The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride 
  - William Goldman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I started with a rating of 4 stars, but eventually settled for 3. I had read such glorious praises of this book that had set my expectations really high. I waited to read this for a long time, but the price of the book never went down. Finally, having acquired a kindle recently, I settled for the ebook, which though still relatively higher priced, was about half the price of the paperback.

I must say that it was non-stop good fun – very entertaining with all the usual tropes of a fairy tale, but related in a very witty manner. In fact, I think it is his sharp wit, that keeps a reader more than amused, and makes it worth reading. His usage of the story-within-a-story device is a novel concept (at least to me) – he presents this book to the reader as an abridged version of a very well-known classic, which no-one bothers to read now (for good reason, which the author keeps indicating in asides). However, after a while, I grew bored of his (tall?) tales of his dealings with the publisher and the movie producers – something like too much of a good thing. He has sketched his characters in a completely stereotypical manner, quite intentionally, I think. Yet, I loved them all – the good and the evil – with the exception of the princess. Call it a feminist rant, but the damsel-in-distress with little intelligence and spunk couldn’t win me over, even if she was the most beautiful woman in the world.