The Princess Bride (1973)

I always (almost) like the book better than the movie. Not in this case. The movie is 5 stars. Rob Reiner’s reading was good but it seemed he was just trying to capture the voices of the actors from the movie.

Kudos to whoever casted the actors for the movie. Each was cast perfectly.

And to find so much of the dialogue in the movie lifted verbatim from the book…well, maybe a 4 1/2 star rating for the book. ( )

Did you think that the best parts of the Princess Bride movie were the interludes involving Peter Falk and Fred Savage? If so, you'll love the book. For the rest of us, this book's extended ramblings by Goldman might not be greatly appreciated.

It is nice to have the best lines of the Princess Bride movie preserved in print, but they're not all here. Most of them are. But, unfortunately, not: "Plato, Aristotle, Socrates? Morons!" ( )

I really enjoyed picking up this book. I originally did not realize that the metafictional aspects present in the movie actually came from the book. I look forward to reading other works of metafiction. Also, this book has given even more support to my hypothesis that watching the movie before reading the book enhances the experience if they're both good (and not too much is lost in translation). See Fight Club and Blade Runner for other examples. ( )

Westley, the handsome farm bow who risks death (and much worse) for the woman he loves; Inigo, the Spanish swordsman who lives only to avenge his father's death; Fezzik, the gentles giant, ever to have uprooted a tree with his bare hands, Vizzini, the evil Sicilian, with a mind so keen he's foiled by his own perfect logic; Prince Humperdinck, the eviler ruler of Florin, who has a equally insatiable thirst for war and the beauteous Buttercup; Count Rugen, the evilest man of all, who thrives on the excruciating pain of other; Miracle Max, the King's ex-Miracle Man, who can raise the dead (kind of); and of course, Buttercup... the princes bride, the most perfect, beautiful woman in the history of the world!

I had listened to the book once before as an audio book, and finally had the chance to read it. Of course, I love Goldman's style (with the constant interruptions), where others might find it irritating. It's a somewhat zany way of writing, similar to Carl Hiassen, Bill Boyd, Janet Evanovich. I wished he'd left off the "Buttercups Baby" section, though...it just seems very fragmented and doesn't lead anywhere. Intentionally, of course, but I still found it tedious. However, the main story is great. ( )