When it became known to me that Jeff had never read The Princess Bride, I found him a used copy of it, which then lay around on a pile since Jeff is still busy reading the other books I've shoved at him (a Lovecraft collection and Smoke and Mirrors) as well as at least one book of his own that he wants to read (shock! horror!). The book was just sitting there, so I started rereading it, and then I checked out the 25th-anniversary edition from KCLS.
I've read The Princess Bride so many times before that in some respects I'm not so much rereading it as reliving all the previous times I've read it. It's amazing how much this book alone has influenced my perceptions of what's adventurous and romantic.
As you wish.
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
This in spite of the fact that Buttercup is stupid and heartless, Westley aloof and apparently heartless, and the whole premise of the book a farce. I mean, what kind of book has a hero and heroine who are in True Love but nevertheless treat each other like crap (Westley leaves Buttercup right after she declares her love, she lets him leave, he makes her believe he's going to kill her, and then she leaves him to go back to Humperdink, saying I can live without love
). What a bitch. What a bastard.
So I don't like Buttercup all that much, even if she does have a bit of spunk, coming through at the last minute when even Westley has no ideas (And I, I, I am the QUEEEEEEN
). What (or rather, who) is it that keeps me reading this book over and over?
Inigo and Fezzik, that's who. They're the reason I love the book so much more than the movie, because the book tells their stories, especially that of Inigo. They're the characters who have the most depth and the most contradictions. Inigo, the Spanish fencing wizard whose only goal is to take revenge on the six-fingered man. Fezzik, the Turkish wrestling giant who would be a poet if he had a little more brains, whose only friend (the only person who will play rhyming games with him) is Inigo. They are real people. More than that, they are real friends, who would die for each other. Not like that slut Buttercup.