A Book I Started but Never Finished

Title: The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure
Author: William Goldman
Published: The Ballantine Publishing Group, 1998 (Originally Published by Harcourt Brace in 1973)
Started: 1/30/15
Finished: 2/9/15

To write a short blog post about the greatness of The Princess Bride is tough.  To begin I will talk about why I read this book.  I picked up this book last year and started reading, and through lack of motivation and fear of an overdue fee I stopped reading the book.  This year I picked up Carey Elwes' book, As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of the Princess Bride.  The blog I wrote about the book explains my love for the story.  I then watched the movie (again), and decided I needed to read the original masterpiece by Goldman himself, thus completing the requirement for "A book I started but never finished."  For the sake of eliminating criticism, I started from page 1 and completed the entire book (I didn't just start where I left off about a year ago), as this reading challenge is about reading 52 books in their entirety.

It's hard to explain The Princess Bride from a writing standpoint, but I will do my best.  Goldman wrote the book as if he is only abridging an earlier book written by the fictional S. Morgenstern.  Morgenstern (as already stated) is fictional and Goldman claims he is abridging Morgenstern's work to only include the good parts.  Apparently Morgenstern was very detailed and wordy in many chapters.  This style adds an element of humor, as Goldman inserts himself into the text to explain certain parts and their meaning to the text as a whole.  Goldman explains that this is his favorite book because his father once read it to him when he was sick.  Obviously that is not true, as the entire writing was done by Goldman.

Unless you live under a rock, you should know the story of The Princess Bride.  It is a "classic" tale of romance, violence, action, adventure, comedy, fantasy, and fairy tale.  The story follows Buttercup and Westley, a couple destined to be together and the trials and tribulations they must get through to finally be together.  There is sword fighting, swashbuckling, kissing, death, battles of wit, stealing, etc.  There is a giant, there are snakes, and ROUS.  It is an interesting and fantastic tale.  This is a book to read to your kids, but also to read as an adult for the humor and satire.  It is an excellent read and I now feel complete having viewed the movie, and read Elwes' account of making the movie from the book.

Now the major question: Is the movie like the book?  In a sense yes, in a sense no.  There are a lot of differences, but the general story line and characters are the same.  In fact, much of the dialogue is spot on (even the speech impediment by the priest is written into the book).  You have to know though, that Goldman did not only write the book, he also wrote the screenplay for the movie.  Knowing that, I think it is ok that the movie leaves out some parts, because Goldman wrote it that way.

I recommend this book to anyone that truly loves the story, and enjoys stories of action, adventure, love, fantasy, and fairy tale.  You are bound to enjoy one of the things so pick it up and read it, if you wish.