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A review by ntembeast
The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure by William Goldman
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Not gonna lie, I went through quite the rollercoaster of gaslighting with this book before I even got into the story of The Princess Bride, because I literally didn't realize that the story actually started with the Anniversary Edition introductions and William Goldman's preemptive commentary about how he wrote the book.
Essential information to someone going into this classic entirely blind: The introductions and prelude to the main story itself is all a satirical caricature of William Goldman himself. There is no original S. Morgenstern that was abridged, and the final part of the book that contains the follow-up tale called Buttercup's Baby is written with the same continuation of this satirical representation of Goldman's alter-self.
Now, getting to the actual meat of the story, I both loved and didn't love it in certain ways. I think in a lot of ways this is one of those comical pieces whose enjoyability is tied to the foreknowledge the reader's been provided in. If you're in on the joke, you can go into it knowing it's gonna be cheesy, corny, over-the-top stupid in a lot of ways. What I didn't expect was for those moments to be met with authentically tragic ones. And when those moments hit and you were left thinking that those horrible, horrible things actually happened, it really made the story feel different: it reminded me of when I first read The Fellowship of the Ring and experienced what happened with Gandalf and Boromir. You don't just get over those kinds of things.
But then the author turns around and hits you with just the stupidest possible plot twists, the kinds that are so fully idiotic that you can't help but be like, "I will fucking find you in your grave and punch your corpse, Goldman" while simultaneously hoping, hoping that this stupid, stupid solution works. And I definitely owe the bastard a couple of good hits for the amount of gaslit I've been in this reading adventure, but I think that's the brilliance of the entire book. You really love it and hate it, you roll your eyes and facepalm because it's so dumb but you also were just feeling so damn deeply for these characters, these loveable, ridiculous characters, that you can't help but want them to be happy.
And I think this whole collection wrapped up in a book does that fairly well. Did I loathe the alter-William Goldman of the introductions with a burning passion and actively hold back from dropping this book only because I knew it was a beloved classic? Did I do a full day of fucking research on the bastard just to make sure I was getting this fucking right before I went into the story proper, so that I could enjoy it for what it was? YES AND YES. But did I also get pulled into this dumb, heroic tale of absolute nonsense? Did I feel deeper than I have for a while for some of these characters, and avidly wish that none of them died while those other douchebags got theirs? Yes and yes.
I think, for the cult classic that it is: it's great. It has some significant problems even outside of the satire that I do think need addressing, such as a very concerning tendency to use disfigurement to equate to evil/badness and punishment. This is done too often with fairy tales, series, movies, cartoons, anime, everything and it's a disgusting thing that we need to put aside. It occurred a couple of times towards the beginning of the story, but when we got almost to the end and our hero Westley made a point of saying that he would disfigure and disable Prince Humperdinck but leave his ears in perfect condition so that he could hear all the horrible things people said about how ugly he was... it just solidified that this wasn't a casual, ignorant take by the author and I'm not okay with that. Disfigurement and disabling was being used as a form of punishing others, even when the six-fingered man permanently scarred Inigo in his youth, and to hear it boldly proclaimed by our hero as though this was a fitting punishment for someone is not okay. It ruined the book and story for me, because there are real people who have all sorts of disabilities, all kinds of disfigurements, and that does not make them evil or lesser than anyone else. I'm tired of seeing this in all sorts of media, and even though I loved the stupid beauty of this story (and I do think it might be better conveyed via movie format than as a book), I'm not going to give it a pass on this.
All this being said, it was very much a good story, and I can see why so many people have loved it for so long. It's just the right level of dumb and emotional depth and threat to sway the heart. I'm gonna watch the movie with my partner after this, and I'm hoping it conveys the tale better than the book did for me.
Essential information to someone going into this classic entirely blind: The introductions and prelude to the main story itself is all a satirical caricature of William Goldman himself. There is no original S. Morgenstern that was abridged, and the final part of the book that contains the follow-up tale called Buttercup's Baby is written with the same continuation of this satirical representation of Goldman's alter-self.
Now, getting to the actual meat of the story, I both loved and didn't love it in certain ways. I think in a lot of ways this is one of those comical pieces whose enjoyability is tied to the foreknowledge the reader's been provided in. If you're in on the joke, you can go into it knowing it's gonna be cheesy, corny, over-the-top stupid in a lot of ways. What I didn't expect was for those moments to be met with authentically tragic ones. And when those moments hit and you were left thinking that those horrible, horrible things actually happened, it really made the story feel different: it reminded me of when I first read The Fellowship of the Ring and experienced what happened with Gandalf and Boromir. You don't just get over those kinds of things.
But then the author turns around and hits you with just the stupidest possible plot twists, the kinds that are so fully idiotic that you can't help but be like, "I will fucking find you in your grave and punch your corpse, Goldman" while simultaneously hoping, hoping that this stupid, stupid solution works. And I definitely owe the bastard a couple of good hits for the amount of gaslit I've been in this reading adventure, but I think that's the brilliance of the entire book. You really love it and hate it, you roll your eyes and facepalm because it's so dumb but you also were just feeling so damn deeply for these characters, these loveable, ridiculous characters, that you can't help but want them to be happy.
And I think this whole collection wrapped up in a book does that fairly well. Did I loathe the alter-William Goldman of the introductions with a burning passion and actively hold back from dropping this book only because I knew it was a beloved classic? Did I do a full day of fucking research on the bastard just to make sure I was getting this fucking right before I went into the story proper, so that I could enjoy it for what it was? YES AND YES. But did I also get pulled into this dumb, heroic tale of absolute nonsense? Did I feel deeper than I have for a while for some of these characters, and avidly wish that none of them died while those other douchebags got theirs? Yes and yes.
I think, for the cult classic that it is: it's great. It has some significant problems even outside of the satire that I do think need addressing, such as a very concerning tendency to use disfigurement to equate to evil/badness and punishment. This is done too often with fairy tales, series, movies, cartoons, anime, everything and it's a disgusting thing that we need to put aside. It occurred a couple of times towards the beginning of the story, but when we got almost to the end and our hero Westley made a point of saying that he would disfigure and disable Prince Humperdinck but leave his ears in perfect condition so that he could hear all the horrible things people said about how ugly he was... it just solidified that this wasn't a casual, ignorant take by the author and I'm not okay with that. Disfigurement and disabling was being used as a form of punishing others, even when the six-fingered man permanently scarred Inigo in his youth, and to hear it boldly proclaimed by our hero as though this was a fitting punishment for someone is not okay. It ruined the book and story for me, because there are real people who have all sorts of disabilities, all kinds of disfigurements, and that does not make them evil or lesser than anyone else. I'm tired of seeing this in all sorts of media, and even though I loved the stupid beauty of this story (and I do think it might be better conveyed via movie format than as a book), I'm not going to give it a pass on this.
All this being said, it was very much a good story, and I can see why so many people have loved it for so long. It's just the right level of dumb and emotional depth and threat to sway the heart. I'm gonna watch the movie with my partner after this, and I'm hoping it conveys the tale better than the book did for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Physical abuse, Sexism, Death, Animal death, and Fatphobia
Minor: Kidnapping and Suicidal thoughts