is this a kissing book?
On Friday, while recovering from what was probably my first concussion—I’m fine!—I read This Will Be Fun by E.B. Asher.
It’s a fantasy novel that had romance, jokes, found family, magical powers that ranged from silly to powerful, battle…. If this is making you think of the grandfather’s description of The Princess Bride to his sick grandson, good work.
“Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Revenge. Giants. Monsters. Chases. Escapes. True love. Miracles,” the grandfather lists.
“Doesn’t sound too bad,” the grandson says with a shrug.
Author Jodi Picoult makes the Princess Bride comparison in a blurb on the back of This Will Be Fun. Once I read that, standing in the library, I added the book to my checkout pile.
With every joke and low-stakes fight, the book lived up to the comparison. But This Will Be Fun also dealt with very serious topics and reminded me that The Princess Bride, which is my favorite movie, has my very favorite scenes related to what are arguably life’s most prevalent emotions: love and grief.
I quoted the scene about love in our wedding vows. Just after Buttercup has pushed the Dread Pirate Roberts down the hill, she realizes that he is in fact her lost love Westley and throws herself after him. When they reunite at the bottom of the hill, and after five years in which she thought he was dead, she promises, “I will never doubt again.”
Westley replies, “There will never be a need.”
That, I explained in my wedding vows to Loui, is how he makes me feel. We’re almost at our first anniversary, so I’m becoming even more sentimental than usual thinking about our wedding and our marriage. What I expressed in my vows has only become more true: Loui eliminates my doubts and makes me believe in a love I thought could only be found in fairy tales. Like a storybook story, indeed.
…
Most people associate Inigo Montoya with revenge. He’s spent years in “the revenge business,” fixated on killing the man who killed his father. But I always think most of the emotion that spurred him: grief.
It’s the moment when he finally faces his father’s killer that so perfectly summarizes grief to me. Even suffering from a dagger wound, Inigo finally has Count Rugen at his mercy and says, “Offer me money,” and Rugen says yes. Inigo says, “Power, too,” and Rugen says yes. “All that I have and more,” Rugen promises.
Then Inigo yells, “I want my father back, you son-of-a-bitch!”
Nothing—not riches, not a kingdom—will fix the problem: Inigo misses the father that he loves. That’s grief. I want my Pop, Papa, Mamarie, Bowman back. I get it.
But it’s revenge, too, so don’t worry—Inigo stabs and kills Count Rugen. And Inigo smiles.
Then we’re nearly at the end of the movie, and here we are at the end of another piece of my writing dedicated to the movie that has shaped my writing and my humor and that continues to bring me joy. If I ever say I’ll stop writing about The Princess Bride, I won’t mean it.
Anybody want a peanut?