The Princess Bride by William Goldman

From Goodreads.com
   What happens when the most beautiful girl in the world marries the handsomest prince of all time and he turns out to be...well...a lot less than the man of her dreams?
   As a boy William Goldman claims, he loved to hear his father read the S. Morgenstern classic, The Princess Bride. But as a grown-up he discovered that the boring parts were left out of good old Dad's recitation, and only the "good parts" reached his ears.
   Now Goldman does Dad one better. He's reconstructed the "Good Parts Version" to delight wise kids and wide-eyed grownups everywhere.
   What's it about? Fencing. Fighting. True Love. Strong Hate. Harsh Revenge. A Few Giants. Lots of Bad Men. Lots of Good Men. Five or Six Beautiful Women. Beasties Monstrous and Gentle. Some Swell Escapes and Captures. Death, Lies, Truth, Miracles, and a Little Sex.
   In short, it's about everything.

   I did not watch this movie growing up. A tragedy, as I understand it. But not watching gave me a fresh view on the book. First I must say, the story inside a story, inside a story (that's right three!) was a little strange at the beginning. It really threw me off. The part of the synopsis that says Goldman claimed to love his father reading The Princess Bride is a part of the story. After a little research, a friend and I realized S. Morgenstern never existed except in the mind of William Goldman.
   William Goldman created something like I've never read. It is written like he is telling S. Morgenstern's tale to his grandson. He interrupts the story of The Princess Bride, telling us what has happened in the pages left out of his father's telling, with the occasional interruption of his grandson. To complicate matters more, at the end of the book Stephen King pops up, in discussions of the making of the film's sequel. It definitely left me wondering how much was actually true.
   The tale itself is quite entertaining. It's about a girl, who loves a man, very deeply, with every fiber of her being. He leaves to make his fortune only to meet disaster on the sea. Hopeless of ever loving anyone again, Buttercup becomes betrothed to a prince, and is kidnapped by an odd trio.
   I watched the movie after reading The Princess Bride. So many details of both Fezzik's and Inigo's background were left out (of the movie.) I'd recommend this book to those who grew up loving the movie. If you're a fan of Fezzik or Inigo you won't be able to help but fall more in love with them through the original book.