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The Princess Bride

William Goldman

Start date: September 1, 2023

Finish date: September 30, 2023

Discussion: Science Fiction and Fantasy

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Science Fiction and Fantasy

* 2026 Sci-Fi and Fantasy Reading Schedule
By Book Nerd , Purple Book Horse · 3 posts · 38 views

last updated Nov 20, 2025 07:25AM

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Mar 09, 2022 Manybooks rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: childrens-literature, will-not-be-finishing, book-reviews, fairy-tales-fantasy, like-the-movie-not-the-novel, annoying-satire

Yes indeed, I majorly adore the 1987 The Princess Bride movie, have very fond and delightful memories of watching the film over and over again with groups of friends at university parties and of course loudly quoting much of the dialogue verbatim. And when I realised in 1998 that the movie is in fact based on a 1973 fantasy novel by the same name, I guess I really did expect William Goldman's presented text for The Princess Bride to be if not a carbon copy of the 1987 movie version then at the v Yes indeed, I majorly adore the 1987 The Princess Bride movie, have very fond and delightful memories of watching the film over and over again with groups of friends at university parties and of course loudly quoting much of the dialogue verbatim. And when I realised in 1998 that the movie is in fact based on a 1973 fantasy novel by the same name, I guess I really did expect William Goldman's presented text for The Princess Bride to be if not a carbon copy of the 1987 movie version then at the very least very much similar both thematically and also with regard to narrative cadence and flow.

However and unfortunately, whenever I have tried since 1998 (and at least ten times thus far) to sit down and read The Princess Bride, I just cannot seem to get past the (in my humble opinion and to and for me) rather artificial feeling satire and author/narrator incursions of especially and in particular the beginning of the novel (something that judging from the vast array of glowing reviews for The Princess Bride and William Goldman's presented narrative the majority of readers both appreciate and enjoy, but also and equally something that I simply do find massively annoying and tedious and so much so that I am giving up and that my eleventh unsuccessful attempt at reading The Princess Bride in ints entirety will also now absolutely be my last one, my last try).

Because and pretty much obviously, while I adore and continue to totally love the movie, I just do not at all like the textual satire and attempts at humour encountered in the novel and instead of putting my copy of The Princess Bride back onto my bookshelf for another reading attempt at a later date, I am simply going to declare The Princess Bride as a novel and William Goldman as its author as not really being for me, as not really being to my liking and as such a final declaration of The Princess Bride being a DNF (although I am still going to rating The Princess Bride with as rather grudging three stars, since I also do believe that my reading frustration with William Goldman is likely and mostly due to the fact that I encountered the Princess Bride movie many years before having had the opportunity to read the novel, and that my inability to enjoy the textual satire of The Princess Bride is therefore and probably more about me than about Goldman's actual writing, since yes, I very likely might have enjoyed The Princess Bride as a story considerably more if I had not watched the movie before encountering the novel). ...more

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