P is for Princess Bride

The first time I’d even heard of the Princess Bride was in 6th grade.  It was the end of the school year and the teachers were looking for something to distract us all from killing one another.  They put this movie on.

I don’t remember really watching it or particularly liking it, but it stuck in my head, so when I came across the book by William Goldman, I picked it up.

First off, I have to say that the frame story he built in the book fooled me.  He touted it as a “good parts” version, saying that the book had been read to him as a child, and that whoever read it skipped the boring parts, so he rewrote it to also skip the boring parts.  I found out only this year that all that isn’t true.

*sigh*  At least I never thought Paranormal Activity was for real, unlike some of my more gullible friends.

But anyway… I love books that meld genres, but Princess Bride pretty much has it all.  It’s a romance.  And a fantasy.  There’s torture, fantastic animals, revenge, and kissing!

I really believe that what made the book work was a sprinkling of magic.  Some books are just like that.  They can’t be deconstructed or predicted; they’re just amazing.  While the book wasn’t as popular as the movie, I think that it can be said, for both of them, that they were unexpectedly popular.

Yesterday, I wrote about Stephen King’s On Writing, and I think that it’s absolutely important to learn about the how to’s and what-not-to’s.  But I also think that authors need to bring their authentic selves to writing.  At the end of the day, it’s the reader’s relationship with the book that matters.  And who breathes life into the book, if not the author?

“Life isn’t fair, it’s just fairer than death, that’s all.”
― William Goldman