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The Princess Bride (novel)
The Princess Bride , a book by William Goldman . See also quotes from The Princess Bride, the 1987 movie based on the book.
Introduction
- This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.
- Pneumonia today is not what it once was, especially when I had it. Ten days or so in the hospital and then home for the long recuperating period. I guess it was three more weeks in bed, a month maybe. No energy, no games even. I was just this lump going through a strength-gathering time, period.
- Which is how you have to think of me when I came upon The Princess Bride.
- "Chapter One: The Bride." He held up the book then. "I'm reading it to you for relax." He practically shoved the book in my face. "By S. Morgenstern. Great Florinese writer. The Princess Bride. He too came to America. S. Morgenstern. Dead now in New York. The English is his own. He spoke eight tongues." Here my father put down the book and held up all his fingers. "Eight. Once, in Florin City, I was in his cafe." He shook his head now; he was always doing that, my father, shaking his head when he'd said it wrong. "Not his cafe. He was in it, me too, the same time. I saw him. S. Morgenstern. He had head like this, that big," and he shaped his hands like a big balloon. "Great man in Florin City. Not so much in America."
- "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."
- "Sounds okay," I said, and I kind of closed my eyes. "I'll do my best to stay awake... but I'm awful sleepy, Daddy..."
- Picture this now: an all-but-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?
- Even today, that's how I summon back my father when the need arises. Slumped and squinting and halting over words, giving me Morgenstern's masterpiece as best he could. The Princess Bride belonged to my father.
- (A flashback sequence, as Goldman tries to find a copy of the book in time for his son's birthday.)
- "Hunters," my father was saying now. "Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies." He was camped in my cranium, hunched over, bald and squinting, trying to read, trying to please, trying to keep his son alive and the wolves away.
- The more i flipped on, the more I knew: Morgenstern wasn't writing any children's book; he was writing a kind of satiric history of his country and the decline of the monarchy in Western civilization.
- But my father only read me the action stuff, the good parts. He never bothered with the serious side at all.
- Anyway, here's the "good parts" version. S. Morgenstern wrote it. And my father read it to me. And now I give it to you. What you do with it will be of more than passing interest to us all.
One: The Bride
- The land of Florin was set between where Sweden and Germany would eventually settle. (This was before Europe.) In theory, it was ruled by King Lotharon and his second wife, the queen. But in fact, the King was barely hanging on, could only rarely tell day from night, and basically spent his time in muttering. He was very old, every organ in his body had long since betrayed him, and most of his important decisions regarding Florin had a certain arbitrary quality that bothered many of the leading citizens.
- Prince Humperdinck actually ran things. If there had been a Europe, he would have been the most powerful man in it. Even as it was, nobody within a thousand miles wanted to mess with him.
- Flailing and thrashing, Buttercup wept and tossed and paced and wept some more, and there have been three great cases of jealousy since David of Galilee was first afflicted with the emotion when he could no longer stand the fact that his neighbor Saul's cactus outshone his own. (Originally, jealousy pertained solely to plants, other people's cactus or ginkgoes, or later, when there was grass, grass, whichis why, even to this day, we say that someone is green with jealousy.) Buttercup's case rated a clse fourth on the all-time list.
- It was a very long and very green night.
- He didn't love her back and that was that.
- The tears that kept Buttercup company the remainder of the day were not at all like those that had blinded her into the tree trunk. Those were noisy and hot; they pulsed. They were silent and steady and all they did was remind her that she wasn't good enough. She was seventeen, and every male she had ever known had crumbled at her feet and it meant nothing. The one time it mattered, she wasn't good enough.
- "Don't you understand anything that's going on?
- Buttercup shook her head.
- Westley shook his too. "You never have been the brightest, I guess."
- "Do you love me, Westley? Is that it?"
- He couldn't believe it. "Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches! If your love were -"
- "I don't understand that first one yet," Buttercup interrupted. She was starting to get very excited now. "Let me get this straight. Are you saying my love is a grain of sand and yours is this other thing? Images confuse me so - is this universal business of yours bigger than my sand? Help me, Westley. I have the feeling we're on the verge of something just terribly important."
- "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, Buttercup, or do you want me to go on?"
- "Never stop."
- "There has not been -"
- "If you're teasing me, Westley, I'm just going to kill you."
Two: The Groom
- Prince Humperdinck was shaped like a barrel. His chest was a great barrel chest, his thighs mighty barrel thighs. He was not tall but he weighed close to 250 pounds, rock hard. He walked like a crab, side to side, and probably if he had wanted to be a ballet dancer he would have been doomed to a miserable life of endless frustration. But he didn't want to be a ballet dancer. He wasn't in that much of a hurry to be king either. Even war, at which he excelled, took second place in his affections. Everything took second place in his affections.
- Hunting was his love.
- Once he was determined, once he had focused on an object, the Prince was relentless. He never tired, never wavered, neither ate nor slept. It was death chess and he was international grand master.
- "Your father has had his annual physical," the Count said. "I have the report."
- "And?"
- "Your father is dying."
- "Drat!" said the Prince. "That means I shall have to get married."
Three: The Courtship
Four: The Preparations
- I didn't even know this chapter existed until I began the 'good parts' version. All my father used to say at this point was, "What with one thing and another, three years passed," and then he'd explain how the day came when Buttercup was officially introduced to the world as the coming queen, and how the Great Square of Florin City was filled as never before, awaiting her introduction, and by then he was into the terrific business dealing with the kidnapping.
- Would you believe that in the original Morgenstern this was the longest chapter in the book?
- But from a narrative point of view, in 105 pages nothing happens. Except this: 'What with one thing and another, three years passed.'
Five: The Announcement
Six: The Festivities
Seven: The Wedding
Eight: Honeymoon
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