The Princess Bride by William GoldmanMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I look forward to the day when education has at last established good manners and literary studies can truly become inclusive.
Take my own university, for example. Every Thursday, we get together for lunch to discuss books on the balcony of the faculty club on the 5th floor of Flitzshtien Hall. One of our faculty had the good fortune to study under Professor Shog Bongiorno at Columbia. So last week when the movie adaptation of S. Morgenstern’s book was named to the U.S. National Film Registry, I asked my colleague Dr. Annette Oleander what her fellow Florin literature professors thought.
“No big deal,” she said. She was having the vegetarian pita plate, so there was plenty of time to chat while spreading the squash baba ghanoush and hummus. “Florin inducted Princess Bride into its film registry two years ago.”
“I didn’t even know they had a Florin Film Registry,” said Dr. Nicola MacMuster, not even bothering to look up from his chicken shawarma. “I mean, isn’t the whole Florin thing a put on?” Dr. MacMuster specialized in cyborg literature. Most of his work was with the robotics department, but the university president insisted he be kept in the literature department for funding purposes. He had a huge pedagogical grant for silicon chip implants designed to trigger meta-cognitive ruptures during lectures. Basically, he kept students from falling asleep. It was the opposite of a screensaver.
Dr. Oleander paused mid pita. “Why would you think Florin was a put on?”
Dr. MacMuster shrugged. “I’ve never met anyone who’s been there.”
“Well now you have,” Dr. Oleander said and took a bite. “Why would you say something so demeaning?”
“When I read it years ago, I took the book to be a satirical-reflexive-memoir, all very Tomas Borges in a Florin mensch sort of way,” Dr. MacMuster said, still not looking up from his food.
“I assure you the book is all too real.” Dr. Oleander paused here for a sip of wine. “The sexism, for example, makes it difficult to teach Morgenstern today.” She lifted her hands to point to an imaginary PowerPoint and quoted, “‘Not that her best thinking ever expanded horizons….so long as she kept her thoughts to herself, well, where was the harm.’ That’s a direct translation. Classic silencing.”
Dr. MacMuster nodded and chewed.
“I suppose you could see the Buttercup’s Baby sequel as a satire on Goldman’s own Adventures in the Screen Trade,” Dr. Oleander said, diplomatically giving Dr. MacMuster a way out. “I mean all that stuff about securing the rights from Stephen King. The battling patriarchy. And don’t even get me started on Fezzik’s latent pediatric instincts.”
“Isn’t Fezzik twice de-privileged, first by a hyper-pituitary and second by being a migrant laborer from Greenland?” Dr. MacMuster asked.
At this point, Dr. Hortense Sriracha-Smith broke in because she had chaired enough department meetings to know that Dr. Oleander’s don’t-even-get-me-started comment was not hyperbole but a legitimate cry for help.
“I have to say that despite the sexism,” Dr. Sriracha-Smith began, “I too appreciated the reflexivity of the storytelling and how it goes on and on.” Here she lifted her coffee cup, a cue for the rest of us to pick up that point. “Satirical or not.”
“It’s not so much reflexivity, but a pilfering of Morgenstern,” Dr. Oleander said through a bite of ginger and hummus. “It’s very telling that Westley and Inigo’s verbal sparring while literally fighting was something Goldman had Butch Cassidy do with Logan decades before.” Dr. Oleander was having that moment every academic has when we get passionately on the topic that made us pursue our degrees. “One could effectively argue that S. Morgenstern deserves screen credit for Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.” On the word “Butch,” a purple shred of ginger arced so gently that it didn’t land in Dr. MacMuster’s shawarma until the word “Kid.” Dr. Oleander continued, “I mean Fezzik and Inigo are clearly the source for Butch and Sundance.”
“So are you fond of Goldman’s work or not?” Dr. Sriracha-Smith asked.
“Oh”—Dr. Oleander took a sip to purge any remaining stray ginger—“his transgressions have given me my job security. In the next academic year my sabbatical project will be to have Morgenstern’s work on Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid recognized and inducted into the Florin Film Registry, and next semester Humperdinck University Press is bringing out my translation of Morgenstern’s work without Goldman’s omissions. It’s going to be required reading for all my courses.”
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