Week 6 - The Princess Bride - William Goldman

Well, partially due to all the snow we have received in the Washington D.C. area over the last week, I am finished with this week's book a whole day early! It might have been earlier than that, but I am also trying to read "Moby Dick" at the same time. This book also fulfills a weekly challenge by Robin of My Two Blessings to read a fantasy book. Well rather than reread Tolkien, or read something by Neil Gaiman, I instead decided to tackle yet another book that has been sitting on my shelf for a very long time, just waiting to be read. So without further ado:

The Princess Bride - William Goldman

"The Princess Bride" is a fantastically fractured fairy tale, full of fencing, fighting, fire swamps, and of course Rodents Of Unusual Size (R.O.U.S). Many will be familiar with the movie, directed by Rob Reiner and featuring an amazing cast: Cary Elwes, Robin Wright Penn, Andre the Giant, Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, and Peter Falk, to name but a few. William Goldman wrote the screenplay for the movie as well, so it should be no surprise that much of the book is faithfully reproduced on the screen.

The story centers around a beautiful young girl named Buttercup and the farm boy who loves her. At first she does not return this love, ordering him around like her slave, but over time she realizes she loves him as much he loves her. Upon this realization, Westley decides to go to America to make his fortune. On his way, he is apparently killed by the Dread Pirate Roberts, but in reality takes up with the Pirate, and eventually assumes Robert's role as the most feared marauder of the high seas.

In the meantime, Prince Humperdinck, looking for a bride, asks Buttercup to marry him. Even though she has no love for him, she agrees. Not long after, she is captured by 3 criminals: Vizzini, a Sicilian mastermind (in his own mind); Fezzik, a giant strongman, capable of besting anyone in hand-to-hand combat; and Inigo, an expert swordsman and a recovered drunk, bent on finding the six-fingered man who killed his father. Westley, in the guise of the Man in Black, the Dread Pirate Roberts, pursues them with the intent of rescuing Buttercup.

The story is full of action and moves along quickly. Goldman tells us that the original story was written by a S. Morgenstern and was intended to be political satire. The book would supposedly ramble on for pages and pages about the extravagance of royalty: the clothing, the parties, royal lineage, etc. Goldman's father supposedly read the book to him as a child when he was sick, and left out those portions of the book in order to make it more interesting. Goldman's version is represented as simply an abridgment of the original book ("The Good Parts"), with Goldman's comments to tie things together at the points where he excised large blocks of the text. Of course, in reality, the entire work is Goldman's.

While Goldman's book supposedly abridges Morgenstern's text, Goldman's screenplay abridges Goldman's book, somewhat. The changes are minor, and merely condense the story. The character of the Countess is completely left out of the movie. The Prince entertains the notion of a political marriage to a princess from the rival country Guilder before proposing to Buttercup, but this never makes it into the cinematic version. Much of the backstory for Vizzini, Fezzik and Inigo is reduced to a few lines in the script. However, most of the rest of the story matches nicely with the movie adaptation.

In my opinion, the book is every bit as entertaining as the movie. The book was written in 1973, fourteen years before the movie came out. At that point, Goldman was already an experienced screenwriter, having done the screenplays for "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "The Hot Rock," and was working on "The Stepford Wives," at the time of the book's publication, and would go on to write the screen adaptations for his books "Marathon Man," and "Magic," as well as "All the President's Men," and "A Bridge Too Far." The book's tight descriptive prose reads almost like a screenplay, as if he intended to make a movie of it from the beginning.

This book is a very fun read, and I highly recommend it!