The Princess Bride by William Goldman - Spoiler Free Review!
A modern classic in the shell of an experimental being, The Princess Bride is a culmination of chaos and endearing all in one.
I picked up this book at my local library on a whim. I had this on my TBR for a bit now, but had never prioritized it. The Princess Bride is one of my favorite movies, and I was itching to read the book and compare how the movie was adapted from the source material.
It should be noted that I do tend to have a different opinion on "book vs movie" discourse. I tend to like both adaptations and view them as completely different stories. Although my opinion is a bit more complicated, to simplify, I believe that each form is so different from each other, it is almost impossible to compare them fairly.
Something I found fascinating was the use of narrative framing within the book TPB itself. (Narrative framing: "A framing narrative is a story within a story that uses one story to frame the other" Hulmes.) I can't think off the top of my head of any book that uses narrative framing, although I am certain they exist, I have almost only seen them in movies. For example, the early 2000 CGI Barbie movies use this framing device to help tie in the moral theme and help bridge the audience's sense of disbelief.
For set up, the author Goldman write the book and sets up the story as if he were an editor tasked with abridging a copy of the literary classic The Princess Bride. He pretended that TPB was written by Sir Morgenstern, a fictional author. Goldman would often interject at the beginning or end of chapters and say something along the lines of ~S. Morgenstern goes on to talk about the political history of the two kingdoms for the next hundred pages, I find this to be unnecessary and can be summarized in a single sentence: things were bad~ not a direct quote but that is the general gist. This book is dripping with Goldman's fake commentary for the sake of humor. This aspect of the book was definitely the most unique, and I didn't realize that this was fake and part of the comedic affect of the story until I did some research halfway through the book.
Onto the story, it runs just about the same as the movie (for those who have seen it) but adds an infinite amount more details. I think the character that benefits this more is Buttercup, who is both a much more entertaining and fleshed out character. As well as Inigo and Fezzik, who have whole chapters and sections dedicated to their backstory. All of this was so appreciated as a reader, since I love these characters and the details added a lot of depth.
The part of the story that was the most disappointing was the ending. It deviates the most from the movie, and honestly can be skipped without taking away from the emotional integrity of the story. I won't go into details, but trust me when I say that the whole reason this book is a 4/5 instead of a 5/5 is due to the end. (Coupled with the constant abridger note interjections, which by the end, when the tension was high, felt like too much at times).
Overall, I greatly enjoy the added depth to the characters, but I do think the movie is the best form of this story.
Rating - 4/5
