I love how To Say Nothing of the Dog starts off with everybody in the bombed out cathedral and Ned keeps referring to "Mr. Peabody" as a member of their crew and it isn't until the end of the chapter that it becomes clear that Mr. Peabody is a dog.

Also, just for the record? Adso's chonicle of what happened at the monastery in The Name of the Rose was not discovered by Umberto Eco on a cruise with an ex-lover.

I always wished George MacDonald Fraser's tales of the "discovery" of the Flashman diaries was true, but I think I kind of always knew it probably wasn't. Or at least that's how I remember it. Luckily, that was before the internets so I was never exposed.

"Mr. Peabody"

Although that name is guranteed to set off associations in people of a certain age.

Oops. Wrong thread.

Wrong Mr. Peabody, too, right Ginger?

I think anyone believing in Morganstern means Goldman did his job very well. And he did. It's part and parcel with why I think it's one of the best movie adaptations out there. He just reached in and scooped out two of the levels of the story, and treated us like kids. Didn't bother with the familial discontent, nor the trouble that happens to our intrepid heroes after the movie ends.

I flipper her off.

Did you then ask for fishy treats?

That's a great typo--I now have a wonderful mental image of a seal flipping off his trainer and then flouncing back into the pool in a snit.

But seriously, nobody should feel stupid for making that mistake - it's a tribute to how well Goldman pulls it off that so many people fall for it.

Yeah, one of my college roommates was completely convinced S. Morgenstern was real. The idea that he wasn't was so foreign to him that trying to talk to him about it made me question whether I was right or not. I was all, "LOOK AT THE WRITING STYLE!!" But it wasn't good enough.

You know what I did discover recently, though? You know how in the back of the book, there's an ad for The Silent Gondoliers, another S. Morgenstern classic abridged by William Goldman?

He actually wrote that book.

(Also, several years ago, I found a copy of The Princess Bride that had the first chapter of Buttercup's Baby. It was amusing.)

It's part and parcel with why I think it's one of the best movie adaptations out there.

I agree. Plus, he was able to improve on little things like turning the sharks into Shrieking Eels and giving the "Life is pain" line to Westley instead of Fezzik's mom.

I still want to read the excised chapter that describes the wardrobe of the visiting princess and the hats.

I'm also unreasonably smug that I first read Princess Bride back in the early 80s, before anyone even thought about a movie. Too bad my first edition paperback has the fold-out map ripped off and tucked into the book itself as a bookmark.

Ages before I saw the movie one of my sister's boyfriends was trying to convince me that the mark of a good novel was long paragraphs. He handed me the book open to the bit about snow sand as an example. I liked it and wanted to read the book but it slipped my mind and then I forgot about it... until I was watching the movie and Buttercup fell in and then my brain started filling in the details of what was going on below the surface. At first I didn't recall reading the excerpt. It was a really odd feeling.