William Goldman RIP

[Jimbuna]

A genius in his industry.

RIP

[Onkel Neal]

If you read Color of Light, you would certainly see genius. Magic is also good, Marathon Man, and of course, the Princess Bride.

Quick detail about Princess Bride. When the book was published, there is a forward where Goldman explains the original Princess Bride was written by S. Morgenstern. Princess Bride is a rediscovered classic:

If you’ve read the book—and if not, why not?—you know that William Goldman is just the editor. The real author is the mysterious S. Morgenstern from Florin, and it was Goldman’s Florinese father who used to read the book aloud to young William as a boy. When he had a son of his own, William procured a copy and was shocked to discover that his father had been abridging the narrative and changing certain parts of the story. And it turned out the original was a wordy political satire—including a 56-page scene of Buttercup packing her luggage—and it’s no wonder William’s son was unimpressed. So William excises all the dull bits and follows his father’s alterations, and that’s the version that’s being published and that I had in my fourteen-year-old hands.

Major spoiler: I dare you to avoid reading this until you have read the book, you will thank me.

 

But, the whole concept was part of the book's fiction. There was no S. Morgenstern. Goldman made that up too!

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Man, Goldman was the Master of using the printed word to manipulate the reader's expectations. There are so many examples to choose from. He could lead you down a path and then flipped everything with a sentence, and literally shock you.