Year of Learning: The Princess Bride

I know that I have mentioned some of my all time favorite movies on here. I am not sure I have listed my top ten. I am not going to because that is not what this is about. However, The Princess Bride is my 5th favorite of all time. This is one of those movies that I don't remember the first time I ever saw it. I feel like it's a movie that has always been in my life. I do remember buying the DVD. I still have the DVD that I bought. I remember how excited I was to watch this film again because it had been so long.

It wasn't until about 5 or 6 years ago that I found out that The Princess Bride was also a book. I have been terrified to read this book because I don't want the book to be totally ruined or the movie. I tried my best to avoid it at all costs. A friend of mine read the book and said how good the book really was and that I should give it a try. When I did I didn't get very far. Mainly because I wasn't in a reading mood, and about a million other excuses. This year when I decided to do this books into movie thing this was the first book that I put on the list.

I have to say that The Princess Bride has taken over the number one spot for my favorite book of all time. This book was so much fun to read! In some way I might say I enjoyed it better than the movie! It's great film adaptation. After finding out that the author of the book, William Goldman,  is also the screenplay writer it wasn't that much of a shock anymore. There very few things that are different from the book to the screen. Like in the movie Buttercup is almost attacked by shrieking eels, but in the book she is almost attacked by sharks. The White horses that Fezzik finds at the end of movie were in the book but they had a slightly more dominated appearance and mean. The one thing that I was worried about was the narration of the story.

In the movie the fantasy part of the movie is in a book too, which is read by the grandpa to his grandson while he is sick. That is such a memorable part of the movie I was wondering in that is what was happening in the book. I was worried that the whole book would have been the fantasy, and that it would leave me to wonder why that was changed from the book to the movie. Well, the narration in the book is simply pure genius and it's unlike any other book I have read or while read in the future.

No, there is no grandpa reading the book The Princess Bride in the book. However, there are cutaways from fantasy to reality through the whole book. What is officially on the front cover of the book is The Princess Bride followed just underneath by "S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love & High Adventure". Now, for those of you paying any attention, I had mentioned that the author of the book is named William Goldman. So, who in the world is S. Morgenstern? That is the brilliance of this book.

You see, William Goldman is the author of the book, but he is claiming not to be. In the first few pages of the book is a "forward" that is written by William Goldman saying that the book you are about to read is an abridged version of S. Morgenstern's book The Princess Bride. Through the whole book William Goldman writes these asides explaining what he "took out" of the original book. The chapters and pages that weren't as excited, or the parts that his dad skipped when he was a boy, and then continues on with the story. In reality, S. Morgenstern does not, and has never, exists! Goldman made up a fake author, and said that he made an abridged version of his story so that it would be more enjoyable to read.... However, none of that is true.

Goldman wrote the whole book and then interrupted his own work so bring everyone back to reality to "explain" stuff and then went back to his own story. Knowing that makes the book so much funnier! So, also to be clear there is not unabridged version of The Princess Bride it's all a ruse! It's fantastic every single step of the way!

All of the character stay true in the book and in the movie, it's really almost like watching the actual movie in your head while you are reading. The more I read that more I feel in love with the book and the movie! There is so many little parts that could not make it into the movie for time. Like we get background information of Inigo, Fezzik, and Vizzini. There is also small details, like the sword fighting scene in the book is done all at night while it was in the morning in the movie. The Machine in the book only went up to 20 in the book and 50 in the film. These little things were enough to take out of the film to still leave something special but knowing them from the book makes you love the characters on screen even more.

I will say that I would recommend both the book and the movie to anyone who loves "Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles..." or anything of that nature.