I re-read The Princess Bride for book club. You know a book is good when you can read it twice. I hardly ever read a book twice. I have to say I enjoyed it all over again.
I also learned something new. I think I must have read this book the first time when I was in middle school, or around that age. The first part, the autobiographical part, I must have taken for the truth. You know the part where you learn that William Goldman had simply abridged this book and S. Morgerstern was the book’s original author. And you know the part about how his foreign and not so smart father read The Princess Bride to him when Goldman was 10. Then he goes into some elaborate story about trying to find The Princess Bride for his 10 year old son.
I was swallowing his personal story but something about it wasn’t going down smoothly. Goldman’s cynicism struck me as too bold, too brave. So I looked it up. I learned the whole thing, the part about his father, The part about his wife and son, the abridgement. All fiction. Fiction. Fiction. Fiction. (I say this as if I’m Elaine Bennis, “Fake, fake, fake.”)
Another interesting note, William Goldman is more accomplished for screenwriting and directing than he is for his novels. This all added a level of intrigue I didn’t quite have before.
And can we not all agree that this movie is a classic? Didn't we all grow up sword fighting with our sisters while chanting ‘My name is a Inigo Montoya you killed my father prepare to die.” Yes, you did, don’t deny it. And don’t we all know the line, “Wuv twoo wuv.” Then isn’t that the kind of book beckoning for a read? It’s so clever, so funny and so quotable.
I love this book and I love cough drops. (That was for you Goldman, you crazy grumpy SOB).
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