Pride and Prejudice . . . misjudged?

   I have been a fan of both the book and the 5 hour BBC production of Pride and Prejudice for many years now.  Recently I have begun to see many books that A) continue the story of P & P,  B) tell about the lives of people who have escaped reality by creating a new reality for themselves in a world of Jane Austen's works (particularly P & P), or C) create scenarios where the person obsessed with Austen's works is transported to the 19th century and that person is transported to the 21st century, a time exchange if you will.  I have read, completely two books and last night completed a British movie production which lasted three hours.

   The first book continued the story of (surprise!) Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy and was cliche to put things nicely.  I have another book by the same author that continues the story even further, but I don't think I am going to read it.
   The other book I read, and the movie are opposing sides of the same scenario.  The book is titled, The Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict, an tells the story of a young woman from the 19th century, who by some form of gypsy witchcraft gets herself transported into the body of a rather scatterbrained and romantically confused young woman in the 21st century.  We never really read about what the "modern" young woman does with her situation, presumably in the body of the "antiquated" young woman.
  The movie, titled "Lost in Austen," was from a little different perspective.  It tells the story of a young woman (Amanda Price) unhappily living in modern day London.  She eats, sleeps, and drinks Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice when not working.  Again, by some stroke of fate, Elizabeth Bennet finds a door in the attic of her house that leads to the bathroom in Amanda's apartment.  Lizzy tricks her into "taking a look" into the Bennet house and then shuts the door leaving Amanda alone to muddle her way through the plot she thinks she knows so well.  What follows is a mind boggling journey that takes everything we P & P lovers know, Wickam's roguishness for example, and turns it upside down.  In the end, one is forced to admire certain characters formerly despised, and realize the flaws of those who seemed unblemished.  There were of course some things that were thrown in to appeal to modern perversities, Caroline Bingley being a closet lesbian for example.  I could have easily done without those bits.  But on the whole it was a refreshing twist to Pride and Prejudice.