Tag Archives: William Goldman

Fiction, Reviews

Is It Worth Reading the Princess Bride?

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“Look: I would hate to have it on my conscience if we didn’t do a miracle when nice people were involved.”

“You’re a pushy lady,” Max said, but he went back upstairs. “Okay,” he said to the skinny guy, “What’s so special I should bring back out of all the hundreds of people pestering me every day for my miracles this particular fella? And, believe me, it better be worth while.”

A couple years ago, a rumor went around that Sony Pictures wanted to remake The Princess Bride, and many fans respectfully demurred. Remaking it after the pattern of many remakes would produce just another sequel film no one wants to see.

But having read William Goldman’s novel, which is now available in beautifully illustrated hardcover–can you imagine–I could see another movie made from this book. Definitely not a remake of the movie. But another movie based on the book could work if it were done creatively independent from the existing movie.

I’m thinking of something in an artsy style that includes new scenes and probably original material. Maybe the part about dad reading to his son is limited and animated. Inigo’s and Fezzik’s backstories could be told. Prince Humperdink would be a barrel-chested hunter who hated matters of state and enjoyed playing around in his Zoo of Death. There’s enough in the book to do something different with it in a movie–even though while reading the book it’s easy to believe all the best part made it into the existing movie. Goldman did the adaptation himself masterfully.

I think there’s room for a little original material too: another woman to interact with Buttercup and give her some screen time in the castle or before. They could adapt scenes to show how Humperdink noticed her and solicited her hand in marriage like the big jerk he is–no love required. And they could probably insert a Monty Python-style historian toward the end of the first half to comment on Florin and Guilder relations, which of the women alive at the time were known to be uncommonly beautiful, and related innanity.

It would be tough, but I think it could work.

Is the book worth reading? Yes, it is. But if you’ve seen the movie several times already, you may find the book to be a little different.

Authors, Fiction

Missing the Joke or Playing Along?

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What’s the thing you saw to make you wonder about people’s grasp on reality? Sure, we seem to run a fair risk of seeing a Karen-type in social media each week, and that’s enough to wonder who those people think they are. But if you haven’t seen one of those people, here’s a story that may make you scratch your head.

In The Princess Bride, William Goldman opens talking about himself, how he was introduced to this “classic” from another era, and throughout the novel he inserts editorial notes of explanation or obfuscation. The fictional classic author Morgenstern, whom Goldman says he is merely editing, does the same. Somewhere in the middle, Morgenstern interrupts the narrative to say his wife had a complaint. Goldman interrupts the interruption to explain that M., not G., is interrupting at this point and that he agrees with M’s wife’s complaint.

I assume you know the story well enough for me to carry on. Yes? All right.

The complaint is over the lack of a reunion scene between Westley and Buttercup after she discovers who he is. Goldman says Morgenstern did not write such a scene, about which his otherwise appreciative wife complained. Goldman claims to have written the scene himself and that his editor would not allow him to insert it, because he’s not writing the book, only editing what Morgenstern wrote. Goldman tells us we can have this scene sent to us by request, giving an address for Urban del Rey at Ballentine Books, and saying his publisher would pay for return postage.

So please, if you have the least interest at all or even if you don’t, write in for my reunion scene. You don’t have to read it–I’m not asking that–but I would love to cost those publishing geniuses a few dollars, because, let’s face it, they’re not spending much on advertising my books.

—William Goldman, The Princess Bride, ch 5

How many letters would you say have arrived in New York with this request? When the book debuted, six or so letters a week found their way to the publisher. It was released in paperback the next year, 1974, and spurred upwards of 100 letters a week. In 1987, the L.A. Times reported that since the movie came out, 400-500 letters a week began coming in.

I don’t know how long that stream kept up that pace, but it seems a bit unhinged, doesn’t it? Combine this with reports of people asking for the original Morgenstern edition, which doesn’t exist because the whole abridgment thing is a joke, and you wonder about their grip on reality. Are they playing along or do they realize Goldman says many things he doesn’t not mean?

Fiction, Religion, Reviews

Musing on ‘The Princess Bride,’ by William Goldman

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Look, (Grownups skip this paragraph.) I’m not about to tell you this book has a tragic ending. I already said in the very first line how it was my favorite in all the world. But there’s a lot of bad stuff coming up, torture you’ve already been prepared for, but there’s worse. There’s death coming up, and you better understand this: some of the wrong people die…. and the reason is this; life is not fair. Forget the garbage your parents put out. Remember Morgenstern. You’ll be a lot happier.

Last night I watched the film, “The Princess Bride” for the umpty-third time. Laughed and cried.

What’s not to love? It’s the perfect confection, almost parody but not quite. Self-aware, over the top, but entirely without condescension. Everybody involved seems to be having fun, and they welcome the viewer into the fun.

I first saw the movie in its first theatrical run. It got good reviews at the time, but wasn’t a major hit. Only when home video became available did it find its audience. Now it’s one of the most beloved – and quotable – movies in the world. With good reason.

But before I was a fan of the movie, I was a fan of the book. It was published in 1973, and I must have picked it up around 1978. Frankly, I bought it out of base motives – the original cover blurb called it “A Hot Fairy Tale!” I found something way better than I expected.

The big difference between the book and the movie is what I guess you’d call the “metanarrative.” In the movie you having a charming, funny adventure story, framed by a sweet series of vignettes involving a grandfather and his grandson.

The frame of the book is much broader and more complex. Goldman fictionalizes his own life, claiming his father was an immigrant from Florin, one of the imagined kingdoms in the book. He presents himself as a screenwriter who’s gone full Hollywood. He’s lost touch with his son (in real life Goldman had two daughters). Out of guilt, he tries to connect with the boy by giving him the book his dad used to read to him, The Princess Bride, by S. Morgenstern. Only he discovers that the book isn’t what he thought – most of it is a long, dull satire on the politics of Florin and Guilder at the time of the book’s writing. The real adventure stuff was just a minor narrative threaded here and there through the text. His dad had only read him the “good parts.” So Goldman has decided (he claims) to produce a “good parts” version of The Princess Bride.

But he can’t resist adding his own commentary, in pretty large doses, in footnotes and parenthetical interpolations. He talks about his childhood, his dreams, his disappointments. The movies he loves. The movies he wrote, and what he was trying to accomplish with them. How his life has consistently fallen short of the aspirations that romantic books and movies arouse in him. The book ends differently from the movie. The movie’s ending is sweet and heartwarming. The end of the book is ambivalent. They lived happily after…. But.

What The Princess Bride (novel) is about is the tragedy of impossible yearning. Most of us respond to the great stories. Our hearts are moved by the happy ending, the eucatastrophe, the fulfillment of True Love.

But we live (and who would know this better than a Jewish author?) in a world where True Love doesn’t guarantee that your beloved won’t be killed by a mugger or a pogrom or a stray meteorite. There’s something in our hearts that tells us True Love has to conquer all. Yet all around us we see that it doesn’t.

I have no idea what William Goldman’s spiritual beliefs were, if any. If he’d asked, someone could have told him about a True Love that does guarantee a miracle resurrection.