There is a story of Olivier after a particularly remarkable performance of Othello. Maggie Smith, his Desdemona, knocked on his dressing room door as she was on her way out of the theater and saw him staring at the wall, holding a tumbler of whiskey. She told him his work that night was magic. And he said, in, I suspect, tears and despair, “I know it was … and I don’t know how I did it.” This relates to me in but one way: The Princess Bride is the only novel of mine I really like. And I don’t know how I did it.
