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qmch 's review for:
The Princess Bride
by William Goldman
Reading The Princess Bride after watching the film is a curious experience. The book is more cynical in many ways, and its framing device (of being a story "discovered and translated" rather than simply told by a grandfather to a grandson) is generally effective, if occasionally pretentious.
Inigo and Fezzik get more, uh, screentime in the novel, whereas Buttercup and Westley's romance is more fully developed in the film. The swordfights, the longing glances, the impeccable casting all contribute to the film being in some sense a more perfect realization of what the book wanted to be. It is faithful where it needs to be and takes liberties exactly where it should. I think the book is worth reading, if only to see the inspirations and divergences, but ultimately this is one of the rare cases where the film is the canonical version that lives in my heart, and the book has become a shadow.
Inigo and Fezzik get more, uh, screentime in the novel, whereas Buttercup and Westley's romance is more fully developed in the film. The swordfights, the longing glances, the impeccable casting all contribute to the film being in some sense a more perfect realization of what the book wanted to be. It is faithful where it needs to be and takes liberties exactly where it should. I think the book is worth reading, if only to see the inspirations and divergences, but ultimately this is one of the rare cases where the film is the canonical version that lives in my heart, and the book has become a shadow.