Listen, it's not my fault. My history with The Princess Bride is composed of a couple decades worth of WUUUUUUUV, TWUUUU WUUUUUV! and I never realized that there was an actual novel that went with the movie. I mean, obviously Fred Savage's grandpa read him the book in the movie, but I thought that was just a prop. I mean, I've spent more hours in bookstores than any sane person and I'd have noticed the thing at some point, right?
I mean, it's inconceivable that I could possibly not know about a The Princess Bride book if it existed. There was no chance that could get stuck in the Fire Swamp of ignorance of the existence that it would take to not know that there was a novel. Seriously, you couldn't have stopped me from getting one if I had known about it. I'd have all kinds of fun storming that castle. At least until a rodent of unusual size got to my bookshelf and ate my copy. Even then, I bet I could get my boy Miracle Max to bring my copy back to life so I could read it again.
And all of that makes sense until you realize that there actually was such a book and I didn't know about it. At that point I was all just like...
"My name is Jimbo McCoy. You killed my delusion. Prepare to buy!" Forunately for me, e-books aren't all that expensive and I won't need a wheelbarrow to carry it in.
Oh wait, you wanted an actual review and not just me acting like a bigger geek than normal?
As you wish.
Or not.
Suck it up, Buttercup.
Dude, put down the six-fingered sword and the iocaine powder. I'm getting there. I promise.
Although, all trash talk aside, it does occur to me that it has been far too long since I've watched the movie with my daughters, but I digress.
Dude, reading this review must be like climbing the Cliffs of Insanity.
Please don't go all Dread Pirate Roberts on me. I wouldn't like it if you mostly likely killed me in the morning.
Alright, alright. I'll say something meaningful about the book.
Dude...
The Princess Bride is the most meta book in the history of ever. There is so much here that got left out of the movie because it wouldn't fit, but like "Morgenstern" must have been the worst author in the history of ever. He mentioned a bunch of crap about the history of Guilder and Florin that would totally not work in an actual novel and Goldman is really snarky about it.
I mean, I know I'm putting on airs here and I haven't really earned the right to say this, but parts of The Princess Bride read like a review from Jimbo's Awesome SF/F Reviews. Seriously. Goldman has a similar whacky and zany sense of humor. Reading endless pages about the history of women's hats would suck, but reading Goldman's complaints about those pages is pure comedy gold.
There is a lot more about Inigo Montoya's childhood and his relationship with his father in the book than there was in the movie. This is a good thing. The whole revenge angle takes on so much more importance when we know how close he was to his father, why his father was killed, and how humiliated Montoya was by his fathers murderer. This was good stuff that would have made the movie even better if they could have found a way to work it in.
The Narrator of the novel, supposedly Goldman himself, is a source of great entertainment as well. The story goes that his father read the book to him as a kid and left lots of it out. That's where a lot of the meta stuff comes in. Now the Narrator wants his son to read the book and can't figure out why he won't. Then the Narrator picks the book up and finds out how bad it was..
Yeah, it doesn't sound like the kind of thing you'd want to re-write honestly, but he does and it's amazing. This strikes a chord with me personally because it reminds me a lot of the struggles I've had to get my kids to read the stuff I loved as a kid. I can't even get my oldest to read the stuff I love NOW and it can be a bit of a challenge to deal with mentally. It would be so awesome if they would, but..
Yeah.
Long story (overly) long this is the type of situation that I can identify with and I'm guessing a lot of you can as well.
Of course, all of our favorite characters are there; Westley, Buttercup, Fezzik, Inigo Montoya, Vizzini, etc. Not all of the lines were translated straight from the book though, and it's one of those things where you can end up disappointed not because something isn't entertaining, but because it's not quite the way you remembered it. That much is, I guess, inevitable as the movie writer, actor/actress, director and some other person that I forgot about probably all had a hand in rewriting the dialogue for the movie. It doesn't ruin it, but it is a little different and that took some getting used to.
One suggestion I'm going to make is to skip the introductions to both the Thirtieth and Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Editions. They don't add a whole lot to the experience and they took a lot of time to get through. I was really surprised by this because I thought I was going to get something really awesome with these, but not so much. I've been more disappointed in my life, obviously, but I kind of wish I could have that time back.
Still and all I’m glad I read The Princess Bride. It was a lot of fun exploring something I had loved for a long time in a totally different setting. This was an experience I won't forget. That sounds weird, but it's true. If you haven't read the book, and especially if you're just finding out that it actually exists, I'd recommend reading it.Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Boring Intros
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