Book Review :: The Princess Bride by William Goldberg

The Princess Bride by William Goldman
ISBN: 0345418263
Published by Ballantine Books
on 2003-07-15
Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 456
Format: Audio
Goodreads

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.

In short, it's about everything.

Last updated on 10 November 2021

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My thoughts on The Princess Bride audiobook

The Princess Bride (1987) is one of my favourite movies of all time. Very few films are better. And you can fight me on that one. But despite my love of the movie, I had never read the book. It’s one of those modern classics that I just haven’t got around to reading. And technically I still haven’t. I listened to The Princess Bride audiobook (abridged) on a road trip recently, but it was pure joy listening to it.

The movie

If you’ve been living under a rock for the last 30 plus years, then The Princess Bride is a tale within a tale. The main tale, however, follows Princess Buttercup and her ‘sweet Westley’. Buttercup is just a country girl living with her parents on their farm, and Westley is their ‘farm boy’ as Buttercup calls him. One day they realise that they’re in love, but Westley is off to seek his fortune across the sea. But his ship is boarded by pirates, and it’s believed he’s dead.

“When I was your age, television was called books.”

With her love lost to the sea, Buttercup agrees to marry Prince Humperdink, though she does not love him. While out riding one day, Buttercup gets kidnapped by the Sicilian Vizzini, a giant called Fezzik, and a Spaniard called Inigo Montoya but is seemingly rescued from the trio by the Man in Black.

Spoiler alert: The Man in Black turns out to be Westley!

“You seem a decent fellow,” Inigo said. “I hate to kill you.”
“You seem a decent fellow,” answered the man in black. “I hate to die.”

But Prince Humperdink is onto them, trying to get his Princess back and wed. So the rest of the story follows Buttercup as she’s forced into marriage, Westley as he tortured by Count Rugen who is one of Humperdink’s men, Inigo as he hunts for the six-fingered man who killed his father, Fezzik who just wants to hang out with his friends and rhyme all day, and Prince Humperdink who actually wants Buttercup dead so he can blame it on Gelder and start a war.

There’s also Billy Crystal Miracle Max.

Basically, if you haven’t seen the movie you’re missing out.

The abridged audiobook

Usually, the book is a lot better than the movie (99% of the time anyway), but now that I’ve read and watched the pair, I can comfortably say they’re equally good. There are some things in this abridged audiobook version that don’t in the movie, but more so that they have been cut out rather than changed. There are also a few things in the movie that weren’t in the abridged audiobook, such as the shrieking eels or the priest saying MAWAGE. Otherwise, I found the abridged audiobook so close to the movie (or rather vice versa) that some of the lines were word-for-word. And it was glorious.

I loved listening to The Princess Bride audiobook, and am keen to pick up the actual physical book and read that for myself at some point. I suspect there is more to it, and more connections to the movie.

So tell me: Have you read The Princess Bride? Or perhaps you’ve listened to The Princess Bride audiobook? Let me know!