Authors are filthy, lying bastards (Crs Buchanan's classic tale of lost love and discovery)

Three years ago (it might have been four) my girlfriend-at-the-time Wendy gave me a copy of The Princess Bride as a birthday present. She inscribed it 'to my Princess Bride' in an attempt to piss me off, and it absolutely worked. She also threatened to send me flowers - secretly I wished she had ;)
I love flowers.

I'd never read the book - I was only a little bit aware of the film but didn't know anything about that either. The novel had a long introduction, where author William Goldman told the fascinating story of how S. Morgenstern's classic (and very long) novel 'The Princess Bride' had changed his life. He explained immediately that this novel was not his own work, but an abridged version of Morgenstern's masterpiece. This introduction went on and on, detailing how the book helped him grow to find his talent as an author, and about sharing it with his family. He wrote at length about the process of adapting the old text, filming it as a movie, and the legal trouble he had had with the late Mr Morgenstern's estate. If it hadn't been a gift from a girl I was absolutely crazy about, I might have given up, confused and wondering what the point was. (I like to think I have more patience now, due in no small part to Wendy.)



There was one tiny thing that confused me - he kept talking about the European country 'Florin', where it was supposedly written, as well as set. I live in Europe, and I'd never heard of any nation going by that name... though I was familiar with the coin. Aha! I thought, about a third of the way into into it. This is rubbish. It's an in-joke. There was no S. Morgernstern - Goldman was playing with my head, and apparently just because he thought it was funny. The way he did this, and the little obvious-lies that tipped me off, made me laugh, and suddenly I couldn't put this big intro down. I wanted to beat him, by figuring out what bits were false and what bits were true. I called up Wendy and thanked her for the gift, telling her how much fun I was having before the story had even begun.

By the end of the intro, I had it all figured out. The part about his teacher, that was true. The part about S. Morgenstern's book inspiring him were not. The part about being tempted by a Hollywood actress was false, but the part about his strained relationship with his wife and fat son - that was so brutally honest and touching, it had to be true.

I looked him up afterwards, only to discover that every single word was fiction - there for no reason other than setting up the hilarious pretend-annotations he included in every chapter. I kept imagining Goldman laughing at me for feeling bad for the son he never had, empathising with his pretend adoration of his pretend wife - and it made the book ten times better.

Later, when I saw the film version with Wendy (she had watched it plenty of times as a kid and wondered what I, the big reader, would think of the movie), I was really disappointed. For one thing, almost none of the characters were how I imagined them (Cary Elwes, you don't count - you NAILED it, sir) the story was different in places, and Peter Falk kept interrupting, talking to the kid from The Wonder Years about the plot.

The movie missed out on the best part of the book - unlike the brilliant novel, never once did it actually try to fool you. It was a story-in-a-story... kinda... but an obvious one. Peter Falk wasn't lying, he was acting. And thus, his scenes seemed pointless to me: a pale, meaningless imitation of Goldman's glorious tall tales and disingenuous assertions.

Tell you what though - that movie has a killer music score. I like the film, by the way - it's just that the novel is a million times better, primarily because of the lie.

***


At the moment I'm reading Wm (I think that means William - what's with these lying Williams?) Paul Young's novel, The Shack. Beneath the title it says, 'Where tragedy confronts eternity' - which made me chuckle because it sounds a bit like it's going to be a long, hard read.

This is a very famous 'Christian book' about a man who spends a weekend talking to God. Every review or quote listed on the jacket or inside talks about how faith-affirming it is, and not one actually mentions its quality as a novel. Fair enough - it's a book with a message, and the fans like it not for its quality, but for what it represents. No problem. I like a lot of really bad 'gay movies' because of their tacked-on pro-equality messages, so I can appreciate where the Christian reviewers are coming from here. Curious, I decided to give it a read and see for myself. For once, I wasn't setting out to criticise, just to see what the fuss was about. And, honestly, as a one-time Christian myself, I wanted to see if this sensationally-popular first novel would have any effect on my own views.

I'm about half-way in at the moment, so I'm not reviewing it here. So far it seems fine, maybe slightly below average, but I haven't finished it so what do I know.

I mention it because it begins with an introduction by Young, explaining how the protagonist, Mackenzie 'Mack' Allen Philips, is a close friend of his and how everything that happened is accurate, as far as he and Mack can remember it. Oh! I thought, like a sucker, my three-year old warning system failing to spark enough synapses to get through the accumulated dust. This is actually true? A guy really claimed to have spent a weekend with God, and this is more-or less his own account? Well, this I gotta see. No wonder it's done so much to affirm people's faiths. Imagine if it really happened...

And I started reading, and enjoyed it quite a bit. The quality of the actual writing is sometimes not great - and the author has a real tendency to lapse into All-American hugs-and-prayers cheesy bullshit (in particular there is a scene where Mr Young actually casts himself as Mack's wise, friendly and all-around awesome best friend, who does everything he can to help the guy out. It's actually pretty funny how cool he makes himself sound.) But - I was enjoying the book and the writing plenty, despite flaws. (No author is without jarring flaws that seem obvious to everyone but him.)

The plot has problems too - in that it seems very stock and unoriginal, in parts. I don't think I'm giving anything away by mentioning that Mack's daughter is kidnapped and presumably killed early on - and there are to chapters detailing the experience. Throughout these I kept thinking that the section of the story was rather unoriginal and dull. But - how could I fault the author for that? This is what really happened, after all - as accurate as he could write it with memory - and honestly, how could I pick the chapter apart when it detailed the actual kidnapping of an actual little girl? I'm a sarcastic git, but not a monster.

Well, obviously... as you'll have guessed if you didn't know... there is no Mack. The book is pure fiction, though details are based around the author's own life and maybe even his wife's personality is in there too - just like every book ever. Whereas this same trick enthralled me when William Goldman did it, this time I just don't see the point!
Even in the Blair Witch Project, the fake true story helped to make it scarier. What does this achieve - trick you into finding it more moving? That's cheating, Wm.

The Da Vinci Code was full of lies, too. At the beginning there is the now-famous 'FACT' page, which is just a list of all-but-proven hoaxes and speculative opinions, all of which are twisted beyond recognition to serve the (really thrilling) plot later.

Suddenly The Shack doesn't seem as good. I'm still enjoying it, but what was a harrowing, painful-to-read kidnapping is now a formulaic, by-the-numbers book plot. What was an author making himself look good in an unavoidable cameo is now... just really silly.

Fooled yet again.

**

I'm not sure what my point is in this article. But it's interesting how the two books sparked such different reactions in me with the same trick. I guess when a comedian tells you a lie and winks as he does, it's different.
Now I could be wrong here - I could be doing Young a great disservice. Again, I haven't finished it yet, so I'll reserve judgement. I have more patience now - thanks Wendy. I wish I could have shared this story with you too.

Next I'm going to read A Study in Scarlet by one John Hamish Watson. I read the first couple of chapters last week and I'm amazed by the central character, once again an old friend of the author. Can't believe this guy, man. Also there is a new videogame about the time he caught Jack the Ripper, which I will be playing later. I didn't even know that Jack was eventually caught!

I think from now on I'll stick to true-stories that are actually true. I'm sick of being made to look a fool.


** n.b. All the details in this blog entry about myself and my life are false. **