Just finished reading The Princess Bride. The "Good Parts" version that is. And it's a mixture of joy and disappointment.

The book is actually composed of two stories, and I'm not talking about the first chapter of its sequel, Buttercup's Baby. Aside from the abridged version of The Princess Bride, the abridger, William Goldman, recounts not only his own life story but how he made the movie and abridgement of the book as well. At one point, you think he's great. At others, you just think he's a jerk with an inflated ego. Nearly one-fourth of the books is filled with his own musings rather than the story itself.

His abridgement is also doubled-eged. Goldman managed to convert a 1000-page manuscript into 300 pages. On one hand, Goldman attributes this so that readers can enjoy the book more. Of course just goes to show how Americans need the "simplified" version of things. On the other, a lot of satire was lost because Goldman deemed it in bad taste of S. Morganstern, the original author. We'll never really know, since it is the "abridged version".

Of course now, I suddenly have a craving for the video. So that I can loan it out to people who haven't seen it. And then loan them the book. By the way, I managed to snag three copies of it from Goodwill bookstore yesterday.