Book Review: The Princess Bride by William Goldman

The Princess Bride (S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure…the “good parts” version)
the original novel by William Goldman (Goldman)

If you’ve only ever seen the 1987 movie version of this story, and not read this novel, you’re missing out on a lot. The Princess Bride originally came out in 1973, and author William Goldman, also the famed screenwriter of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, and many more noteworthy films, almost immediately wrote his own screenplay adaptation for the movie. That screen then languished, unproduced, for over a dozen years.

There are definitely some distinct differences between the novel and the film versions of the story. And, it also depends on which edition of the book you get your hands on — there’s the original 1973, and then there are both a 25th Anniversary edition, with new content, and a 30th Anniversary edition, with still more new content. All of these feature one major structural difference from the film — author Goldman inserts himself in the story, in the form of extensive editorial “interruptions” and “explanations”. Goldman’s conceit is that he is doing a massive abridgement to a classic novel, published by the legendary Florinese author S. Morgenstern — Goldman claims to have enjoyed his own father reading the tale to him as a child, only to discover that Dad cut out all the boring, exposition bits and only read aloud the exciting plot-propelling bits. Goldman also pulls on our heartstrings with a sentimental story about his own son (which turns out all to be fictional). Goldman has proposed to his publisher that they reprint the original novel by Morgenstern, but he’ll do an abridgement to “just the fun parts”.

When adapted to the Rob Reiner film, this “framing device” is turned into Grandfather Peter Falk reading the original fairytale/novel to Grandson Fred Savage. But, while that ends up being a minor, humorous element of the film, Goldman’s editorial interruptions to the novel are constant, lengthy and continuous, making The Princess Bride almost a novel within a novel within a novel. Never-the-less, the humor is about the same in both novel and film, so if you’re looking for “true love”, adventure, pirates, villainous noblemen, mad magicians, swordplay, cliff-climbing, poison, rodents of unusual size, giants who like to rhyme, matters of honor and revenge, and the definition of what “As You Wish” really means, you’ll still love this book.

The 25th and 30th editions each have extended new author/edition introductions by Goldman, giving lengthy explanations for what has happened with the editing/printing of book in the years since the original 1973 version, including what Stephen King has to do with the story — and touching on the making of the movie. Some editions also include the first chapter of what was supposed to be a sequel to The Princess Bride, Buttercup’s Baby, with additional author/editor notes explaining why only the opening chapter has thus far been published. Author Goldman passed away in 2018, with plans to expanded Buttercup’s Baby into a full novel sadly unrealized.

While the film The Princess Bride is one of my all-time favorites, and gets an unabashed rating of “10” from me, I’m only giving this novel an “8”. While I enjoyed how much fun Goldman has in playing around with the structure of a parody of adventure/fantasy literature, his constant editorial interruptions to talk about how he’s cutting chunks of Morgenstern’s original story that would slow down the story…have the very effect of slowing down the story anyway! And, there’s a couple of casual ethnic slurs that seem uncomfortably inappropriate for contemporary readers. Still a great read anyway!

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try the 1987 film The Princess Bride directed by Rob Reiner. Also, actor Cary Elwes’ autobiographical book As You Wish about the making of this film — I particularly enjoyed this as an audiobook, read by Elwes and many of the other cast members of the film!)

( Wikipedia entry for the novel The Princess Bride ) | ( Wikipedia entry for William Goldman )

See Kristen A.’s review of the movie The Princess Bride in the December 2012 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!
See Scott C.’s review of Cary Elwes’ book As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales From the Making of the Princess Bride in the July 2015 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

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