Soh Kam Yung reviewed The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
A fantastic book about a neverending story.
5 stars
A fantastic book about a fantastic book and the journey that Bastian Balthazar Bux undertakes with (and in) it.
Probably more people are familiar with the movies, especially the first one, but that only covers the initial journey Bastian unknowingly undertakes as he follows the adventures of Atreyu (and Falkor, the Luckdragon) in Fantastica, while being lead to the Childlike Empress who needs a new name to live; a name that only a human can give.
Conscious of his looks, Bastian is hesitant to do what the Childlike Empress needs. She resorts to her last option: a visit to the Old Man of Wandering Mountain and a retelling of the Neverending Story (in computer terms, an infinite, recursive loop) that can only be broken by an outside force: her new name which Bastian declares to be Moon Child.
Now in Fantastica, Bastian is given Moon Child's amulet, …
A fantastic book about a fantastic book and the journey that Bastian Balthazar Bux undertakes with (and in) it.
Probably more people are familiar with the movies, especially the first one, but that only covers the initial journey Bastian unknowingly undertakes as he follows the adventures of Atreyu (and Falkor, the Luckdragon) in Fantastica, while being lead to the Childlike Empress who needs a new name to live; a name that only a human can give.
Conscious of his looks, Bastian is hesitant to do what the Childlike Empress needs. She resorts to her last option: a visit to the Old Man of Wandering Mountain and a retelling of the Neverending Story (in computer terms, an infinite, recursive loop) that can only be broken by an outside force: her new name which Bastian declares to be Moon Child.
Now in Fantastica, Bastian is given Moon Child's amulet, AURYN, with the instructions, "DO WHAT YOU WISH". And so he does, wishing for adventures that his heart desires. But it is only later that he discovers that every wish removes a memory of his real life; and a terrible fate awaits those humans that lose all their memories without returning to their world.
As Bastian is reduced to his last few wishes, he finally realizes just what he really desires. And with the help of Atreyu, he finally discovers the gateway back to his world, and with it a way to make both our world and Fantastica better. The story ends with hints that there are other ways to get to Fantastica, but that, of course, is another story.
An interesting feature of the book is the way the telling of stories and people experiencing the stories intertwine. For example, Bastian tells a story about the history of a city to its inhabitants and that story becomes the real past of the city, complete with buildings and magical items that, until a moment ago, only existed in Bastian's imagination. It is an interesting way to keep the reader wondering whether Bastian's adventures existed in Bastian's mind only moments ago, or were foretold long ago in Fantastica, and only now being experienced by Bastian. This crops up continually in the second half of the book and adds more meaning to the phrase, 'Neverending Story.'
