"Has it got any sports in it?"
"Are you kidding? Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles..."
"Doesn't sound too bad. I'll try to stay awake."
its the 30th Anniversary edition
Something you need to know: The book isn't really an abridgment. S. Morgenstern is some made up historian to some made up country but throughout the book the author adds in commentary in places where he pretends to have cut out useless information. I found it very amusing :) my mom just found it kind of annoying. I guess its your own personal opinion! They do this same kind of thing in the movie when they have the conversations between the grandfather and grandson interrupt the main story.
I'm sure most of you have seen the 1987 movie (at least I HOPE most of you have seen it, because it is spectacular and needs to be seen by everyone). For those of you that have seen it, you'd agree that its pretty spectacular right? riiiiiight?
Well prepare to be amazed because the book is EVEN MORE spectacular!
Ok, maybe that isn't surprising since its a truth universally acknowledged that books are always better than movies.... but still, in the book you get the back stories of the characters: Humperdink's hunting obsession, Fezzik's childhood, the murder of Inigo's father.
And the ending in the book is way cooler than the one in the movie. Its kind of a cliff hanger, but basically the author sets it up so it can end however you want it to, which I totally LOVE. My version is a happy ending :)
BUT the 30th anniversary edition has a special surprise in the back: the first chapter of Buttercup's Baby (S. Morgenstern's sequel to The Princess Bride that Mr. Goldman has so kindly started to abridge for us). It picks up where The Princess Bride leaves off (so kind of getting rid of the cliff hanger ending) but then he tells just a few more stories of their adventures before leaving us in suspense and imagining our own endings and future adventures all over again.
In summary: This book is jam packed with love and adventure (I literally sighed and squealed out loud when reading it, maybe thats because I'm super girly or maybe thats because the book is really good). Its an easy and exciting read, and if you are too lazy to actually read it then you can watch the movie instead and still fall in love with the story!
I love that book with all my heart. I read it back in high school, and believed the 'abridgement' story all the way until I finished it. Then I felt pretty stupid, because I shared the abridging element with an English teacher who I don't think had read it... XD
ReplyDeleteThe funniest this for me was the dialogue's similarity to the movie, which is because he actually intended for the book to be a screenplay from the beginning. The best thing for me was the insight into Inigo Montoya. The worst thing for me is that the musical never panned out. (It was going to be by the guy who wrote The Light in the Piazza, who is the son of the woman who wrote Once Upon a Mattress, who is the daughter of Richard Rodgers. Such a legacy!)