05 September 2010

REVIEW: The Princess Bride - S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure by W. Goldman

Author:  W. Goldman
Genre / Pages:  Fiction, humour, satire / 512
Publication:
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007
Rating:  3th shelf 
Source:  Chapter's Indigo
lj's plot in one pot:  Beautiful Buttercup is mean, then madly in love with even beautifuller Westley, then marries Prince Humperdink, then needs to be rescued...we all know this story, am I right?

Having LOVED the movie, I was all geared up to LOVE the book.  I was a little disappointed.  There is a lot of author talk in the first hundred pages and it gets a little dry.  When the plot that we all know and love finally starts, (seriously, it took forever.  So long that I thought I had the wrong book) you are really ready and amped to not have his negative, ironic voice in your head.  But alas, there is no reprieve.  He keeps butting in and explaining why he wrote / didn't write something the way he did (or didn't).  *sigh*.

Fezzik and Inigo saved this book.  They are fantastic characters and I was THRILLED to find that the rhyming in the movie is also featured in the book 
Vizzini: Stop rhyming, and I meant it!
Fezzik:  Anybody want a peanut?  (not really in the book, but my fav line from the movie)
and
"He must be very desperate, or very frightened, or very stupid, or very brave"
"Very all four I should think," the Prince replied...p.185
and
"We have Fezzik,"  Westley replied simply.
"We absolutely do,"  Fezzik shouted, happy that the answer was so easily forthcoming.  "He is right here inside my skin." p.395
 So I really enjoyed reading the text that a fantastic movie was built upon, I just wish there wasn't so much satire, so much author talk.  But definitely read it for yourselves...

Want more info??? (Or perhaps the little extras that Goldman promises?) Click here.

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