Humiliations Galore

Almost every single weekend that I was in junior high, one of my friends would come over to spend the night. We would walk down North Cotner to Topper Popper to get some kind of iced treat, and then across the street to the video rental store. We would look around for quite a while considering what to get, even though we were there the weekend before, but we would always leave with their VHS copy of The Princess Bride.

I don’t know why my parents didn’t just buy me my own copy; we probably spent more renting it a trillion times than they would have if they’d given me one of my very own. It probably would have spoiled some of the fun of it, though: spending all that time looking through all of the other movies just to take home the same one we did before. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that The Princess Bride was the best movie on the shelves of that little neighborhood movie place.


Years later, a friend of mine let me borrow William Goldman’s novel, the one that the movie is based on. I loved it! Goldman tells the story of how his father, a barber who could barely speak English, would read him this beloved Florinese story, translating it out of its original language as he conveyed it to his son. He relates how hard he worked to find an copy in English for his own son, and how disappointed he was when his son read only a chapter before giving up and putting it down. Surprised to discover that his father had abridged it as he read it, Goldman set out to do the “good parts” version, so that his son could enjoy the story as much as he had as a child.


As you read, you get parts of Goldman’s own story, intertwined with the next interesting scene with Westley and Buttercup, in addition to anecdotes about his frazzled editor: “How can it be before Europe but after Paris?”


Goldman makes such a big deal about the fact that the story was written by “S. Morgenstern” and talks in such detail about the chapters he removed and that’s why it's easy to believe that the whole thing is completely true.


I was taken in. Well, almost. I’d watched a “making of” on my very own DVD copy of The Princess Bride a couple of years before I’d read the book, and I could almost swear I’d heard Goldman talking about how he got the title from his daughters (who are not mentioned in the book), by one saying, “write a story about a princess!” and the other saying, “write a story about a bride!”


He had me convinced because of the little bits of reality he added in. The particular copy that I had borrowed had the first chapter of the supposed “lost sequel,” Buttercup’s Baby. Goldman told the story behind the discovery of it, and the drama surrounding who would translate and abridge it. He was upset because Stephen King, who he said was a native of Florin, had been chosen for the task instead. The two writers met to discuss it, and Goldman was crushed when King told him, “you can write the screenplay, okay?” In the end King agreed to let Goldman abridge and publish this first chapter in the re-release of his abridgement of “S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure.” I don't know anything about Stephen King's heritage, and the mere fact that Goldman attached an actual person to his fictional tale had me second guessing myself.


I was certainly taken in enough to head to the internet in search of clarification. This was before Google and Wikipedia were wildly popular, so I began by searching things like “Florin” and “Guilder,” but the only things I was finding were web pages about ancient money. I glanced across the page filled with search results and saw one titled “Humiliations Galore.”


What I found there was a collection of true stories from other people who had been taken in by Bill Goldman’s book. Mostly it was anecdotes about people embarrassing themselves by talking about Florin and Guilder like they were real countries and getting put in their place by friends and family. One woman had tried to plan a honeymoon in Florin and Guilder because she and her fiance loved The Princess Bride so much.


I was glad I’d checked the internet before I went around talking about these fictional people and places as if they were real, and I admired Goldman immensely. I thought, “What an interesting device!” and wondered if I could ever write a story like that, one that completely convinces the reader of its truth, even though it’s fiction.


A week or so ago, I ran across a picture of (almost) the entire cast, taken last November by Entertainment Weekly for their Reunions issue.
It’s amazing to see how much everyone changed in 25 years (or didn’t change; Wallace Shawn will always look exactly the same), and as I watched the videos of interviews, I enjoyed hearing stories about Andre the Giant (who died about five years after the movie came out), and laughed at Billy Crystal’s hat (the original from the movie, and when asked, he replied, “Why would I wear someone else’s hat?”).


The best part about the interviews (and the picture) is that we, the fans, get to see how much the actors love the story: just as much, if not more, than we do. They treasure the experiences they had making it, just as I treasure the warm summer afternoons I spent walking down to the local video store, hoping to be able to see it.


If you haven’t seen this movie, (where have you been, under a rock?!) you should. If you haven’t read the book, you should do that too, even though you won’t have the added suspense of wondering if it’s all really true. It might actually be better this way: you won’t experience humiliations galore.