The Princess Bride intertwines two stories. That of bitter husband and father, William Goldman, who finds his humanity when he is reintroduced to the story his father once read to him when he was sick as a child, and the story of adventure and true love that occur during the history of Florin.
I read the 30th anniversary edition, which includes two introductions by William Goldman that confused me for an entire day. Goldman presents the story as an abridgement of S. Morgenstern's satirical take on the history of a real country. Goldman takes on the personality of a very unlikable man who spends most of the pages complaining about his cold wife and his fat son. I had a lot of trouble distinguishing was what real and what wasn't until reading some other online reviews. This gave the opening an interesting start since my faith in the narrator was strong enough to blur the lines of fact and fiction, but it was also difficult to read the narrator interruptions because he was such an unpleasant man until around the time his grandson is born.
This edition also contains "Buttercup's Baby", which is a disjointed chapter that gives brief images of the groups' future and moments of flashback for Inigo. It was a bit confusing as to why these scenes were added, but they did show what these characters gave up to save what they held most dear and to finish what they started. In this way, the book becomes a lot darker than the movie. Westley's line "life is pain" rings true here. Life is shown to be unfair. Everyone's personal ending is not the satisfying one we wish it would have.
When I told my best friend I was reading this book, her first question was to ask me if Buttercup was portrayed differently in the book as opposed to the movie. She had heard rumors that her character was far more strong and interesting in one version. I really had a hard time answering that because I don't really know what to think of her. On one hand, book Buttercup is pretty passive and the majority of her role in the plot is to have men fight over her while she stands in the background looking shocked. But on the other hand, I did not see her as merely a manic pixie dream girl. She does have personality. When we first meet Buttercup, she is a bratty child who likes to torment the farm boy. She has a family, we know her hobbies, she misuses words, and has hopes and dreams. These give her a life outside of the men who want to marry her. She may not go swinging into battles, but she does verbally stand up against her kidnappers and Prince Humperdinck. And her lack of activity also gets more explained in the book. Everyone around her values her beauty until the point she is force-fed the idea that she has nothing to offer the world besides her beauty. Buttercup's tale begins with ranking the most beautiful women in the world and where Buttercup stood in it at various ages. Boys in her village fall in love with her instantly and all the girls hate her for that. The Prince wants to marry her just for her good looks. In her childhood, she has no interest in beauty, but then suddenly devotes her entire life to it in hopes that Westley will not leave her for another woman in America.
Everything that I loved from the movie is also in the book. This was both amazing and annoying at the same time. It was hard to read even scenes that I loved because I knew word for word what the next five pages worth of dialogue was going to be and I would get impatient because my mind would play out the scene faster than I could read it. But it's heartwarming to see a movie that remained that faithful to the book. There are a lot of amazing scenes and lines here.
Another great thing about the book was that there was just more of everything. There were more scenes for Inigo and Fezzik. There was more background for every character so that their actions had more context. We see Inigo with his beloved father, we watch his travels and training, we see everything he had to go through to become the greatest swordsman in the world. In the end, it makes his victory so much more rewarding. With Fezzik, we see his past in which he felt like an outcast and how that leads him to a life of crime despite his kind heart. Even though he is a giant, all I want to do is protect him. Even with Miracle Max, we see why he loses trust in his abilities and get a better view of his relationship with his wife.
In the end, I really enjoyed this book. It has great characters, action, sass, silly moments, and love. There are a lot of great elements present.
Go read it.
much love,
hedgie
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