The Princess Bride: Reread Date 7/26-7/28

The Book: The Princess Bride by William Goldman

First Edition: 1973

My Edition: 1987 film companion.

Pre Reread Notes:

I’m going to be perfectly honest. (If I can’t be honest on my blog, where can I be?) The first time I read The Princess Bride I was underwhelmed. I love the movie. I love everything about the movie. I love the cast, I love the dialogue, I love all of it. But well, I was young. It was a long book. I read it at the beach. There was no Billy Crystal. I think you get the point.

That being said, the copy that I found in my basement has that really awesome well loved feeling. I mean to say, it is falling apart. In fact, I’m pretty sure it fell apart. The cover is held on with masking tape. To be fair, The Princess Bride has been crazy loved. We love this book in the Nayden household. My brother especially. And my brother doesn’t love books. My sister once gave a copy as a Christmas present to her ex boyfriend, do you know why? Because he’d never heard of it and she said if they wanted to continue dating he had to read it. He did, they were together for about another year and a half. Of course, that guy turned out to be kind of a loser, but I digress. The point is, The Princess Bride has magical uniting powers. It makes everything better. But really, from what I recall, the movie is way better.

Post Reread Notes:

I still like the movie better. That’s not really fair. It’s just the reading is so tainted by the movie. I mean, how could anyone not hear Peter Faulk’s voice in the narrative prose, Mandy Patinkin’s perfect baritone talking of his father’s death, etc. when they read it. To be fair, I enjoyed it much more than when I first read it. I was able to appreciate the satire of it more. I got the joke.

The idea behind The Princess Bride is that it was originally a satirical novel about the fall of royalty written by S. Morgenstern, about the fall of royalty, that William Goldman’s father read to him when he was sick in bed with pneumonia. (Yes, here it’s father to son, to grandfather to grandson.) But the thing was that his father skipped all of the satire and turned it into a romance and adventure story. So Goldman claims that his is the “good parts” version, complete with the occasional commentary (which in the movie is the Faulk/Savage parts.) It also helps that Goldman wrote the screenplay, so he was able to iron out any of the problems that were in the novel (and there are a few). I think that’s why it’s better. Or maybe it’s just Billy Crystal.

Either way, it boils down to this I liked it. This book is an amazing piece of work. A classic. I understand why my father waited years for us to be old enough to read it. But for all of that, I still think the movie is better. And that’s not even because of Cary Elwes’s pecs (Cary Elwe’s was Orlando Bloom before Orlando Bloom, except funny, you know, on purpose) although they are quite nice. A pre Wonder Years Fred Savage doesn’t hurt either. I still think his performance as the video game and baseball obsessed Grandson more greatly impacted his little brother Ben than Kevin Arnold, because this kid is Cory Matthews. And all roads lead to Boy Meets World. But I guess that’s not the point. Actually I’m not sure I have a point. I just wanted to extol the virtues of this spectacular film. But back to the book.

I said already that it was a family favorite. But I didn’t quite expect what happened when I told my brother about this whole project and asked if he had any suggestions. (I noted before that Mike’s not a nook person. Just not his thing.)

“Princess Birde, is on there right?” He said urgently. I gasped in horror at the presumption that I would ever not include it.

“Of course!” I said. “I’m not crazy!”

“Good,” he nodded. “What about Jurrasic Park?” (Mike will also read anything Michael Chrichton wrote. It wasn’t. I added it.)

What I said before about the book bringing people together? I meant that. I think it’s the only non school book that all five members of my immediate family have read. Maybe something by Grisham, except that Mary doesn’t really read Grisham. Therefore, it’s the only book that we can all five of us have a conversation about without the tint of teacher’s voices in our heads. Although usually, those conversations descend into us saying over and over again:

“Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!”