Happy New Year everyone! I hope your January has been a fun one and full of grand adventures. I for one have already been on several journeys, and am embarking on yet another. Let me tell you about the first adventure I had this year.
As you may have already guessed from the title of this post, I went to Florin and explored the Cliffs of Insanity, the Fire Swamp, shark-infested waters, and everything in between in the Princess Bride. Some of you may be saying "Wait, there was a book?" Yes, there was a book before the movie. I didn't know until a couple of years ago. This is my first time putting my hands on a copy, which I decided to pick up before a new years trip to the mountains. William Goldman, the author of the book and screenwriter of the movie, presents the book as an abridged version of the original Florinese story by S. Morgenstern. He does a very good job convincing the reader that it is indeed merely an adaptation of the original book, when in fact the entire story is out of his own mind. (As you can probably guess from this, I was one of the readers who actually believed the story was the way he presented it. In my defense, the layout and presentation of the book was such that it had every appearance of not being the original work...) He paints an elaborate picture of his fictional life an experiences with this particular story. As a young boy, the son of a Florinese immigrant, he is introduced to the book as he is recovering from a bout of pneumonia. His fascination with the book carries over into adulthood, when he attempts to give his own son the gift of reading the story that carried him through his dark days. However, after his son receives the book, and he asks him about it, Goldman realizes that his father only read the good parts aloud to him, skipping over the boring narratives. It was then and there that he decided to condense the book to only the "exciting parts" so as to make it appealing to all ages and levels of interest in reading.
After the long "history" behind his decision to practically rewrite the book, we finally get to the story. It is much as you would expect if you have seen the movie, as I have countless times. The movie itself is set much like Goldman would have been with his father reading The Princess Bride to him, recovering from pneumonia, only there is a boy with his grandfather, but that is a minor detail. The rest of the book is interspersed with Goldman's opinions on the "original" story, and why he left something out, or what he would have added in. For me personally, before I realized that it was merely a setup or fabrication that the story was what it was, it did get a little annoying. Although I am one for wanting to know history behind certain events in a book; otherwise I just don't know what in the world is going on. Goldman intentionally decided to not write about the historical aspect of the story, or include certain descriptions, although considering the whole supposed premise behind the book I think I can forgive him ;-) Overall, the book was great. Everything that I expected to happen, happened, plus some. It is a story that I am very familiar with, and I even found myself quoting along with the characters, but all the same it never gets old and is always exciting to experience. This is one of the few instances where the movie is true to the book. Granted the screenplay was adapted from the book by the author, but still, it is rare that you find a movie so true to the original story, if there is one.
Those are my thoughts on the book. Have any of you read it? I'd love to hear your thoughts! Let me know in the comments.
Happy reading!
