Night of the Loving Dead

Until relatively recently, I'd always wanted to write a story from a monster's perspective, like a vampire or a mummy or something like that.  Having read Isaac Marion's 'Warm Bodies', I think that the idea's been done very well already.

'Warm Bodies' is the story of R, a zombie with a difference.  While he can't remember his name, how long he's been dead or how the world ended, he's still has human curiosity.  He longs to be able to know these things and more, although he's not entirely sure why.  Trapped in his own head, he chases the same thoughts every day while instinctively following the same mindless routines.  Then while on a feeding expedition in the nearby city, he meets Julie and everything changes.  Rather than eating her, R brings Julie back to his airport home.  All he wants to do is keep her safe and this sudden and perplexing change marks the beginning of something quite extraordinary.

'Warm Bodies'
by Isaac Marion
(Vintage, 2013)

I saw a review of the film based on this novel and thought it sounded like an interesting story.  Being a bit squeamish, I decided to read the book first rather than plunging right in with the movie and I'm really glad I did.  I was a bit worried that it would be squarely aimed at the teen market and a bit twee, but it isn't that simple.  R is after all a monster, something that hunts and eats humans while bits of him gradually rot and fall off. Not the most obvious of romantic heroes!  But then neither are the manipulative and obsessive Heathcliff and bullying wife-jailer Mr Rochester.

Marion sucks the reader into R's mind from the very first line and from the moment I read it I was hooked.  This is not a book about romantic love per se, rather a story themed around the things the writer loves about humanity, the characteristics that take us beyond our animal instincts and basic desires for shelter, food and flesh. As such, it's themes are more universal and thought provoking and the fragile first love that develops between R and Julie is one of just a number of human-esque features that set you thinking about what it means to be alive.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, particularly because it doesn't answer all the questions it raises.  Although it's hinted at, we never firmly find out how the zombie plague came about or when it happened, for example.  But I think that's what sets it apart from other apocalyptic stories.  This isn't a tale about how the old world ended but how a new one began.  And surely that's far more interesting and optimistic, don't you think?