and the She-Wolf<\/span> (Ernest Hemingway)<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">A Separate Piece of Flesh<\/span> (John Knowles)<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">Portrait of the Artist as a Winged Demon<\/span> (James Joyce)<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">The Sound and the Fury and Alien Robots<\/span> (William Faulkner)<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">The Apes of Wrath: Sasquatch Attack<\/span> (Steinbeck)<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">As I Lay Dying of Fear<\/span> (Faulkner)<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">Dr. Zhivago and Mr. Hyde<\/span> (Boris Pasternak)<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">A Farewell to Arms: Werewolf Summer<\/span> (Hemingway)<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">The Guts of Dorian Gray <\/span>(Oscar Wilde)<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">The Sword in the Neck<\/span> (T.H. White)<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">The Power and the Glory and the Robot Apocalypse<\/span> (Graham Greene)<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">How about you? <\/span>Give me your ideas for a literary\/monster mashup&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m pretty sure every writer has this experience. At least, I hope so. You see a book on a shelf, or read about it in a magazine, and think: Wow. THAT is a great book idea. I totally could have come up with that. I totally could have written that. Why didn&#8217;t I? Why why&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,19,7,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funny","category-lists","category-shameless-self-promotion","category-writing"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Of Mice and Men and Mummies - O Me of Little Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/07\/of-mice-and-men-and-mummies.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Of Mice and Men and Mummies - O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#8217;m pretty sure every writer has this experience. At least, I hope so. You see a book on a shelf, or read about it in a magazine, and think: Wow. THAT is a great book idea. I totally could have come up with that. I totally could have written that. Why didn&#8217;t I? Why why&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/07\/of-mice-and-men-and-mummies.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-07-21T13:24:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_HXZOhc9ASlo\/SmYJvitDX2I\/AAAAAAAAAUc\/QeFOGyz8HPc\/s200\/Pride+Zombie.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jason Boyett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Of Mice and Men and Mummies - O Me of Little Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/07\/of-mice-and-men-and-mummies.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Of Mice and Men and Mummies - O Me of Little Faith","og_description":"I&#8217;m pretty sure every writer has this experience. At least, I hope so. You see a book on a shelf, or read about it in a magazine, and think: Wow. THAT is a great book idea. I totally could have come up with that. I totally could have written that. Why didn&#8217;t I? 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