King Arthur Movie Tristan

title: The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure


author: William Goldman


genre: fantasy/romance/humor

published: 1973

pages: 414

first line: This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.

rated: 4 out of 5








What can I say about The Princess Bride? I both liked it and disliked it. I liked the story overall.


For the most part it's a unique and fun read. I like that it's a fairy tale with romance, adventure and humor.




What I disliked was that author William Goldman makes it seem as though S. Morgenstern wrote the book, and that Goldman's version of the story is the 'good parts version'. That annoyed me so very much!



And the amount of writing that he used during the beginning and the end of the story to re-inforce this was a bit much for me. I didn't so much mind his commentary within the story, some of it made me laugh.



It's funny because in the introduction Goldman tells a convincing tale about this being abridgement of an earlier novel. So I fell for it. I tend to google 'new to me authors' and anything in a book that I'm unfamiliar with, so I googled S. Morgenstern only to find out Goldman invented him. Which made perfect sense to me then because I kept thinking this really sounded far-fetched. Especially when Goldman brings Stephen King into the mix as a native of Florin who is in cahoots with the curators at the S. Morgenstern museum.





Anyway, once the story takes off, the beautiful Buttercup lives in the countryside in Florin and is the envy of all the females in town because of her beauty. Long story short, Buttercup falls in love with the Farm Boy Westley. Westley tells her he is leaving for America to claim his fortune so he can return and marry her.
Buttercup is overjoyed and the two finally have their first kiss.

There have been five great kisses since 1642 B.C., when Saul and Delilah Korn's inadvertent discovery swept across Western civilization. (Before then couples hooked thumbs.) And the precise rating of kisses is a terribly difficult thing, often leading to great controversy, because although everyone agrees with the formula of affection time purity times intensity time duration, no one has ever been completely satisfied with how much weight each element should receive. But on any system, there are five that everyone agrees deserve full marks.


Well, this one left them all behind.

Westley isn't gone too long before Buttercup receives news that he has been killed by the Dread Pirate Roberts. She swears to never love again. She ends up being engaged to Prince Humperdinck, but lets him know that she will never love him. One day while Buttercup is out on one of her horse rides, she is kidnapped by a Sicilian, a Spaniard named Inigo and a giant named Fezzik. Soon after the kidnapping, the trio realize they are being followed by a 'man in black'.






There is so much to The Princess Bride that I can't really go into it all. I think most of us have seen the film. The book captivated me as soon as the actual story started.



I really enjoyed the witty dialogue and all the characters. Besides Buttercup and Westley, Inigo and Fezzik quickly became favorite characters as well. I enjoyed how Goldman went into their story lines and backgrounds also.


The dialogue was funny throughout the book.
This is Buttercup's parents debating over who would go see what the Count and Countess want when they arrive at the couples doorstep:

"What could they want to ask me about?" he said.


"Go see, go see," Buttercup's mother told him.


"You go. Please."


"No. You. Please."


"We'll both go."


They both went. Trembling...

For the most part I thought it was fun the way Goldman comments throughout the story in (parentheses) and italics. But as I said before, the way he kept going on and on about S. Morgenstern and the original Princess Bride got to be too much for me. All in all, I'm glad I read it and would recommend it. Because of the storyline, the dialogue and the great characters I gave it a 4 star rating. There's some great lines in this book.






Here's a few of my favorite tidbits:

"If you're teasing me Westley, I'm just going to kill you."


"How can you even dream I might be teasing?"


"Well, you haven't once said you loved me."


"That's all you need? Easy. I love you. Okay? Want it louder? I love you.
Spell it out, should I? I ell-oh-vee-ee why-oh-you. Want it backward? You love I."

Her heart was a secret garden and the walls were very high. "I loved once," Buttercup said after a moment. "It worked out badly."

The six-fingered sword.


How it danced in the moonlight. How glorious and true. Inigo brought it to his lips and with all the fervor in his great Spanish heart kissed the metal...

But just as he knew that the sun was obliged to rise each morning in the east, no matter how much a western arisal might have pleased it, so he knew that Buttercup was obliged to spend her love on him. Gold was inviting, and so was royalty, but they could not match the fever in his heart, and sooner or later she would have to catch it. She had less choice than the sun.

I think the film is fantastic. They did a great job bringing this story to the big screen, and the actors portrayed the characters really well. The book and movie are very similar, and some of the book is directly quoted in the film.