William Goldman's The Princess Bride is one of those books that every child of the 1980's should read. Well, IMO, everyone should read it regardless of when they were born, but especially those of us who were young when the movie starring Cary Elwes and Robin Wright came out. The movie is everything that a good fantasy/adventure film should be -- with the fencing, kidnapping, beautiful princess, handsome rogue, villainous prince, Cliffs of Insanity, Pit of Despair (called the Zoo of Death in the book), etc. etc. etc. The book, if possible, has more.
Summary: The most beautiful woman in the world is a teenager named Buttercup, who has spent the majority of her lifetime avoiding male interest and taunting the family farm boy, Westley. After a chance encounter leaves Buttercup jealous, she realizes that she is in love with Westley, and tells him. Westley confesses that he loves her too, but that he must leave to make his fortune before he can marry her. Whilst seeking this fortune, Westley's ship is captured by the Dread Pirate Roberts, who never leaves prisoners alive. Buttercup is devastated and vows never to love again. Of course, the most beautiful woman in the world can't avoid marriage forever, and Buttercup receives a proposal from Prince Humperdinck, the greatest hunter in the world: marry him and provide him with a son, or die in terrible pain. Buttercup agrees to a loveless marriage, and goes off to become queen. But she is kidnapped by three men who wish to harm her...and then by the mysterious man in black...and that is really only the beginning.
I'm going to do my best to describe the writing technique employed by Goldman, but I'm going to fail miserably, considering that I tried to explain it to David the other day and left him thoroughly confused.
Goldman is not writing the typical fairy novel -- this isn't J.R.R. Tolkein, where the world he creates is just that, and there's nothing else. Goldman writes the book as an abridgment -- giving credit for the original story to the fictitious writer S. Morgenstern, and claiming that the original story was writing as a long-winded satire, which he only discovered after his son tried desperately to muddle through the book and got hopelessly bored. In the prologue, Goldman writes that his father read The Princess Bride to him when he was recovering from pneumonia, always skipping through the dry sections and only reading "the good parts." Goldman has created this fictitious author and backstory in order to frame the real Princess Bride fairy tale -- which he himself invented.
(Confused? I know I was for quite some time. I'm not even going to admit how long it took me to realize that "S. Morgenstern" wasn't a real person, and that The Princess Bride unabridged version didn't exist. It's embarrassing.)
A lot of people on Goodreads complain about Westley and Buttercup's relationship in the book, as opposed to the movie. I have to say that I agree with them in passages. For example, in the film, Westley threatens to backhand Buttercup during a fight -- bad enough -- but in the book, he literally slaps her. Granted, William Goldman is writing about an era when "wife-beating" was prevalent, but still -- someone reading in this day and age doesn't expect "true love" and "backhanding" to go hand-in-hand.
What I love about The Princess Bride (the book) is an explanation of the backstory behind the other characters. Buttercup and Westley are all well and good, but I haven't found a single guy who has watched this movie who hasn't loved Inigo Montoya, the revenge-seeking Spanish fencer, the best of all the characters. Who doesn't cheer for Inigo as he ruthlessly pursues the six-fingered man who killed Inigo's father when he was only a child? But how much more do you cheer for him once you've read the backstory, what Inigo's childhood was like, what his relationship with his father was...and why the six-fingered man killed him in the first place? That is why I love the book as much as (or more than) the film.
Rating: **** and 1/2
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