Contemporary versions of fairy tales - who writes these and why

The idea of re-telling so-called fairy tales from a contemporary point of view - either making them over into a contemporary setting or giving an unusual narrative twist - was a staple of the post-modernists, who reveled in formal experimentation and narrative playfulness: Barth's retelling of the 1001 Arabian Nights from POV of the silent sister at the foot of the bed, Barthelme's Snow White, Angela Carter, Robert Coover - still writing these re-imaginings, others no doubt. Though the genre may be a bit passe, Michael Cunningham weighs in in current New Yorker with a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, Little Man, with the twist that it's told in the 2nd person, w/ "you" the reader being the unnamed gnomic wizard (though all readers know his name, the guessing of which is the task he imposes on the beautiful queen, the name is never uttered in the story). This story shows what seems to me a new dimension in Cunningham's style, not at all in the breathless prose modeled closely on Virginia Woolf's style and sensibility - this is a brusque and witty prose - actually, quite reminiscent of many of the postmodernists - that I found accessible and appropriate to the material. That said, your interest in the story will depend on whether you find it of interest to read a familiar tale told in a new way. I'm not really into that and don't see in particular what he's added to the tale: maybe we're more sympathetic to the ugly and love-deprived title character, maybe we have more of the sense of the king as a maniac and not worthy in any event of marrying the beautiful miller's daughter. The story seems to be medieval - castles and keeps and the spinning of straw, for God's sake - but Cunningham mixes in contemporary references and phrases, such as the idea that the king was cruel because he was the victim of childhood abuse and is likely to abuse his newborn son as well. But he doesn't make it truly contemporary - as if this is, say, a Sadam Hussein-type monster abusing the beauties in his fiefdom. There are no text messages, cell phones, or references to contemporary events - so the story is at best timeless and at worst mixed up. It's very readable, but in the end do I really see this story in a new light? Is it now more meaningful? Have I learned anything about storytelling, or about people?