froM pArAtex t to polyproCess: the “Quirk y” MAshup novel
101
Authorization
The etiology of Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or
Ian Doescher’s William Shakespeare’s Star Wars series indicates interesting
variants of authorization. Doescher’s text was announced as “an officially
licensed retelling of George Lucas’s epic Star Wars” and, not coincidentally,
Quirk Books is owned by Random House – just like the Del Rey publishing
house that publishes Star Wars novelizations. Ultimately then, the “oh so
quirky” Quirk Books pastiche falls well within the Star Wars textuality
offered by Random House, as one part of the larger transmedia presence of
the Star Wars franchise, which provides “the most voluminous entourage
in entertainment history.” 43 Quirk Books, thus, looks more conventional,
standardized, and orthodox than the non-conformism of both the name of
the publishing house and the promotional paratexts of the “wacky,” “outré,”
or “unorthodox” mashup would have it. Whereas mashup novels emerge
from paying attention to supposedly transgressive amateurs and grassroots
fandom, they are, however, primarily a clever idea in literary distribution,
flogging enhanced out-of-copyright texts or re-invigorating the commercially
exhausted textual anchors of transmedia franchises.
Second, one may argue that Seth Grahame-Smith’s mashup novel is (co)
authored by Jason Rekulak, because the Quirk editor had the first idea and
it is Quirk Books who supply the formula of the mashup novel. Another
paratext, in this case an interview with “masher” Seth Grahame-Smith
for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, suggests Rekulak as the real author
of the book:
Actually the credit for this belongs to my editor, Jason Rekulak. He had had
this sort of long-gestating idea of doing some kind of mashup, he called it. He
didn’t know what it was, he just knew there was something to it. He had these
lists, and on one side he had a column of War and Peace and Crime and Punishment and Wuthering Heights and whatever public domain classic literature
you can think of. And on the other side he would have these phenomena like
werewolves and pirates and zombies and vampires. He called me one day, out
of the blue, very excitedly, and he said, all I have is this title, and I can’t stop
thinking about this title. And he said: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. For
whatever reason, it just struck me as the most brilliant thing I’d ever heard. 44
43 Gray, Shows Sold Separately, 177.
44 Lev Grossman, “Pride and Prejudice, now with Zombies!” Time, April 2, 2009, accessed February
15, 2019, http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1889075,00.html (emphasis added).
101
Authorization
The etiology of Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or
Ian Doescher’s William Shakespeare’s Star Wars series indicates interesting
variants of authorization. Doescher’s text was announced as “an officially
licensed retelling of George Lucas’s epic Star Wars” and, not coincidentally,
Quirk Books is owned by Random House – just like the Del Rey publishing
house that publishes Star Wars novelizations. Ultimately then, the “oh so
quirky” Quirk Books pastiche falls well within the Star Wars textuality
offered by Random House, as one part of the larger transmedia presence of
the Star Wars franchise, which provides “the most voluminous entourage
in entertainment history.” 43 Quirk Books, thus, looks more conventional,
standardized, and orthodox than the non-conformism of both the name of
the publishing house and the promotional paratexts of the “wacky,” “outré,”
or “unorthodox” mashup would have it. Whereas mashup novels emerge
from paying attention to supposedly transgressive amateurs and grassroots
fandom, they are, however, primarily a clever idea in literary distribution,
flogging enhanced out-of-copyright texts or re-invigorating the commercially
exhausted textual anchors of transmedia franchises.
Second, one may argue that Seth Grahame-Smith’s mashup novel is (co)
authored by Jason Rekulak, because the Quirk editor had the first idea and
it is Quirk Books who supply the formula of the mashup novel. Another
paratext, in this case an interview with “masher” Seth Grahame-Smith
for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, suggests Rekulak as the real author
of the book:
Actually the credit for this belongs to my editor, Jason Rekulak. He had had
this sort of long-gestating idea of doing some kind of mashup, he called it. He
didn’t know what it was, he just knew there was something to it. He had these
lists, and on one side he had a column of War and Peace and Crime and Punishment and Wuthering Heights and whatever public domain classic literature
you can think of. And on the other side he would have these phenomena like
werewolves and pirates and zombies and vampires. He called me one day, out
of the blue, very excitedly, and he said, all I have is this title, and I can’t stop
thinking about this title. And he said: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. For
whatever reason, it just struck me as the most brilliant thing I’d ever heard. 44
43 Gray, Shows Sold Separately, 177.
44 Lev Grossman, “Pride and Prejudice, now with Zombies!” Time, April 2, 2009, accessed February
15, 2019, http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1889075,00.html (emphasis added).