{"id":10592,"date":"2007-08-21T17:31:37","date_gmt":"2007-08-21T21:31:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2007\/08\/21\/10592.html"},"modified":"2018-03-12T16:56:56","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T21:56:56","slug":"book-report-the-princess-bride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2007\/08\/21\/book-report-the-princess-bride\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Report: The Princess Bride"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I reread The Princess Bride<\/a> just a bit before David Moles brought it up<\/a> a couple of weeks ago in connection with the Stardust<\/a> movie. I wasn’t aware of the connection people were making, or I don’t think I was, but it’s likely that it seeped through into my decision-making as I was looking through my shelves at bathtime.\n

This isn’t exactly the place to compare (1) the book of The Princess Bride<\/I>, (1a) the movie of The Princess Bride<\/I>, (2) the book of Stardust<\/I>, (2’) the movie of Stardust<\/I>, but I will say that I vastly enjoyed all four of them<\/I>, and will almost certainly continue to enjoy all four of them again and again and again and again. That should tell you what sort of person Your Humble Blogger is, I’m afraid.\n

For whatever reason, on this I found the William Goldman bits<\/I> less powerfully depressing than I usually do. Perhaps it’s because I am aware that the actual William Goldman does not actually have a son, and that the William Goldman bits<\/I> are every bit as fictional as the S. Morgenstern bits<\/I>, that is, every bit as fictional as the good bits<\/I>. Also, I have a daughter now, and have had the experience of wanting her to like a particular book or movie, and been disappointed. With the movie of The Princess Bride<\/I>, now that I think of it. And I’ve had moments when I haven’t much liked the Perfect Non-Reader, and know that those moments pass, and that the moments will likely pass with the character in the William Goldman bits<\/I>.\n

Another thing that came to mind—at the time that the movie of The Princess Bride<\/I> came out, the stars were not stars. Cary Elwes was an unknown, having been in a handful of movies, not yet having had a recurring role on the X-Files, a flourishing voice-over career, or the occasional role as a heavy or film-maker in odd independent films. Frankly, he’s still a bit of an unknown, but there it is. Robin Wright had been in a minor soap, hadn’t married Sean Penn, hadn’t played Moll Flanders or Mrs. Forrest Gump. Chris Sarandon was, and is, the first Mr. Susan Sarandon, that guy who was in that movie, and that tv show, and that play. Recognizable, always working, but not a star. Christopher Guest was an SNL alum with one successful movie. Billy Crystal was an SNL alum with one moderately successful movie. Carol Kane was recognizable, but not a star. Wallace Shawn was that guy that Woody Allen called a homunculus, or the guy who had dinner with Andre, or the playwright. His profitable career as a voice actor hadn’t begun, nor had his innumerable television guest appearances. Mel Smith and Peter Cook were known to devotees of British Comedy, but weren’t particularly familiar to American audiences. Fred Savage hadn’t started his Wonder Years. Mandy Patinkin was a Broadway star, but was probably best known for Yentl<\/I>, by which I mean, he wasn’t well-known at all. He hadn’t kicked himself off two successful television shows. Peter Falk was<\/I> a star, of course\n

The thing is that I can’t read the book without thinking of the brilliant casting job they did for the movie, and I forget that most of those actors were not the obvious choices they seem to be in retrospect. Also, when somebody watches the movie now, almost everybody is a well-known character actor, and almost all of them became<\/I> well-known character actors after<\/I> appearing in The Princess Bride<\/I>, and in part because<\/I> of their roles in The Princess Bride<\/I>. That’s ... interesting, isn’t it?\n

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus<\/I>,
-Vardibidian.\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I reread The Princess Bride just a bit before David Moles brought it up a couple of weeks ago in connection with the Stardust movie. I wasn\u2019t aware of the connection people were making, or I don\u2019t think I was,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[194,195],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-report","category-flim"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10592"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18086,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10592\/revisions\/18086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}