The Remedy of Books

I am a big fan of The Princess Bride--it's been one of my family's favorite movies since we first watched it about 20 years ago. So, when I heard there was going to be a book about the making of the movie, I knew I had to read it.

Let me start with what I loved about this book.
I loved reading the anecdotes of things that happened on-set and learning details about what was going on before and after (and sometimes during) some of the most memorable scenes of the movie.

I loved that it wasn't just Cary Elwes' perspective but that there were snippets from others in the cast and crew interspersed throughout the book.

I loved hearing about what each actor was like off screen and how well everyone got on.

I loved the pictures, though I wish there were more "behind the scenes" shots rather than pics that looked like screenshots of the movie or were just the cast posing.

Okay, now for what I didn't love. Honestly, if I had to sum this book up in one word it would be "gushy."

Elwes makes it abundantly clear how much he admires Rob Reiner, William Goldman, et al. by sounding like an over-excited fanboy. I was barely a chapter in when I already wanted to shout at the book "WE KNOW! GET ON WITH IT!" but I carried on (Caryed on?) and hoped that it was just the intro of each cast/crew member that would be filled with gushing protestations of how amazing and talented he or she was. Alas, it was not to be. If you were to go through this book and cut out all but the initial praise of each person, I have no doubt that it would be 1/3 shorter. (taking out the phrase "just the nicest person you'd ever want to meet" alone would probably cut out a full page of the book)

It was a bit of a frustrating read in this respect, because I got the feeling from the writing that Cary Elwes genuinely admires the rest of the cast, loves their work, and is an all around humble guy--but I don't think it came off the way he intended.

The writing, in fact, was all around bad. The beginning chapters have tons of wooden recreated dialogue, and readers are walked through every.step.of.every.action. Lines like "I thanked him and bid him good night before hanging up." are just not necessary.

Then there was the the repetition. Not just the repetition of each person's praises, but of facts, feelings, and even events. It really does surprise me that the book was not developed and edited more professionally. Cary Elwes is an actor, not a writer, and that's fine--but he co-wrote the book with someone who IS a writer, and presumably they also had a separate editor. Did neither Joe Layden nor the editor realize that the writing was so repetitive and mediocre and the tone was so fawning?

I don't want to be too down on the book, because I love The Princess Bride and Cary Elwes, but I get so disappointed when something that could have been SO great ends up just being okay.

When I looked up other reviews on Amazon and Goodreads I saw most of the reviews are 4-5 stars (clearly they weren't rating the editing of the book) but I also noticed that a lot of the reviewers had listened to the audio book read by Cary Elwes. That might have made a difference in the tone and even the annoyance of the repetition but as a print book it came off as  mostly dead.

I bought this book on a whim from a library used-book sale. It had an intriguing title and description and I seemed to remember a friend mentioning it to me a few months earlier—though I couldn't remember if she’d liked it or not.

If I had to sum up The Thirteenth Tale in a sentence I’d say it was a compelling story badly executed. I love over-the-top Gothic tales that involve completely unbelievable combinations of dramatic elements like people wasting away from grief, insanity, secret love affairs, secret children, murder out of love, people driven mad by love, houses crumbling to pieces around a family deserted by their servants etc. and The Thirteenth Tale had all of it.

The book opens with our main character, Margaret, getting a letter from a famous but mysterious author, Vida Winter, telling her that she wants Margaret to write her one true biography. Throughout her life Vida has told many fanciful but obviously fake versions of her life story, but as she is now ill and dying she’s decided it is time to tell someone the truth. The book flips back and forth between Margaret’s life and her chats with Vida Winter, and Vida’s own story. Vida’s story starts more than 70 years in the past, before her own birth, in a large house called Angelfield. It involves all the above-mentioned Gothic elements and more—governesses, incest, twins, ghosts.

It took me a couple months to finish this book because I kept putting it down in exasperation, or stopping to angrily read bits to my husband because I couldn't believe the level of bad writing. The main issues I had with this novel were twofold: the heavy-handed writing and the at-times completely unbelievable characters.

One expects a certain level of unbelievability in Gothic characters—the nature of the genre lends itself to exaggeration. However, in the, perhaps 1/3 of the book which takes place in the *present* (which I believe is meant to be sometime around the 1950s, though I don’t think it’s ever stated) the characters were very hard to believe or connect with. So many times I couldn't stop saying out loud “nobody would act that way!” For instance when Margaret stumbles across a man hanging out in the ruins of Angelfield, they have a conversation, eat something together, and go on a walk before she bothers to ask him what he was doing there. These sort of things, when they occur many times in a novel, are very distracting to a reader.

I could have dealt with the issue of the characters, but not the heavy-handedness. There were times when one could tell the author was pleased with her own knowledge or turn of phrase and wanted to make sure the reader DIDN’T MISS IT. Certain story elements were so over-stated or repeated so many times it was completely exasperating to try to get through the section of writing. It was as if the author was peering over my shoulder saying, “Did you get it? Did you get it? Do you see what I did there? Wait, let me say it again a little differently. Wasn’t that profound? Don’t worry, I’ll come back to it and say it again in case you missed it.” I wish she had a little more faith that her readers would pick up on things. Certain metaphors or pieces of the prose were beautifully written. And then written again slightly differently. And then again, and again. This author comes off as one of those people who likes to hear themselves talk or who couldn't decide on the best way to say something, so she said it all the ways. Setterfield could have used a better editor to help guide her through slimming down some sections and stating her main points more subtly.

The book does have some things going for it though. Part of the reason I was so upset by the writing was that I found the story compelling and wanted it to be delivered better. At times I found myself reading much later into the night than I had intended. The twist at the end, while not 100% unexpected was still very good. To sum up, I would recommend this book if you’d like to read a good Gothic story and don’t mind trudging through some very silly writing.