Although it is more than 25 years since I last read it, I still remember scenes of the story, dialogues, lonely Bastian, Arteiyu and Fantastica. The Nothing is devouring Fantastica bit by bit and The Childlike Empress tasks Atreyu with stopping it. Meanwhile, holed up in his school's attic, Bastian Balthazar Bux reads a purlorned book and soon finds himself pulled into... The Neverending Story! 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 plot elements primarily from the second half of Ende's novel, but told a new tale. Ende has dismissed both the 1984 film and its 1990 sequel as "gigantic melodrama made of kitsch and commerce, plush and plastic". [16]

Well: I think the message of Die unendliche Geschichte is very simple, in fact so simple that it's easy to miss it. Just as the book says, Phantásia, the world of stories, is real. We can be involved with that world in two ways. In the first half, Bastian is reading the story, and even there it makes a deep impression on him: he so wants to be like Atréu, its fearless hero. Then at the mid-point of the book, he crosses over. From being a reader, he becomes a writer. He meets die kindliche Kaiserin and starts constructing the story himself. If my remember correctly my godfather gave it to me as a Christmas present together with "Comet in Moominland" by Tove Jansson. The best combination!)

The second half of the book feels... never ending. It's a slow, overdone, meander through a fairly arbitrary world and the 8 year old I was reading it to (we finished the book on her 9th birthday) was, like me, less than gripped. We soldiered on... and on... and on. The Good? The first half of the book is excellent. I absolutely love it. The movie stays extremely faithful to the source material. The world is imaginative, the hero is a bit of a blank slate, but likeable all the same, and a lot of the things that he goes through on his quest serve a dual purpose, to both be entertaining, and thought provoking. The use of an abstract concept, the Nothing, as the villain is where I think this part of the book really shines. It's very hard to give a concept weight as a character, but the author did an extraordinary job of bringing it, and all of the horror surrounding it, to life.

If you have never wept bitter tears because a wonderful story has come to an end and you must take your leave of the characters with whom you have shared so many adventures, whom you have loved and admired, for whom you have hoped and feared, and without whose company life seems empty and meaningless. If such things have not been part of your own experience, you probably won't understand what Bastian did next." Colin Greenland reviewed The NeverEnding Story for Imagine magazine and stated that "perhaps the heroic quest of young Atreyu to save the land of Fantasia from the all-consuming Nothing might have been more convincing if it hadn't been so clumsily edited". [23] Accolades [ edit ] I still dream of finding a bookstore like the one where Bastian Balthasar Bux found "The Neverending Story". I don't think I ever pass an antique shop without thinking of this book for at least a fraction of a second, it is so deeply engraved in my heart and mind. Who has never dreamt of being a castaway in the school attic, with some food, some light, and a book that -literally - soaks you in? Wiseman, Andreas (7 September 2022). "The Dish: Fantasy Classic 'The NeverEnding Story' Subject Of Film & TV Rights Bidding War". Deadline . Retrieved 16 September 2022. The book describes the fantasy world of Fantasia slowly being devoured by a malevolent force called "The Nothing". The Childlike Empress, who rules Fantasia, has fallen ill, and the young warrior Atreyu is tasked to discover a cure, believing that once the Empress is well, the Nothing will no longer be a threat. Atreyu is given a medallion called the Auryn that can guide and protect him in the quest. As Atreyu sets out, the Nothing summons a vicious and highly intelligent wolf-like creature named Gmork and sends him to kill Atreyu.

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I therefore began the second half of the book in high spirits, expecting to learn more about the Nothing, the Empress and the nature of Fantastica. What I got however was a radically different story. Rather than a quest to save a world from a rapidly approaching and very frightening danger, the book suddenly turned into a view of Bastian wandering around Fantastica with the power to create anything by his wishes, and to create more of Fantastica just by telling a story, all thanks to the power of Auryn. The lands created no longer appeared quite as wonderful and threatening since it was always emphasized just how unbelievably invincible Bastian was, and though it became clear as time went on that Bastian's wishes were affecting him negatively, making him lose parts of himself and becoming more and more petty, this process wasn't fast enough to stop the book from dragging extremely, exploring less than interesting side turnings into rather more familiar literary territory such as Bastian winning a contest of arms with a magic sword or magically creating happy endings for minor characters. In short this transformed Fantastica from the quite literally grim land of fairy tales it initially appeared, to a place rather like the Magic Far Away Tree of Enid Blyton, a jolly romp where the merry children meet strange creatures, but woe betide anything bad should actually happen to them. Es un libro que me conectó con el niño interior que llevo adentro, que me ayudó a recordar los momentos felices de mi infancia y adolescencia, y que conmovió mi corazón como nunca antes una historia lo había logrado. Cada párrafo lo sentí lleno de amor, de ternura y de mensajes tan profundos que me llegaron al alma. Lo que necesitaba era encontrarme conmigo mismo y con este libro eso se volvió realidad. Desde ese momento, volví a sentir amor por la vida, por mi familia, por mi entorno, a disfrutar de las pequeñas cosas, a valorar la experiencia de nuestros antepasados, pero principalmente me enamoré de los libros. Cada día anhelaba leer más y más, para comprender la manera de pensar de miles de personajes y autores por medio de sus historias. Con los libros, he logrado tener un estado de paz muy agradable y obtener inspiración constante, todo gracias a los cientos de reflexiones que podemos encontrar en este universo de palabras. In the first half we learn that Fantastica is the world of human fantasy, and must be continued by the creativity of humans in the form of giving new names to the Childlike Empress, and that this process is threatened by those who cheapen fantasies into lies and delusions.

The first time I read this I was probably about 11 or 12 and it was after seeing The Neverending Story II in the theater. Till that moment I had never known The Neverending Story was a book, and just happened to notice this in the credits. Thank god I did. The fact that it led me to the book is probably the only redeeming factor of that film. I truly believe that this story has inspired me and made me love Fantacy books so much later on as an adult. In the season two finale of The Venture Bros., "Showdown at Cremation Creek (Part II)", Dean Venture embarks upon a fantastical, hallucinated adventure that closely borrows from The Neverending Story. Isau, Ralf (2003). Die geheime Bibliothek des Thaddäus Tillmann Trutz[ The Secret Library of Thaddaeus Tillman Trutz]. Kroll, Katie (10 August 2020). "Ways The NeverEnding Story is different from the book". Looper . Retrieved 11 December 2020.Uh, I'm really sorry boss. I took my eye off the ball for a moment. Before I knew what was happening, they'd decided to film it. Anniversary of The Neverending Story's First Publishing, google.com". Archived from the original on 1 September 2018 . Retrieved 9 August 2018. The book was originally written in German, brought to you on the screen by a German director and crew, and only after the movie was so popular did the book get translated into a few more languages. Ocean Software released a text adventure in 1985 for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, and Atari 8-bit family. [23] Sabrina Cooper (31 August 2019). "Why Michael Ende's 'The Neverending Story' is cult". Deutsche Welle . Retrieved 8 December 2020.