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?
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