The Neverending Story

Specifications

Ende, Michael translated from the German by Ralph Manheim, 1979, translation 1983, Dutton Children's Books, New York.

Reading

This book was read from about May 15, 2009 to June 21, 2009. It is from my private library.

I read this book after seeing the movie primarily because I noticed a character in the movie which is represented by wolf which was not really developed. That is, the character was sent out at the same time as Atreyu, and later appears when he dies. I was interested in learning his story.

Review

While this book is well worth reading, it is a bit episodic. That is, the individual chapters are almost independent short stories, and sometimes the connecting verbiage is rather sparse.

The first half of the story, however, does not have this problem, and is the half that all of the movie is based on. It begins with Bastian Balthazar Bux being chased by some bullies (although the chase is not part of the story). The first scene in the book has him finding refuge in a bookstore. The owner, Carl Conrad Coreander, is skeptical of children. He steps in the back to answer a phone call, and Bastian sees this book called The Neverending Story. He "borrows" the book and takes it to school with him. There he retreats to the attic to read it. He reads it from the beginning to the end.

It is interesting in that the description of the book is that it has a gold cover (the book does have a gold colored dust cover) with two snakes, a white snake biting the tail of a black snake, who is, in turn, biting the tail of the white snake. The chapters have one entire page for the first letter of the chapter (it does) and is printed in two colors, green and purple. The book is, in fact, printed in green and purple. The green is the story in fantasia, and purple is the story in the "real world," that is, Bastian's world.

Bastian has also just lost his mother, and is ignored by his father. The story is a statement of Bastian coming to grips with this situation.

The story is of the childlike Empress (her title), who is sick. Her sickness is connected with a "Nothing" which is destroying Fantasia, and there is a connection. It is emphasized that the childlike Empress is neither good or bad. She is equally fond of all beings in fantasia, both good and bad. Everyone in fantasia respects her. But now she is sick, and everyone is concerned.

She sends for a boy named Atreyu, who is a big hunter. He is to go on a quest and is given the AURYN (I never discovered what this is an acronym for), which represents the childlike Empress. He is not allowed weapons, etc. People do not expect him to take up the quest, but he does.

During the quest he never knows why he is doing it, or what the desired end is. But he is doing it anyway.

During the course of the first half of the book you meet many interesting characters. For example, Morla, the aged one. He is in the movie, but in the book it is slightly different. There is Ygramul the many. This is really a being that appears to be built like a swarm of bees, so it can reform, and change its shape as needed.

When captured by Ygramul, he escapes by wishing himself somewhere else. There is a luck dragon that was caught as well, and he wishes himself to the same place.

There they meet the Gnomics, who are the people who appear in the movie as studying the "Southern Oracle." The luckdragon is extremely upbeat, believing that with luck you can accomplish anything. The rest of the quest Atreyu and the luckdragon are together, except for a short period were they were seperated.

The wolf from the movie does appear in the book, but he is not developed any further than in the movie.

When Atreyu meets the wolf, the wolf is dying. After this Atreyu gives up, and returns to the Ivory Tower and the childlike Empress in failure. However, the childlike Empress says he is a success.

During the first part of the book, Bastian has exclamations, etc, that actually appear in the book. He is shocked.

The Childlike Empress says she needs a new name, and it needs to be given by a human child. Bastian is unwilling to accept that he could be that important, and is unwilling to do it. So the childlike Empress goes on a trip to see the "Old Man of the Mountain." It turns out this is the person writing the story. Therefore, the childlike Empress makes a comment, and he writes it. In response, he says the answer, and writes it at the same time. The Childlike Empress asks him to read the book from the beginning, which he does, and it includes Bastian exactly as the real book does. Bastian is shocked, but eventually realizes that he needs to give the Empress a new name.

The name he chooses is "Moon Child." When he chooses the name he is transported to fantasia, which is now just himself and the childlike Empress, now called Moon Child, and one speck of sand, which is all that is left of fantasia.

Bastian, then, is given the AURYN, and told that he has to make wishes to rebuild fantasia. Lots of wishes. Then he starts making stories that come true as soon as he says them. That is, history is altered, space and time changed as needed to make his stories true. To give one group who are interested in stories a library, he tells a story of how they were created as a community. In this process, a library was made of every story ever told by Bastian.

Bastian continues to make wishes, and with each wish he forgets that part of himself that could contradict the wish.

Eventually he meets Xayide, the mistress of Horok Castle. She passes herself off a a friend to Bastian, but it sounds to me like she is really interesting in using him. She plays to his ego, and he imagines her his best friend.

Atreyu, who had reappeared with the luckdragon, is painted as evil by Xayide (althought he is really not) so Bastian sends him away.

Bastian then returns to the Ivory Tower. Xayide convinces him that he is not the successor to Moon Child, who is nowhere to be seen, so he sets himself up as "childlike Emperor," and schedules a coronation. It doesn't happen, however because of Atreyu, who attacks Bastian, and defeats his armies. Finally, when Atreyu has Bastian is his power, he is unwilling to do him harm, so he runs away. In the precess, the Ivory Tower is destroyed, and Bastian is chasing Atreyu.

Bastian, however, falls off his horse, and ends up in a community made up only of people who had used their wishes to have themselves crowned. These had lost all memory of who they were, so could not get out. That is, the wishes each require the wisher to give up memories, and they had no memories left.

Bastian realizes the error of his ways, and repents. He spends the rest of the book trying to get home, and he realizes the Atreyu, who he had wounded, was really his friend. He has to go through a period of time where he re-evaluates his priorities. He has to find the "Water of life" which will allow him to go home.

He realizes how important his father is to him, and tries to being some of the "water of life" to him,

Finally, Atreyu and Bastian are reunited, and Bastian goes through the "water of life" which is the AURYN. So Bastian returns to the "real world." He thinks he has spent years in the neverending story, but really it has only been a day. He returns to his father, who cries (the "water of life") because he was so worried about Bastian. Mr Coreander is contacted about the book Bastian took (which, mysteriously, disappeared) but he did not have such a book. It is obvious, however, that he knew of the Neverending story.

Bastian learns that he is important, and to appreciate his father more. And the story is over.

This is a very long story, and each half would probably make a novel in itself.