The Princess Bride

This is a romantic story about true love, fights and insidiousness, magic and wonder, staged in a ruritanian fantasy country somewhere in Europe.

I've read this book quite late in my live (and have not seen the film until now), so maybe some of the magic got lost in my immortal cynicism (this was written after I took the red pill).

Buttercup, a beauty living on a farm, finds her True Love in Winsley, the farm boy, who plans to go to America to succeed before he wants to come back - for her. And then Winsley is said to be killed by the dreaded Pirate Roberts. Buttercup - thinking that her loved is killed - surrenders to the courting of Prince Humperdinck. Before the marriage she gets kidnapped by Spanish fencing master Inigo Montoya, Fezzik the gigantic wrestler from Turkey and the smart Sicilian criminal Vezzini. But they get overwhelmed one by one by a mysterious man in black (this was before the science fiction comedy film of that name).

It is beyond question a damn prototype of a Damsel in Distress Book (this was before emancipation glanced Hollywood or after a bitter divorce). Buttercup is mostly subject, not object to kidnapping, murder and fights. Of course she is beautiful, devout and loving. One gets to like Inigo Montoya and Fezzik. The light told naive story lives from its exaggerations, its interspersed brackets with funny comments and of course of the frame narrative. The author tells us that the story was written by someone else and he only did the abridgment, since his father read "only the good parts" to him as child. He rants about his wife, makes fun of film making and book writing.

To my (later) edition there is also an attachment "Buttercups Baby" which is superfluous, it might have been the try to do start a second book which was not finished or whatever.

Key Sentence: "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya; you killed my father; prepare to die!"

My rating: Four of five stars (this is because of dormant damsel in distress and superfluous chapters (with a strong female lead and more discipline in ending the book I'd say six stars of five (which would be beyond logic ) ) ) ( yes, I do count my brackets, I've learned LISP in early days).

(Review written 2015-04, shortly after reading the book. Haven't read it again)

I guess I shouldn't be at all surprised by how good this book is. I had already seen (and loved) the movie several times before I even knew it was a book, after all. When I found out, I decided immediately to read it, but I did not get my hopes up. "It won't be remotely similar," I thought, or "it will be ruined for me because I know what happens." While I do still wish I had read it first, the book definitely far surpassed my expectations. I became belatedly surprised, about 26 years late now, by how well the movie adaptation follows the book. Mr. Goldman did write the screenplay himself, which must have helped.

About the book itself, it's probably unnecessary to say much at all. Everyone knows how it goes. Even if somehow they don't, my description of it would be wrong. It might be technically accurate, but anything I said would not capture the original flair. Sword fights, giants, revenge, love, all stuff that you've seen before. Only better.

In fact, I was so enthused that, before even finishing the book, I had already tracked down and ordered an untranslated Florinese edition of the original unabridged Morgenstern. My plan is to go into Florinese studies and get my PhD, probably at Columbia University. I hear they have a great program for it. The book hasn't arrived yet, of course; I only found one copy, at some shop on Fourth Avenue. The shopkeeper was incredibly grumpy on the phone.