The Princess Bride Book Review: Guest Post by Molly

My twelve-year-old sister Molly graciously agreed to write a guest post for me this week, and she chose to review her favorite book.  If you don't have an invitation to Molly's private blog, Each and Every Hour, just contact me to get one. And if you have been invited... take a minute to hop over there and read a few of her fun posts!

Miss Dashwood has kindly asked me to write a guest post on her blog. Now, before I go any farther, I want to say that you must not blame Miss Dashwood if this post is crummy, boring, and the worst thing you ever read. Because I’m not the best writer in the blog world. But, in spite of that fact, she had let me do a guest post. So here goes. A guest post written and illustrated (all right, I didn’t draw any of the pictures, they’re from Google Images) by Miss Molly on her favorite book in the world: The Princess Bride. WARNING! THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!

First of all, let me point out one thing about The Princess Bride that I used to be confused on, and I’m sure that some people are confused about it too. The thing is, that there is no such person as S. Morgenstern. The book is really written be William Goldman. This is certain for two reasons. 

1. On the back flap of the book, you can find a picture of the person who wrote the book. That person is William Goldman, not S. Morgenstern. So no matter how many times he interrupts the story to tell you how his dad read this book to him as a kid, and how there is a bunch of stuff that he cut out of the story because it was boring, just bear in mind that he is making that up. Even though his interruptions are sometimes funny, they can sometimes be a bit confusing.

2. In the movie, you can go to the making of the movie, and in one part of it; Goldman tells how he got the idea for the book. He says that he wanted to write a book, so he asked his two daughters what he should write the book about. One said;

“Write a book about a princess.” And the other one said;

“Write a book about a bride.” And Goldman said;

“Okay, I’ll call it: The Princess Bride.”

So you see that there is living proof that The Princess Bride was written by William Goldman, and not by S. Morgenstern.

All right, now let’s get down to the fun part. The characters. In this movie, even I admit that the plotline itself is rather dumb. But the characters are something else! All of them (at least the ones that have names) are funny in some way. Even Buttercup. If you’re trying to figure out what on earth could Buttercup do or say that is funny, it’s when she says; “ Farm Boy, fetch me that pitcher.” And when she says the whole speech about her “little joke,” with Westley. But other than that, yeah, the leading lady is kind of boring. To get back to what we were talking about, I think the only people who aren't funny are Queen Bella and King Lotharon. But that’s probably because they hardly have any lines throughout the whole entire book.

Westley is the hero of the book. He swordfights, mountain climbs, fights giants, outthinks Sicilians, is immune to iocane powder, is a pirate and dies twice. Well, he only dies once, but everybody thought that the Dread Pirate Roberts had killed him. In fact he is about the best hero ever. Next to Sir Percy, that is. I mean, no one is as wonderful as Sir Percy. Ahem. One thing I like about Westley is that he doesn’t worry about failing something. He just does things and knows that they will work out. After all, it has to all work out, or else it wouldn’t be a “Happily Ever After.”  Like when he’s trying to get Buttercup out of the Snow Sand, he doesn’t stop to think and see if there might be a better way to rescue her. He just goes.

There was no question of failure in his mind. He knew he would find her and he knew she would be upset and hysterical and possibly even brain tumbled. But alive. And that was, in the end, the only fact of lasting import. Once he found her, he would pull her to the surface and the only real problem would be convincing your grandchildren that such a thing had actually happened and was not just another family fable.

See what I mean? And for those who have read the book so many times that something looks funny about that passage, yes, I shortened it a little. But let’s move on to the next character.

Buttercup is the heroine of the story. She is beautiful, rides rather well, and ummm….. has nice clothes. Buttercup is something of a wimp. Her name itself is rather…. shall we say, different. And she doesn’t seem to possess much strength of mind. But that might have come from not doing any work, and making Westley do it instead. Also, she has pretty weird parents, who do nothing but fight all the time, so she might have inherited some of the wimpishness from them. Yeah, I know “wimpishness” isn’t a word, but it fits. 

Now, because I just read over that last paragraph, and felt that it was a little harsh on Buttercup, I’ll say that she does a good job in telling Humperdink off, right before he puts The Machine up to twenty.

"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, PREPARE TO DIE!!" Inigo is a very interesting character. Like Westley, he swordfights, and also drinks, and is bent on revenge. He is a master at fencing, and in the book fights with the air, unnamed people, Westley, King Bats, and Count Rugen. All of which he defeats except Westley. 

Fezzik is the gentle giant. Since I’ve been telling what everybody else is good at, I might as well tell what Fezzik can do. He rhymes, wrestles with more than one person at a time and drools when he gets excited. That’s what the book says, I didn’t make it up. His rhymes are very good ones, except for when he finds Inigo again. There…..well… it is a little squirmy.

Then, quietly, he said, “Fezzik?”

From behind the noisy one, the quiet one said, “Who says-ik?”

Ew. But let us move on from the characters to other stuff. After all, this is supposed to be a book review, not a character review.

Now, for this next part, I’m going to be sort of comparing the book and the movie. There are several times in which the movie guys cut things from the book. Or else, there are things that they change. Not very big things, but big enough to be noticeable if you’ve read the book more than once. For instance, when they’re climbing the Cliffs of Insanity, in the book the rope they use is tied to a tree, but in the movie they make the rope tied to a rock, and they make Vizzini cut it instead of untying it. In the bay where Buttercup dives off the boat, in the book it is sharks that come after her, in the movie they change it to eels. And in the Westley verses Vizzini scene, they cut some of the dialogue.

The Princess Bride is a book that makes you want to just keep on reading. The characters, the humor, even the rather corny plot makes you want the book to never end. But, sadly, it does end, as all books do. Ew, I just read that last bit, and I sounded just like an ad. Oh, well. It’s true. So if you haven’t read the book, go read it. Please. To my sorrow, it does have a bit of bad language, but you can always go through and cross out the bad words with a pen. Providing the book is yours, that is. But on the whole, it is a wonderful book to read, and if you haven’t read it yet…. then what are you waiting for? 

There is one more thing I’d like to say before I close this post. At the end of the movie, it ends with Westley and Buttercup kissing. But in the book, it ends on a cliffhanger, and you can make your own conclusions as to what happens.

From behind them suddenly, closer than they had imagined, they could hear the roar of Humperdink: “Stop them! Cut them off!” They were admittedly, startled, but there was no need to worry: they were on the fastest horses in the kingdom, and the lead was already theirs.

However, this was before Inigo’s wound reopened, and Westley relapsed again, and Fezzik took the wrong turn, and Buttercup’s horse threw a shoe. And the night behind them was filled with the crescendoing sound of pursuit………

That is how it ends. And don’t comment and ask what “crescendoing” means, because I have no idea. It’s in the book; I didn’t make it up. But I like to stop reading at this part.

It appears to me as if we’re doomed, then,” Buttercup said.

Westley looked at her. “Doomed, madam?”

“To be together. Until one of us dies.”

“I’ve done that already, and I haven’t the slightest intention of ever doing it again,” Westley said.

Buttercup looked at him. “Don’t we sort of have to sometime?”

“Not if we promise to outlive each other, and I make that promise now.”

Buttercup looked at him. “Oh my Westley, so do I.”