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Literature Review

The Neverending Story – Book Review

This year celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of the book The Neverending Story, written by the famous German author Michael Ende in 1979, and reprinted and translated in a multitude of languages thereafter.

While this story may be more memorable for its 1984 movie adaptation, directed by Wolfgang Petersen, the novel form holds many more subtleties that could not be transformed into the visual medium.

What takes place in the book is every readers dream; a young boy who is mocked by his classmates and loves to read finds a book titled ‘The Neverending Story’, and upon reading it discovers that he can transport into the world of the book. Fantastica (the title given to the fantasy world in the book) is in danger and the residents need a human to give the Childlike Empress a new name or their world will disappear into the Nothing. Bastian Balthazar Bux is that human, unknowing as he may be. He believes he is reading a story, but he soon realises what happens between the pages of a book don’t necessarily have to stay there.

What is real and what is fiction is a blur within the novel. The events of the ‘real world’, Bastian being bullied, reading ‘The Neverending Story’, are written in italics, a form usually reserved for dreams sequences and the like in novels. The story within the story is set out like a real novel, leaving it up to the reader to decide what is real and what isn’t. A number of times within the story characters make mention that they are in a book, and even Bastian in the ‘real world’ wonders if he is really a character in a book being read by someone, who is in a book being read by someone else, who is in a book being read by someone else, etcetera etcetera.

The book covers many themes, each one important to the youths who are the target audience. Bastian doesn’t like himself very much, and he thinks he is fat and ugly; the reason he discovers ‘The Neverending Story’ is because he is running away from some school bullies. Throughout the novel he yearns to be as brave and strong as Atreyu, or as nimble and beautiful as Falkor the Luckdragon, but his ultimate quest is to love himself the way he is.
Another important message of the story is that of imagination. The Nothing that is destroying Fantastica is a physical representation of the lack people reading stories. If nobody reads a book, the story within has no purpose, and the characters are as good as dead. An adventure can only be lived if someone is living it.

Readers can quiet easily find themselves lost in the book, which opens up more of the fantasy world than the movies ever could. In the book we see more places and meet more people, which helps to illustrate the point that a book and its world live on well after we put it down.

Apologies to Kathy (the author) as she sent this review to us in December 09 but we couldn’t published it till now.

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About The Author

Kathy O'Donnell

A massive science fiction fan, Kathy has been reading and writing for this genre for many years. Despite her young age, she has a BA in Film Production and is furthering her career by studying a MA in Writing, Editing, and Publishing. When she's not doing this, she loves to watch TV and yell at the characters thereon.

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Article Information

  • Posted: Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
  • Author: Kathy O'Donnell
  • Filed Under: Literature,Review
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