Book Review

Keeper Shelf: The Princess Bride by William Goldman

Squee from the Keeper Shelf is a new feature wherein we share why we love the books we love, specifically the stories which are permanent residents of our Keeper shelves. Despite flaws, despite changes in age and perspective, despite the passage of time, we love particular books beyond reason, and the only thing better than re-reading them is telling other people about them. At length.

If you’d like to submit your reasons for loving and keeping a particular book for Squee from the Keeper Shelf, please email Sarah!

The Princess Bride is my favorite book in the world. Let me explain.

No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

The “Squee from the Keeper Shelf” series is about books that will always have a place on our shelves, regardless of time or cross-country moves or the advent of e-books. The books that are falling to pieces but that we can’t bear to give away, that we keep in the same place on the bookshelf so we can always find them quickly, that have a piece of our hearts in their well-worn pages.

The Princess Bride has five places on my shelves. There’s the first copy I picked up in eighth grade, the one that convinced me of a small European country called Florin where I could somehow find S. Morgenstern’s unabridged copy of his masterpiece, the one whose map has long since fallen out but not been lost over the last 16 years.

There’s the Spanish translation that I picked up during my summer spent studying in southern Spain, still the only book I’ve managed to read cover to cover in my second language.

There’s the one I’ve never read past the title page because it’s the one my best friend got William Goldman to sign when he visited her college.

There’s the one that’s the movie tie-in, picked up in some small used bookstore because I’m always on the hunt for old copies of the book in the hopes of one day finding a copy with the lurid 1970s cover.

And finally there’s the copy I actually read. This is the copy that’s travelled with me to Venezuela where I read it under the table during a five hour Orthodox seder dinner. It came with me to Peru where my fellow volunteers tested my claim that I had memorized the first three pages of the book (spoiler alert: I had). It lived in my bookbag during my sophomore year of college, when I first struggled with anxiety and depression, when the sight of me reading it signalled to my friends that “I’m fine” meant that I wasn’t. It travelled to grad school and back, tucked into my computer bag with my Kindle for fear that it might not make it in a box with my other books.

The Princess Bride came with me to my first job in a science lab right before college, when the scientist in charge of the intern program told me that I should stop reading it in the cafeteria and instead make friends with the male intern in my lab since he could be my boss one day. It came with me in my purse to my first job after getting my PhD, where I read it nervously in the bathroom because I arrived too early, and where my boss introduced me as “Dr. Ppyajunebug” to my colleagues.

When I open this copy of The Princess Bride, it naturally falls open to my favorite parts. Most often, it opens near the beginning to the most romantic scene in the whole book. Westley and Buttercup, having just admitted their love to each other, are saying farewell. Westley is a poor farm boy, you see, and he needs to go to America to seek his fortune (as Goldman reminds us, this is just after America and long after fortunes). He is turning to go, afraid of being late for his ship, “and the words rip out of her: ‘Without one kiss?’” The book falls open to this scene not because of the drama and romance of this scene of two lovers falling into each other’s arms, but because of the passage that comes right afterwards:

There have been five great kisses since 1642 B.C., when Saul and Delilah Korn’s inadvertent discovery swept across Western civilization. (Before then, couples hooked thumbs.) And the precise rating of kisses is a terribly difficult thing, often leading to great controversy, because although everyone agrees with the formula of affection times purity times intensity times duration, no one has ever been completely satisfied with how much weight each element should receive. But on any system, there are five that everyone agree deserve full marks.

Well, this one left them all behind

This book is funny. The movie is funny as hell, of course, but the book is funny in a darker, sharper way. It needles at the cliches of fairy tale romance and sweeping epics while creating some of the most memorable characters in popular culture. In the book, Fezzik is more lovable, Inigo more tormented, Westley more bitingly sarcastic and swashbuckling. And then there’s Buttercup, who admits to not being the brightest bulb, but refusing to apologize for making a practical choice once she thought her true love was dead. The movie makes nods at this part of her character, but the book puts us inside the head of the most beautiful woman in the world, both when she grieves and she rejoices.

There are many books that qualify for my keeper shelf, all of which have affected my life in different ways and made me who I am. But I chose The Princess Bride because no other book has genuinely changed the course of my life. Over ten years ago, I went to a summer writing camp at a small college in the Midwest. While there, I met the very first person who had read The Princess Bride on top of seeing the movie. One of our very first conversations was about how we wished Buttercup had been just a little bit smarter, that there wasn’t so much of the “dumb pretty girl” trope in the story. We have been best friends ever since. If it wasn’t for this book, I wouldn’t have ten years of late night IM/GChat/Facebook Messenger conversations charting our evolution from high school seniors to working adults. If it wasn’t for this book, I wouldn’t have had her to convince me to try reading a romance novel for the first time. If it wasn’t for this book, I wouldn’t have had a reason to fly cross-country on my last spring break and see a new off-Broadway show called Hamilton. If it wasn’t for this book, I wouldn’t have my best friend.

There are many books on my keeper shelf. This one – well, this one leaves them all behind.


The Princess Bride comes from Ppyajunebug’s Keeper Shelf! Ppyajunebug is a scientist, feminist, and fandom enthusiast with strong opinions about literally everything. She makes liberal use of the all-caps button on Twitter.

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The Princess Bride by William Goldman

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  1. Shan says:

    Yessss! I studied the layers of narrative in this book for university and it is so so clever.

  2. Lora says:

    My husband and I both have copies of this. We love it. We quote it pretty often…phrases like ‘your precious bulk’ from the climbing of the cliffs to ‘is your universe more than my grains of sand? Help me Westly, I’m confused”…. Still, i would keep it if only for the opening about the previous most beautiful women in the world and what happened to them.

  3. Laurel says:

    Wow, that 1970s cover is incredibly weird! I have not read the book in many years (maybe sometime in the mid ’80s?), but I cannot see how the person who drew that cover could have even read it. Maybe it’s time to hunt up my old paperback copy and read it again.

  4. Kim W says:

    I also love this book! I’m glad I clicked through to see the 1970s cover because wow!

  5. Darlynne says:

    I love your squee and all the ways this book has been an important part of your life. Thank you for sharing your story.

  6. Shawn says:

    This was after stew, but then again, everything is after stew.
    The asides! The annotations! This book is a gem and anyone who disagrees is doing it wrong!

  7. hng23 says:

    I still own my copy with that gorgeous but ridiculous cover. Inside, the framing narrative is printed in *red* ink! This was the first edition; subsequent editions have all black ink & the frame italicized. I paid $1.95USD in 1973; Abebooks now lists it used for $185USD. I won’t sell it, but it’s gratifying to know.

  8. genie says:

    I first read it well before the movie (around 1982 maybe?) and actually wrote to the address the author gave us (in one of the many wonderful asides), requesting that they make the movie. I even got an answer back. Love the movie, really love the book!

  9. Rebecca says:

    I hate to admit this as a book reader but I’ve never actually read the book – only seen the movie. Isn’t that terrible of me? I really should give this a read since I absolutely loved the movie.
    Rebecca @ The Portsmouth Review
    Follow me on Bloglovin’

  10. JulieO says:

    I read it in the 70’s in high school, and it firmly remains one of my all-time favorites. When trying to explain how the book is better, even though the movie is terrific, I usually just say, ‘the book is just MORE!’ And now I have to go re-read it again, to wallow in the words like an over-indulged child in mashed potatoes.

  11. DonnaMarie says:

    Thanks for the lovely squee. I read The Princess Bride in high school so I approached the movie with not a little trepidation. Thankfully, I can love them for their individual charms. And a quote about kissing that I’ve used on more than one occasion. Or as shorthand when asked about a date. As in “No one in the top five is going to lose their ranking.”

  12. cleo says:

    What a beautiful love note to the power of a good book.

    I read The Princess Bride in college – around the time the movie came out. I honestly don’t remember if I read it or saw it first. I had at least one friend that believed Morgenstern was real.

    I reread it recently, after 20+ years, and it didn’t hold up as well as I wanted it too. I still enjoyed the asides and the satire and the silliness. But it bothered me that all the female characters were either shrill or dumb or both. And some of the pacing dragged (that may just be me – my attention span keeps getting shorter the older I get).

  13. Does this version have an extended reunion/romantic scene with Buttercup and Westly when she finally realizes who he is?

    I remember reading an old version from the library when I was younger, and there being some paragraph in there about how Goldman was skipping the big romantic reunion scene. However, if you sent in a SASE to the publisher (or whomever), you could get a page or two (I’m assuming) as a bonus scene or something like that that he had written. I was quite disappointed the scene wasn’t in there. I think I sent in my SASE, but I never got a response back. (And if the whole thing was a joke, then the joke is on me.)

    Other than that, I remember enjoying the book, and of course the movie is great.

  14. Sarah says:

    Dear best friend, I am so glad this book brought us together, too. ❤️And glad you listened when I said, No but really you will love Julia Quinn!

  15. chacha1 says:

    I have seen the movie a bunch of times (and btw it is part of this year’s Turner Classics/Fathom Events series – streaming to theatres in October) but I can’t swear I’ve ever read the book. Maybe once? I think? Funnily enough I have the new gorgeous retrospective edition and it is on my List for 2017.

    Now off to examine this 1970s cover … .

  16. chacha1 says:

    Aaaaaand have seen the cover. What the what?!

  17. Curly says:

    Apparently if you wrote the publisher for the deleted scene you got a funny letter back with excuses as to why you couldn’t have the deleted scene. You can Google the letter.

  18. Margaret says:

    A great squee. And a TRULY great book. I, too, have multiple copies, and I, too introduced my husband to this wonderful creation he had never heard of (that, and 1776). As Curly wrote above, you could indeed “write” to the publisher (this was long before email, but after death, taxes, and stew), which I did, and I have the reply stuck inside one of my copies somewhere. For Christmas I got my daughter one of those infinity scarves with the text of The Princess Bride in tiny, tiny script, and when my son was sick a few weeks back, somehow the movie ended up on tv and I found myself unable to leave the room. William Goldman gave this treasure to the world and Peter Falk did a magnificent job of making it all come to life on screen. I was astonished not too long ago when SBTB did a thing on long, unrequited love, and I was the only one to bring up Wesley’s love for Buttercup!

  19. Molly-in-MD says:

    Huh. I tried reading TPB shortly after the movie came out but it was a DNF. I have vague memories of slow humorless long-windedness — sorry! IIRC the final straw was the tell but no show: reading Goldman’s assertion that Fezzik and Inigo were great friends but without interaction to demonstrate, in contrast to the movie’s wonderful scene on the boat where they’re playing the word game together. Now all this squeeing makes me think that maybe I should try again?

  20. Lisa says:

    It was mind blowing to me as a teen–I never experienced a book that had my humor sensibilities! I’m sure I sent and received the Goldman letter (not sure if I kept it or not). I remembered recommending it to all my friends.

  21. Anony Miss says:

    This too is firmly on my keeper shelf… Except of course that the last person who borrowed it never returned it. Pardon me, I must go get out my six fingered sword…

  22. Sonya Heaney says:

    Years ago, I gave up on this book the moment he HIT her in the face. Even as a child I found the “threaten to hit” scene in the movie upsetting. But in the source material he actually does it.

  23. Sonya Heaney says:

    “I am no one to be trifled with,” replied the man in black. “That is all you ever need know.” And with that he yanked her upright.
    “You’ve had your moment.” Again he pulled her after him, and this time she could do nothing but follow…
    …“I have loved more deeply than a killer like you can possibly imagine.”
    He slapped her.
    “That is a penalty for lying, Highness. Where I come from, when a woman lies, she is reprimanded.”
    “But I spoke the truth, I did, I–” Buttercup saw his hand rise a second time, so she stopped quickly, fell dead silent.

    I have to admit: this site likes to be a “social justice warrior” sort of place. I do not care if it’s an anniversary of the movie; in the era of Trump, are we not better than giving raving reviews to “romances” with domestic abuse in them…?

    This is one of a number of “women-positive” sites I’ve seen recently that celebrates this book.

  24. SB Sarah says:

    @Sonya:

    There are times when I think “problematic” could encompass the entire romance genre, depending on what issue is being discussed. I also think that an individual reader’s relationship with a book can be pretty complicated — and to quote Candy, the co-founder of the site, there is a wide difference between, “This book made me incredibly happy, and I have deep nostalgic love for it,” and “I steer the whole direction of my life using this book, it is my moral compass, and it can do no wrong.”

    If that scene is a deal breaker for you, I totally understand that, no question. I have similar problems with The Grand Sophy and The Duke & I (and books by Rosemary Rogers and Kathleen Woodiwiss and Johanna Lindsey). We grow up inside rape culture, and to paraphrase Roxane Gay, our entertainment is shaped by patriarchy, misogyny, racism, etc etc etc. Generally and specifically, that stain is difficult to avoid, but there is also, I think, tremendous rebellion and power in women saying both, “I love this book,” and “This book has abuse in it and I hate it.”

    Perhaps I’m being disingenuous, but reviews are a conversation, not the final word. No one reader is the last authority on a book, nor is any one website. There’s ample room for multiple interpretations and reactions, and examining your self and how/why you think through the books you read is always, always valuable.

  25. Ms. M says:

    @Molly-in-MD If that was your only issue with it, you should definitely give it a second chance! Fezzik and Inigo get MUCH more attention in the book than the movie– it’s much more their story than Buttercup’s and Westley’s. And I promise, they will play word games 🙂

  26. Madeline says:

    The Princess Bride is also my favorite book, hands down. It’s my airplane book, and I still have the copy I stole from my mother’s Christmas gifts when I was a kid, which she finally gave me when I went away to college. I also believed that the immortal Morgenstern was real, and my parents spent a couple of months searching for an unabridged version I histrionically swore existed. I like to think of the movie as the perfect love story and the book as the postmodern deconstruction of the perfect love story that ends up being about why all sorts of love, family and books included, are still the best thing in the world anyway. In other words, I completely agree with this review, and thank you for sharing.

  27. cleo says:

    @Molly-in-MD – I don’t know, I didn’t like it nearly as much as I remembered when I reread it recently. I didn’t find it humorless at all – but I did find it so, so, so long-winded. And so much telling. The whole book is telling.

  28. cleo says:

    @Sonya – ugh, I don’t remember that passage at all. But I do remember being really bothered by the way the women were portrayed compared to the men when I reread this a few years ago.

  29. Sarahjane says:

    Yeah, I’m sure I’m in the minority, but I have to admit that I find this one much better as a movie than a book. The writing was clever, but I kind of found that it was so impressed with its own cleverness that I didn’t need to bother much. Also, the treatment of poor, empty-headed sexy lamp Buttercup… ugh.

  30. Ms. M says:

    Goldman is actually pretty terrible at writing women. I remember reading Marathon Man and feeling a pit slowly build in my stomach as I realized how he was describing the protagonist’s girlfriend. It made me so sad.

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