Book Review: The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride, by William Goldman

I'm sure many of you will be familiar with the film The Princess Bride. For those of you that aren't, its a cult fantasy film mixing comedy and action to great effect.

For some reason last week, I decided I wanted to read the book. Don't ask me why, but working in a library can cause these sudden book reading urges to happen.

If you didn't already know, the books author, William Goldman, used as a framing device the idea that he didn't actually write the book, instead abridged it from a much older, longer work by S Morgenstern. What I didn't realise was quite how much he kept this pretence up. The copy I read was the 25th Anniversary edition which includes a long forward by Goldman (all fake) and an eighty page appendix dealing with his none existent problems with the Morgenstern estate over royalties and the rights to publish a squeal.

While this doesn't detract from the book, I did find it highly unnecessary. As a framing device, the idea that he was abridging the book, and inserting commentary on sections he'd cut, was fine, and worked will within the novel. Why we needed all this extra personal fiction is beyond me.

Anyway, on to the story itself. If you have seen the film, you will be familiar with the story and the novel doesn't throw any surprises at you, and it wouldn't, as Goldman wrote the screenplay for the film. But the sections that didn't make it into the film give you more depth and background to the characters. You learn why the six fingered man killed Inigo's father and about Fezzik's early life. You see Buttercup and Weasly's relationship when they were younger, and Humperdinks character is given a much needed background boost.

Along with Goldman's "commentry" and the "original" text you also get a bit more of a feel for the world. I'd always thought that it was set in a fantasy world, however turns out to be more pseudo historical that fantasy. But with names like The Cliffs of Insanity and Rodents of Unnatural Size, its not hard to see how I might have come to my flawed conclusion.

In many ways, the translation from book to film is one of the best I've seen, but perhaps that's because I've come at it from seeing the film first. Scenes in the book play out nearly identically on the film, and any cuts or condensing is handled well.

Whether you've seen the film or not, I strongly recommend reading The Princess Bride. Just skip all the author's rubbish before and after. You'll be doing yourself a favour.