Twists and Expansions

I was out to lunch with my mother today, and she was telling me about a book she just finished called The Pursuit of Mary Bennet. As the title makes obvious to anyone familiar with the book, this is one of the many books other people have written related to the events of Pride and Prejudice.

My mother implied that she liked it but wished the author hadn’t taken quite so many liberties with the source material. (Which, for my mother, is apparently the BBC miniseries version with Colin Firth.)

Me> Why, what did she do?
Mother> She didn’t have Darcy’s first name right.
Me> Really? What was she using for his first name?
Mother> Fitzwilliam.
Me> ::pause:: His name is Fitzwilliam.

Mother> No, Fitzwilliam is his cousin.
Me> Colonel Fitzwiliam, yes, but Darcy’s first name is also Fitzwilliam.
Mother> Your sister told me it was Wentworth.
Me> Wentworth?!

And she honestly wouldn’t believe me until I put “Mr. Darcy” into Wikipedia and it redirected me to “Fitzwilliam Darcy.” (I have no idea where my sister got Wentworth as a name, if, indeed, she did and my mother didn’t just misunderstand something else. I should probably call her and set her straight, just in case.)

I thought it was somewhat amusing that my mother’s main complaint about the book was that the author (didn’t really) have a name wrong. She told me earlier that the author had made drastic changes to Mary’s character, but apparently that didn’t actually bother her that much. (Wentworth Darcy! I can’t even.)

It seems like any sufficiently old and popular story starts to be expanded upon. People write sequels and prequels and the events from other character’s points of view. Or they take the heart of the story and move it to a new world or change the genre. Or they take a shorter story and flesh it out, adding new characters and new plotlines.

And it’s always interesting to see who can tolerate which changes and to what. Me, for example, I haven’t found a variation or an expansion on The Wizard of Oz that I haven’t liked. Whether it goes modern day or dark or steampunk or links Oz to other worlds–I like them all. But I couldn’t like Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair no matter how much I wanted to because of the (admittedly temporary) changes he made to the story.

And I really, really dislike The Looking Glass Wars, and normally Alice in Wonderland is another property that I generally give artists free reign on.

To return momentarily to Pride and Prejudice, I was reading a series of mysteries where Lizzy was the main character (after her marriage to Darcy) and I thought I gave it an admirable amount of leeway until we got to the magic amulet.

What about you, readers? Have a story that you love to read variations of, or one that you can’t stand when people change it?