January 13, 2008
The Princess Bride (25th anniversary edition), William Goldman (1973, 1998)

This is the other book I read as a result of the King William's College quiz. In the section about duels, one question asked, "Whose performance against the three-handed marvel was described by the Princess as 'unique'?" I thought I had a vague recollection of something of the sort in The Princess Bride (possibly because I had Goldman on the brain, having recently reread Boys and Girls Together), so I put in a request to the library to check it out.

It was quickly pointed out to me that I was thinking of the Count who had six fingers, not three hands. (The "three-handed marvel" is Sigismond Thalberg, and the correct answer to the question if Franz Liszt, who defeated Thalberg in a piano duel.) But it was too late to cancel the hold, and when the book came in, I took it home anyway.

The last time I read the book was way back in the 1970s, when I was a teenager. When the movie came out, years later, I had had the impression that it was quite different from the book, which I remembered being much less cheerful with more of a dark side. All these years that's been my feeling, and I've occasionally said so to people, most of whom had seen the movie but never read the book.

Now that I read the book again, I think I was wrong. The book isn't particularly dark, and it's really not that much different from the movie at all. In fact, the movie follows the book more closely than most movie adaptations do. I suppose that's hardly surprising, since the screenplay was written by the same guy who wrote the book, and that guy happens to be an accomplished writer for both book and screen.

You'll notice in the title of this post that I'm not numbering this as a book I've reread. That's because the edition I read this time is considerably different from the original. There's a new introduction added to the front, in which the author builds upon the fictional frame story about his family. At the end there's a lengthy first chapter to the sequel.

I noticed only one change in the main text, and given the special nature of it there's no reason to think it isn't the only one. In the 1973 version, at the point where a certain scene is "cut" from the "original", there is a note to the reader indicating that one may write to the publisher to request the missing scene. In the new version, this note also includes a URL to the website.

As a modern Ruritanian romance, the story holds up pretty well 30 years later. Where it seems dated is in the modern part, not the Ruritanian. Somewhere — I neglected to note the page number — something is referred to as as inevitable as a "land war in Asia". Now obviously I'm not going to argue that land wars in Asia have become obsolete, but somehow that phrase feels very 1970s to me.

Even more indicative of the era is the incident where the rival princess turns out to be bald. In the story this is a horrifying revelation and sufficient reason to call off the wedding. Reading that today, one wonders what's the big deal. What's so bad about a bald princess? I had a similar reaction to one of Asimov's Foundation books. I don't think the current era is exceptional. The exceptional period is the 1970s. For some reason, people were obsessed with hair in the 1970s, and being without any was an unimaginable shame.

It's a key feature of the book that the "original" text by Morgenstern is distinguished from the editorial commentary "added" by Goldman. In addition to setting the latter in italic, the two are in entirely different typestyles. I love the typeface chosen for the Morgenstern text. I don't recognize it by name, but it's got an elegant faux-old look to it that's perfect for the content. The italic is warm and friendly and well-matched to the roman.

I have mixed feelings about the typeface chosen for the Goldman text. It's Cochin, one of my personal favorites. Cochin is known for its distinctive italic which has a cursive, almost scriptlike look, but at the same time remains quite readable in large blocks. (Much better than the italic I complained about in Justinian's Flea.) But it feels a little weird to me in this context. Also, that unique lowercase d, very lovely in small doses, starts to grate after many paragraphs, particularly since it doesn't combine well with a preceding apostrophe or dotted i. It also doesn't help that Cochin's roman (which I also like) is so different from its italic. When a word within the italic needs to be emphasized, they switch to Roman, and it rather sticks out.

No book is complete without at least one good vocabulary word. For this book that word is feculent ("foul with impurities", related to fecal). Buttercup is having a bad dream, in which an old woman harangues her for betraying her first love:

"Ordure" is pretty good, too.

Completely unfamiliar to me was bindibu. This appears in the new section, and to quote the entire context would spoil a rather nifty rhetorical trick, so I'll just give you the sentence.

"Bindibus" turns up surprisingly little on Google, but following the few links provided I glean that "Bindibu" is an old popular name for the people more properly called Pintupi, an aboriginal tribe of Western Australia. Apparently they really do live in one of the most inhospitable places on earth.

One last quibble. The village in Spain where Inigo grew up is named "Arabella". Hmm, I'm not convinced. If it were "Arabela" or even "Arabilla" I'd be fine with it, but somehow "Arabella" just doesn't seem Spanish, whereas it does sound very Italian.

Yeah, yeah, I know. It's fictional, and who's to say about place names, anyway? Hell, there's a town near Barcelona called "Puigreig", so anything is possible. Still, it bugged me.

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