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.

Too bad my first edition paperback has the fold-out map ripped off and tucked into the book itself as a bookmark.

I've done many unfortunate things to paperbacks I had when I was a kid/teenager that I regret. Including the original Richard Bachman paperbacks (actually, the original King paperbacks too, now that I think about it). Among other things, if they had pages that were advertisements for other books, I used to tear those out, because I thought that was cheesy (Signet - I'm looking at you as the prime offender).

hangs head in shame

trying to convince me that the mark of a good novel was long paragraphs

Well, that's a new one on me. Could make it easier at the bookstore, I guess.

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.

Really? I recently hit a two-page-long paragraph in Midnight's Children. Now I know I'm reading a good novel!

yeah my sister has had some wacky boyfriends. He was right about Goldman, though.

There's also an official "good parts" version of The Princess Bride - selected bits printed in, I think, red.

I've read The Silent Gondoliers. It's okay.

Hey Aimee, when I read The Princess Bride it didn't even occur to me that the stuff about Morganstern and the lawsuit and all that was fictional. I can't remember how I ended up finding out the truth.

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.

Also, hi! I can't believe I've been out of the thread for two years. I'm an English teacher--what's wrong with me?

I may have just answered my own question.

Jostein Gaarder uses a similar technique in Aemelia Flora, supposedly a letter to St. Augustine from his abandoned lover/mother of his son. Gaarder presents this as a translation of a work he somehow found by pure chance, translated, then submitted to the Vatican (or something) for their records. Sadly, he didn't get a receipt, and the Vatican (or whatever) had no record of ever receiving such a manuscript. I was so intrigued by the "back story" and so frustrated by the lack of any real manuscript to translate myself that I tossed the book aside in disgust and dismay. I want it to be real!

I really should try to read it again.

I had completely forgotten that Eco used that in Name of the Rose. One of my favorite authors, even if it takes me 2 chapters to figure out what he's on about. My favorite of his is his book of essays-How to Travel With a Salmon.