I have a rule for myself that I don't read spin-offs, or re-imaginings, or sequels to great literature, most especially Jane Austen. I don't want there to be any confusion in my head as to what's "real" from the original, and what's not. And with Austen, I figure anything else is bound to be a disappointment.
But it's my own rule, so of course I get to break it if I want to. And I did, much to my disgust.
I discovered that Alexander McCall Smith, whom I rather like, had written Emma: A Modern Retelling. On one hand, it was awful - shallow, cursory, without much humor or depth, devoid of anything genuinely clever. Can it be possible that AMS doesn't understand that the pleasure of Austen isn't the plot? Unlike a lot of people, I actually like Austen's Emma character, but this one really gave me nothing much to like. But I've also been wrestling with the question: If it hadn't been based on Austen, but just a casual throwaway modern semi-romance, would that have been different? Was I holding it to an unfair standard? Well, if it had been just a stand-alone novel, I wouldn't have read it in the first place, but I still don't think I would have liked it.
:(