The Neverending Story

The Neverending Story (German: Die unendliche Geschichte) is a German fantasy novel by Michael Ende that was first published in 1979. An English translation, by Ralph Manheim, was first published in 1983. The novel was later adapted into several films.

Plot summary

The book centers on a boy, Bastian Balthazar Bux, a small and strange child who is neglected by his father after the death of Bastian's mother. While escaping from some bullies, Bastian bursts into the antique book store of Carl Conrad Coreander, where he finds his interest held by a book called The Neverending Story. Unable to resist, he steals the book and hides in his school's attic, where he begins to read.

The story Bastian reads is set in the magical land of Fantastica, an unrealistic place of wonder ruled by the benevolent and mysterious Childlike Empress. A great delegation has come to the Empress to seek her help against a formless entity called "The Nothing". The delegates are shocked when the Empress's physician, a centaur named Cairon, informs them that the Empress is dying, and has summoned a boy warrior named Atreyu, to find a cure. To Atreyu, the Empress gives AURYN: a powerful medallion that protects him from all harm. At the advice of the giant turtle, Morla the Aged One, Atreyu sets off in search of an invisible oracle known as Uyulala, who may know the Empress's cure. In reaching her, he is aided by a luckdragon named Falkor, whom he rescues from the monster 'Ygramul the Many'. By Uyulala, he is told the only thing that can save the Empress is a new name given to her by a human child who can only be found beyond Fantastica's borders.

As Falkor and Atreyu search for the borders of Fantastica, Atreyu is flung from Falkor's back in a confrontation with the four Wind Giants and loses AURYN in the sea. Atreyu lands in the ruins of Spook City, the home of various wicked creatures. Injured by the fall and stranded in the dangerous city, Atreyu finds the wolf Gmork, chained and near death, who tells him that all the residents of the city have leapt voluntarily into The Nothing. There, thanks to the irresistible pull of the destructive phenomenon, they have become lies and delusions in the human world. The wolf also reveals that he is a servant of The Nothing who wishes to prevent the Empress's chosen hero from saving her. Gmork then reveals that when the princess of the city discovered his treachery against the Empress, she imprisoned him and left him to starve to death. When Atreyu announces that he is the hero Gmork has sought, the wolf laughs and succumbs to death. However, upon being approached, Gmork's body instinctively seizes Atreyu's leg in his jaws. Meanwhile, Falkor retrieves AURYN from the sea and arrives in time to save Atreyu from the rapid approach of The Nothing.

Falkor and Atreyu go to the Childlike Empress, who assures them they have brought her rescuer to her; Bastian suspects that the Empress means him, but cannot bring himself to believe it. When Bastian refuses to speak the new name, to prompt him into fulfilling his role as savior, the Empress herself locates the Old Man of Wandering Mountain, who possesses a book also entitled The Neverending Story, which the Empress demands he read aloud. As he begins, Bastian is amazed to find the book he is reading is repeating itself, beginning once again whenever the Empress reaches the Old Man—only this time, the story includes Bastian's meeting with Coreander, his theft of the book, and all his actions in the attic. Realizing that the story will repeat itself forever without his intervention, Bastian names the Empress 'Moon Child', and appears with her in Fantastica, where he restores its existence through his own imagination. The Empress has also given him AURYN, on the back of which he finds the inscription "DO WHAT YOU WISH".

For each wish, Bastian loses a memory of his life as a human, and some of his ability to leave Fantastica. Unaware of this at first, Bastian goes through Fantastica, having adventures and telling stories, while losing his memories. In spite of the warnings of Atreyu and Bastian's other friends, Bastian uses AURYN to create creatures and dangers for himself to conquer, which causes some negative side effects for the rest of Fantasia. After encountering the wicked sorceress Xayide, with the mysterious absence of the Childlike Empress Bastian decides to take over Fantasia for himself, but is stopped by Atreyu, whom Bastian grievously wounds in battle. Ultimately, a repentant Bastian is reduced to two memories: those of his mother and father, and of his own name. After more adventures, Bastian must give up the memory of his parents to discover that his strongest wish is to be capable of love and give love to others (namely his own father).

After much searching, and on the verge of losing his final memory, Bastian is unable to find the Water of Life with which to leave Fantastica with his memories. Here, he is found by Atreyu. In remorse, Bastian lays down AURYN at his friend's feet, and Atreyu and Falkor enter AURYN with him, where the Water of Life demands to know Bastian's name, and if Bastian has finished all the stories he began in his journey, which he has not. Only after Atreyu gives Bastian's name and promises to complete all the stories for him does the Water of Life allow Bastian to return to the human world, along with some of the mystical waters. He returns to his father, where he tells the full tale of his adventures, and thus reconciles with him. Afterwards, Bastian confesses to Coreander about stealing his book and losing it, but Coreander denies ever owning such a book. Coreander reveals he has also been to Fantastica, and that the book has likely moved into the hands of someone else. This, the book concludes, "is another story and shall be told another time".

Characters

• AURYN
• Atreyu
• Bastian Balthazar Bux
• The Childlike Empress/Moon Child
• Falkor, the luckdragon
• Carl Conrad Coreander
• Artax, Atreyu's horse
• Gmork, the wolf
• Morla, the giant turtle/the ancient one
• Uyulala, the invisible oracle
• Xayide, the witch
• Pyornkrachzark, the rock biter

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]

On September 1, 2016, the search engine Google featured a Google Doodle marking the 37th anniversary of The Neverending Story's first publishing.^[3]

Adaptations and derivative works

Music

The album Wooden Heart by Listener was based on or heavily influenced by The Neverending Story, which has been confirmed by the band.^[4] Different songs represent different ideas of the plot or characters, which can be seen on the band's lyric page for the album.^[5]

Audiobook

A German dramatized audioplay under the title Die unendliche Geschichte (Karussell/Universal Music Group 1984, directed by Anke Beckert, music by Frank Duval, 3 parts on LP and MC, 2 parts on CD).

In March 2012 Tantor Media released an unabridged audiobook of The Neverending Story narrated by Gerard Doyle.

Film

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. It covered only the first half of the book, ending at the point where Bastian enters Fantasia (Fantastica). Ende, who was reportedly "revolted" by the film,^[3] requested they halt production or change the film's name, as he felt it had ultimately and drastically deviated from his novel; when they did neither, he sued them and subsequently lost the case.^[6] The music was composed by Klaus Doldinger. Some electronic tracks by Giorgio Moroder were added to the US version of the film, as well as the titlesong Never Ending Story composed by Giorgio Moroder and Keith Forsey becoming a chart success for Limahl, the former singer of Kajagoogoo.^[7]

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: Escape from Fantasia, starring Jason James Richter, Melody Kay and Jack Black, was released in 1994 in Germany and in 1996 in the US. This film was based only upon the characters from Ende's book, having a completely new story. The film was savaged by film critics and was a box office bomb.

Novels

From 2003 through 2004, the German publishing house AVAinternational published six novels of different authors in a series called Legends of Fantastica, each using parts of the original plot and characters to compose an entirely new storyline:

1. Kinkel, Tanja (2003). Der König der Narren [The King of Fools]. 
2. Schweikert, Ulrike (2003). Die Seele der Nacht [The Soul of the Night]. 
3. Isau, Ralf (2003). Die geheime Bibliothek des Thaddäus Tillmann Trutz [The Secret Library of Thaddaeus Tillman Trutz]. 
4. Fleischhauer, Wolfram (2004). Die Verschwörung der Engel [The Angels' Plot]. 
5. Freund, Peter (2004). Die Stadt der vergessenen Träume [The City of Forgotten Dreams]. 
6. Dempf, Peter (2004). Die Herrin der Wörter [Empress of the Words]. 

Stage

In Germany, The Neverending Story has been variously adapted to a stage play, ballet, and opera^[8] which premiered at the Linz Landestheater on December 11, 2004. The scores to both the opera and the ballet versions were composed by Siegfried Matthus. The opera libretto was by Anton Perry.

Television

The 1995 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, a one-season-only TV series that is loosely based on Michael Ende's novel The Neverending Story, was produced in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, through December 2000-August 2002 and distributed by Muse Entertainment, airing on HBO in 2002. It was aired as four two-hour television movies in the US and as a TV series of 13 one-hour episodes in the UK. The series was released on DVD in 2001.

Computer games

A text adventure game was released by Ocean Software in 1985 for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and Atari 800.^[9]

A computer game based on the second film was released in 1990 by Merimpex Ltd under their Linel label and re-released by System 4 for the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64.^[10]

In 2001, the German video game studio attraction published their Ende-inspired video game, AURYN Quest.^[11]

Footnotes

Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Neverending Story