William Goldman

He wrote the Princess Bride, which is one of my fave books and movies of forever.
He was also well-known for "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", which was made into a movie with Paul Newman in it.
I discovered, in a bookshelf at the house I'm staying in, a completely unknown novel by him. It was called "The Color of Light".

It wasn't particularly good, actually. It reminded me of "Catcher in the Rye". Just kind os follows one person's drab existence along.

It was about a writer who is really good but screws stuff up and loses his inspiration or what-have-you. It was decently written. It had lots of curse words, and random porn-ish bits that really surprised me (like out of frekking nowhere). Those always bother me in a novel for two reasons. 1: I can't relate. 2: They generally take away from the plot. I really love, if not true plot, a solid storyline. It bothers me when a story has no actual direction.

But I'm very pleased with having read it for two reasons. 1: I haven't read a new book cover to cover in a long time. It only took me 6 hours to do 400ish pages. I haven't entirely lost my touch. 2: William Goldman is a real person. Does that sound crazy to you? Allow me to explain a little. When you've never met a person, only heard their name and know info about them, they seem more like a book character than anything. But he's alive eh? 77 and living in New York. But here's how this random conclusion hit me (if no one minds a little story)

In the book "The Princess Bride", he tells his life story along with the story we know and love from the movie. I really liked that, actually. It was an earthy, living story and there were moments in the William Goldman story where I could see how it was was affected by the Princess Bride story, and vice versa. In the William Goldman story, he mentions his grade 3 teacher who instilled in him a love of reading, and how he still thought about her years later and such. Then, in the book I read today, his main character mentions his 3rd grade teacher. And the teachers were both called Miss Roginsky.

It's hard to really explain how that makes him a person and not a character. But that is what is in my head right now, and so be it.