71. The PRINCESS BRIDE

William Goldman 1973

A book within a book, about the author's life as he abridges his favorite book The Princess Bride written 'originally' by S. Mortgenstern. His father used to read it to him every night, and he wishes his son Jason would love it too. It is a great satire of a fairy tale full of romance and true love between Buttercup and Westley and adventures of every kind complete with a Death Zoo. It is such a great book that it fools the reader (or was it just me?) into believing that there truly is an S. Mortgenstern, and make them enchanted with countries Florin and Guilder and unlikely heroes Fezzik and Inigo.

'This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.'(opening line)

"Has it got any sports in it?"
"Fencing. Fighting. Torture, Poison. True Love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles."(8)

'Who can know when this world is going to change? Who can tell before it happens, that every prior experience, all the years, were a preparation for ... nothing. Picture this now: an all-illiterate old man struggling with an enemy tongue, an all-but-exhausted young boy fighting against sleep. And nothing between them but the words of another alien, painfully translated from native sounds to foreign. Who could suspect that in the morning a different child would wake?'(8)

'What happened was just this: I got hooked on the story. For the first time in my life, I became actively interested in a book. Me the sports fanatic, me the game freak, me the only ten-year old in Illinois with a hate on for the alphabet wanted to know what happened next.(9)

'I have stayed these years in my hovel because of you. I have taught myself languages because of you. I have made my body strong because I thought you might be pleased by a strong body. I have lived my life with only the prayer that some sudden dawn you might glance in my direction. I have not known a moment in years when the sight of you did not send my heart careening against my rib cage. I have not known a night when your visage did not accompany me to sleep. There has not been a morning when you did not flutter behind my waking eyelids... Is any of this getting through to you, Buttercup, or do you want me to go one for a while?'(54)

'But-- in the farthest corner of the great square-- in the highest building in the land-- deep in the deepest shadow-- the man in black stood waiting. His boots were black and leather. His pants were black and his shirt. His mask was black, blacker than raven. But blackest of all were his flashing eyes. Flashing cruel and deadly...'(87)

'And I just don't like Humperdinck, she thought. It's not that I hate him or anything. I just never see him,; he's always off someplace or playing in the Zoo of Death. To Buttercup's way of thinking, there were two main problems: (1) was it wrong to marry without like, and (2) if it was, was it too late to do anything about it.'(88)

'But his real might lay in his arms. There had never, not in a thousand years, been arms to match Fezzik's (For that was his name.) The arms were not only Gargantuan and totally obedient and surprisingly quick, but they were also, and this is why he never worried, tireless.'(98)

'The death moment was at hand now. Again and again Inigo thrust forward, and again and again the man in black managed to ward off the attacks, but each time it was harder, and the strength in Inigo's wrists was endless and he only thrust the more fiercely and soon the man in black grew weak. "You cannot tell it," he said then, "because I wear a cape and mask. But I am smiling now."(131)

'There are no words to contain all my wisdom. I am so cunning, crafty and clever, so filled with deceit, guile and chicanery, such a knave, so shrewd, cagey as well as calculating, as diabolical as I am vulpine, as tricky as I am untrustworthy... well, I told you there were not words invented yet to explain how great my brain is, but let me put it this way: the world is several million years old and several billion people have at one time or another trod upon it, but I Vizzini the Sicilian, am speaking with pure candor and modesty, the slickest, sleekest, sliest and wiliest fellow who has yet to come down the pike.'(152)

"Enough about beauty," Buttercup said. "Everybody always talks about how beautiful I am. I've got a mind Westley. Talk about that."(171)

'I say you are a coward and you are; I think you hunt only to reassure yourself that you are not what you are: the weakest thing to ever walk the Earth. He will come for me and then we will be gone, and you will be helpless for all your hunting, because Westley and I are joined by the bond of love and you cannot tract that, not with a thousand bloodhounds, and you cannot break it, not with a thousand swords.'(245)

"You see," Max explained as he pumped, there's different kinds of dead: there's sort of dead, mostly dead, and all dead. This fella, he's only sort of dead, which means there's still a memory inside, there's still bits of brain. You apply a little pressure here, a little more there, sometimes you get results."(274)

"Don't you tell me," Max exploded right back, "and don't you mock my methods--tickling can be terrific in the proper instances. I had a corpse once, worse than this fella, mostly dead as he was, and I tickled him and tickled him; I tickled his toes and I tickled his armpits and his ribs and I got a peacock feather and went after his belly button;..."(275)

'If you think of ending your pain, you will kill the six-fingered man. But if you only think of revenge, he will kill you, because he has already taken the thing on earth you treasured most, and he will know that, and when you battle he will say things, he will taunt you, he will talk about your pathetic father and he will laugh at your love for a failure like Domingo, and you will scream in rage and your revenge will take control and you will attack blindly-- and then he will cut you to pieces."(356)

First Ballantine Books Mass Market Edition: November 2000
398 pages
Book owned