The Neverending Story
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| The Neverending Story | |
 1997 Dutton edition cover |
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| Author | Michael Ende |
|---|---|
| Original title | Die Unendliche Geschichte |
| Translator | Ralph Manheim |
| Illustrator | Roswitha Quadflieg |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | German |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy Novel |
| Publisher | Thienemann Verlag |
| Publication date | 1979 |
| Media type | print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 448 |
| ISBN | 3522128001 |
The Neverending Story (German: Die unendliche Geschichte) is a German fantasy novel by Michael Ende, first published in 1979. The standard English translation, by Ralph Manheim, was first published in 1983. The novel was later adapted into several films.
The majority of the story takes place in the parallel world of Fantastica (referred to as Fantasia in the films), a world being destroyed by the Nothing. The first protagonist is a young warrior, who is asked by the sick Empress to set off and find the cure for their world. The other protagonist is a boy from the real world, a reader of the novel with the same title, for whom the story gradually becomes more and more realistic.
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[edit] Plot summary
The book centers on a boy, Bastian Balthazar Bux, who meets a man who owns an antique book store. Bastian steals a book from the store called The Neverending Story, which he reads and soon becomes a part of.
The book begins in Fantastica (Phantásien in the German novels; Fantasia in the films), when a "will-o'-the-wisp" goes to ask the Childlike Empress for help against the Nothing, which is spreading over the land. The Empress is ill, which is believed to be the cause of the Nothing (or viceversa); she sends the only person that can stop the Nothing, a boy warrior named Atreyu, to find a cure for her. Atreyu is a brave person, being considered a man even though he is a young boy of Bastian's age.
While on his quest, Atreyu meets characters such as Benjamin, Uyulala, and the gnomes Urgl and Engywook. Atreyu also meets Falkor, the luckdragon, who helped him along the way. After Falkor accidentally drops Atreyu in Spook City, Atreyu meets G'mork the werewolf, who has been following Atreyu since the early days of his quest, intending to kill him. G'mork soon dies; Falkor and Atreyu leave Spook City to find the Ivory Tower, where the Childlike Empress lives. The Childlike Empress reveals that the only thing that can save Fantastica is a human child, who must give her a new name to start again the cycle of life in Fantastica.
Bastian comes to Fantastica by naming the Empress 'Moon Child'; she asks him to help re-build Fantastica with his imagination, and he subsequently has many adventures of his own in his new world. With the help of the Auryn, a Gem that links him to the Empress, that gives him power over all the inhabitants of Fantastica and grants all of the boy's wishes, Bastian explores the Desert of Colors, battles the evil Xayide, and meets the three Deep Thinkers. Bastian becomes friends with Atreyu, although their rivalry leads to a fight in which Atreyu is wounded. Bastian thereafter is corrupted by Xayide, who drives him to a lust for power. He is defeated in his attempt to start a coup d'état against the Childlike Empress. Bastian is unaware that every wish he makes takes away one of his memories, until it is very late and he no longer remembers anything of his past.
Eventually, Atreyu helps him, and Bastian then learns the true meaning of his mission with the Auryn. After he returns home, he decides to return the book to its owner, Carl Conrad Coreander, but the book disappears after Bastian returns from Fantastica. He explains this to Carl Conrad Coreander, who is interested in Bastian's adventures and wants to keep in touch to talk about them.
[edit] Characters
- Atreyu (German Atréju)
- Bastian Balthazar Bux (German Bastian Balthasar Bux)
- The Childlike Empress/Moonchild (German Die Kindliche Kaiserin/Mondenkind)
- Falkor, the luckdragon (German Fuchur, der Glücksdrache)
- Carl Conrad Coreander (German Karl Konrad Koriander)
[edit] Auryn
The Auryn is a mystical talisman in The Neverending Story. In the novel, the Auryn is always spelled in capital letters and is revered by all Fantasticans, referred to as "The Gem" and "The Glory." It is a symbol of its mistress, the Childlike Empress, who is also called "The Golden-Eyed Commander of Wishes" in reference to her relationship with the Auryn. While the book makes noteworthy the point that the image of the Auryn is on its "cover(s)", it does not actually refer to it as the Auryn.
A common misconception is that the Auryn is a simple magical object that grants wishes. The truth is that the Auryn's power flows from the Childlike Empress and that it can only be used with her permission. The powerful amulet cannot be used against her and if she does not grant the use of it to someone they are unable to influence the Auryn.
Two mythological serpents, symmetrical, bite at the other's tails. In the book, they are not specifically, nor always, intertwined. One serpent is gold and one is silver. Each has an eye to correspond to the color of the book's print, red and green. The symbol is reminiscent of ouroboros or the mythological Jörmungandr and the Zodiac Pisces. It also may be noted that the film version has the two snakes in an "Infinity Knot", a kind of grief knot which looks like a more intricate variation of the figure "8" infinity symbol and another sign of ouroboros. The two snakes represent the dual nature of the two worlds, Fantastica (German: Phantásien) and Reality, but also the twin nature of their mutual creation and destruction. On the back of the the Auryn are these words:
"Do what you Wish" (German: "Tu, was du willst").
The Auryn helps guide Atreyu through Fantastica in his quest to find a cure for the ailing Childlike Empress, and in turn defeat the Nothing. It serves him clandestinely, but does return him to the Ivory Tower. Although Atreyu believes himself to have failed in finding the human child past the borders of Fantastica, the Childlike Empress informs him to the contrary and that indeed the boy had been with him all along.
In the hands of the Childlike Empress, the Auryn displays greater powers even in the face of the Nothing. She releases seven spirits to serve her as she ventures across her tattered realm to find the Old Man of Wandering Mountain. They carry her chariot and provide a haven for Atreyu and Falkor within.
Bastian christens the Childlike Empress with her new name. She presents him with the Auryn; her only request being that he follows the instructions written on the back. While it grants him the power to make wishes and imagine more of Fantastica, it drains him of his memories which are his only way back to his world. Bastian searches for the same obscure boundaries of Fantastica only to realize it is within the Auryn itself.
In the mystical interior of the Auryn, two gargantuan serpent statues stand sentry, one shining brighter than white, the other darker than black. They guard the Waters of Life, a waterfall and pool that serve as the exit from Fantastica. The statues refuse Bastian's passage, for he had left many stories unfinished in Fantastica. Atreyu however agrees to undertake the quest, which allows Bastian to return to his world. When Bastian touches the waters, their truthful properties dissolve the illusion of his glamour wishes, and he returns to being a fat little boy, instead of a Fantastican prince, but this time he has learned to love himself as he truly is.
[edit] Reception
Susan L. Nickerson of Library Journal writes in a review that "Imaginative readers know the story doesn't end when the covers close; the magic to be found in books is eternal, and Ende's message comes through vividly."[1]
"The two parts of the novel repeat each other", as Maria Nikolajeva states in her book The Rhetoric of Character in Children's Literature, in that Bastian becomes a hero but then in the second half he "acts not even as an antihero but as a false hero of the fairy tale." The characters of Bastian and Atreyu can also be seen as mirror halves.[2]
[edit] Related novels
In the autumn of 2003, AVAinternational GmbH began publishing "Legends of Fantastica". Originally planned as a 12 part series of novels, only 6 have been published as of 2004.
The Legends of Fantasia have been published in Germany, Japan, Spain, and Cyprus. Currently there are no plans to publish these books in English. AVAinternational are in negotiations with publishing houses worldwide, but claim they "haven't got a concrete offer of an English-language country". The six novels published to date are:-
- Tanja Kinkel: "Der König der Narren" (The King of Fools) -published September 1 2003
- Ulrike Schweikert: "Die Seele der Nacht" (The Soul of the Night) - published September 1 2003
- Ralf Isau: "Die geheime Bibliothek des Thaddäus Tillmann Trutz" (The Secret Library of Thaddaeus Tillman Trutz) -published September 1 2003
- Wolfram Fleischhauer: "Die Verschwörung der Engel" (The Angels' Plot) -published March 18 2004
- Peter Freund: "Die Stadt der vergessenen Träume" (The City of Forgotten Dreams) -published March 18 2004
- Peter Dempf: "Die Herrin der Wörter" (Empress of the Words) -published September 23 2004
[edit] Adaptations
The NeverEnding Story was the first film adaptation of the novel. It was released in 1984, directed by Wolfgang Petersen and starring Barret Oliver as Bastian, Noah Hathaway as Atreyu, and Tami Stronach as the Childlike Empress. The music was composed by Klaus Doldinger. It covered only the first half of the book, ending at the point where Bastian enters Fantastica. Ende requested they halt production or change the movie's name, as it had drastically deviated from his novel; when they did neither, he sued them and subsequently lost the case.[3]
The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter, directed by George T. Miller and starring Jonathan Brandis and Kenny Morrison, was released in 1990. It used a number of plot elements from the second half of Ende's novel, but told an essentially new tale.
The NeverEnding Story III, starring Jason James Richter, Melody Kay and Jack Black, was released in 1994. This film was based only upon the characters from the Ende book, having a completely new story.
The 1996 animated series was produced by Nelvana, under the title of The Neverending Story: The Animated Adventures of Bastian Balthazar Bux. The animated series ran for two years, and had a total of twenty episodes. Director duties were split between Marc Boreal and Mike Fallows. Each episode focused on Bastian's further adventures in Fantastica, largely different from his further adventures in the book, but occasionally containing elements of them.
Tales from the Neverending Story was a live-action series that aired on the Hallmark Channel that re-told the story as an ongoing series lasting 13 episodes. The series was also re-edited to form a four part miniseries.
The Neverending Story has also been adapted to the dramatic play, ballet, and operatic media in Germany. The scores to both the opera and the ballet versions were composed by Siegfried Matthus.
In 2001, the video game adaptation Auryn Quest was developed by the German studio Attaction.[4]
As of June 2009, plans for a new movie adaptation of the book have been announced, although only at the very earliest stages of development. No writer, director, or cast have been decided upon yet.[5]
[edit] See also
[edit] Footnotes
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Neverending Story |
- ^ Nickerson, Susan L. (10-15-1983). "Book Review: Fiction". Library Journal (R. R. Bowker Co.) 108 (NO. 18): 1975. ISSN 0363-0277.
- ^ Nikolajeva, Maria (2002). The Rhetoric of Character in Children's Literature. Scarecrow Press. pp. 106-108. ISBN 0-8108-4886-4.
- ^ Mori, Yoko. "Michael Ende Biography". http://www3.plala.or.jp/mig/me1-uk.html. Retrieved on 2007-09-29.
- ^ "Auryn Quest for Windows". MobyGames. http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/auryn-quest. Retrieved on 2007-06-23.
- ^ "'NeverEnding Story' gets new beginning"
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