You can always tell I’m wiped when I resort to internet quizzes. However, here I think I have an excuse. You see, I adore this story. I say “story” because in this case, I adore both versions: the book version, by William Goldman, and the movie version, by Rob Reiner and — hey, gee, look at that — William Goldman. Of course, William Goldman is a screenwriter first and foremost. That whole novelist thing is a lark.
I first saw the movie when I was about… oh, eight, maybe? A family friend put it on for the “kids” during a visit, and not only I, but my two little brothers (8 and 3) at the time, were utterly hooked.
Grandpa: Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles…
Grandson: Doesn’t sound too bad. I’ll try to stay awake.
I think this is where I first learned that at the beginning of a story, a storyteller makes a promise, and if he keeps it, you’re his forever. Grandpa ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie, here. This movie has everything a movie should have. The book has even more. Sailor Boy used to quote one of its more infuriating lovey-dovey lines every time he wished to endear himself to me. I think it was the mix of romance and adenture that lured me. The movie is unabashedly romantic and upbeat, where the book allowed Goldman to indulge in his more pessimistic whims (in the book version — SPOILER ALERT — there’s no guarantee that Westley’s cure will last out the night), but either way it’s a damn fine yarn.
Thirteen years later, when I first read The Count of Monte Cristo I had that same thrill, a thrill I think was first introduced to me upon watching The Priness Bride. The irony of course, is that Goldman owes so much of his story to Dumas — swashbucklers, disappearing lovers, pirates, Spaniards, revenge. There is a decided lack of treasure in Goldman, and not too many lesbians either, but aside from that he’s got it covered. And though TPB is meant as a satire of the adventure/fairy-tale/romance genre, it’s a loving satire, else it would never serve as such a glorious entry of so many into the genre.
In the book version (the premise of which is that Goldman is doing an abridgement of his favorite childhood book), Goldman writes in the opening that he is and always will be most famous for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and the scene that everyone remembers from that film is Butch and the Kid jumping off the cliff. He writes that in his head, as he was writing that scene, he was imagining the Cliffs of Insanity his dad used to read to him about when he was a child. (Aside: oh, the meta!)
But the truth of the matter is, it *was* the Cliffs of Insanity, or whatever they stood for in Goldman’s head. Every storyteller has tattooed into their mind indelible images and ingrained lessons of storytelling they picked up from every story they have ever read, every story they have ever heard. Authors have themes, yes, and certain types of stories they like to explore, but they also tell stories that they would like to hear. They tell the kind of stories that made them love stories to begin with.
I was talking with my editor last night about my book, and because I’m overeducated in the realm of lit theory, I fell into the trap of likening every scene in my book to something that a) happened in real life or b) happened in a book I really love. I’m half afraid my editor thinks I don’t have an original thought in my head. But, thinking about this after our conversation, it occurred to me that this is in some sense my own analysis, not what is really going into my story. I am lit-critting my own book, witht eh added benefit of living in my head, so that I know precisely what the authro’s inspiration was, rather than just hypothesizing based on her biography. I didn’t invent the things I put in my book, just as Goldman never invented cliffs. But we plucked these ingredients out of our mental storytelling storehouses and simmered them into our books, because we know — have known since childhood — that they make the stories nice and rich.
This is why The Princess Bride is such a loving satire. Because it’s Goldman et al. getting the chance to tell the type of story they always loved to hear. Adventure and swashbuckling and death and revenge and princesses and giants and monsters and true love conquering all…
I think I’d better put a giant in my next book. And a swordfight.
Thanks to Julie, a fellow TPB aficionado, for the quiz:
Which Princess Bride Character are You?
this quiz was made by mysti
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