The Neverending Story | a Review
originally published on 16/12/2023;
Hello everyone, I am the nostalgic G.E.M.Simov, a fellow brought to tears by memories, yet able to abstract oneself from these elements, and able to give you a very "objective" review of Michael Ende's "The Neverending Story".
Simple review details - I rank books on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
It is important to point out that the edition I read was a translation and was not in English, so there might be a slight difference in the process of reading and understanding.
Content
"The Neverending Story" is a book about a lot of things. It is, in fact, a book about so many things, that it seems to be a book about everything. However, at the same time, it is a book about only one thing. It's a book about fantasia, about fantasy and imagination, it is a book about reading and loving books.
That's the main idea - books. How reading books helps the person reading them become a better person, how they also aid in improving that person's ability to discern fantasy from reality, and how that helps keep fantasies from becoming lies and from being presented as reality.
In truth, that might be the most important part of the book for contemporary times, which are so precariously filled to the brim with lies that parade themselves as truths, and falsehoods that claim to be reality. Just think about it - people dedicate ludicrous amounts of time to reading conspiracy theories, to fabricating fake news and to misleading others. Those who fall victim to such people are also afflicted with the same plight - that is the lack of reading in their lives.
For, if people read more, it would all, doubtlessly, appear more clear to them. That it is very nonsensical and implausible for a cabal of lizard people who bathe in the blood of children to be running the world, but it makes for a great story! That it is very strange and contradictory that the news that are being reported would be fake - for then they would not be news at all! That it is quite odd for a person to purposefully mislead another, because one who reads a lot develops not just a conscience, but comes to see lying as a bad thing, and so readers would not do such bad things, nor would readers be as susceptible to lies, for they might have learned how to tell if a saying is a lie.
And yet it does not end there. The content of this neverending story, still when bound to books, presents even more. By visiting Fantasia, by visiting the world of imagination and fantasy, a person can then make both worlds - both Fantasia and the real world - better. And that is true, even if only by relation to the fact that readers of many books have developed strong consciousness, as owed to them reading about and idolizing conscious characters, and so they are far more prone to acting like them.
That leads to a completely understandable conclusion - the more people who do not do bad things, the less bad, overall, will the world be, and so it will be improved. That is, still, not all, for the readers will see injustices and wrongness, and they will be prone to oppose them. And on and on the list will go, of readers finding the main threads of meaning and the main messages provided through books, and will then act upon them in an effort to be heroes who make things better, who save the world from evil.
So that very central thread of "the Neverending Story", the quality of the reader of books, is that weighty and magnificent. Of course, that is not truly an infallible statement - as books can also have adverse effects on their readers, if the books in question are very meticulously picked out and new, or different, things are skirted around - but the main point here is that no person who has read a thousand books will be content with grave injustices and wrongnesses in the world, and will seek to make the world a better place in some regard.
With that said, there is so much more to be found in this book. There is an exploration of love, of how it has incredible qualities and seemingly even has the ability to heal wounds that are too grievous to close, how it can change a person wholly, without changing them at all, and how it can be an unbelievably great tool when it comes to solving any and all problems. That's somewhat cliche, but it is rooted in reality - for enveloping a person with love, and being loved, are two of the most wondrous things humans are capable of, and this book attempts to convey that.
Then there is also grief, the loss of love, and how it affects people. And not only people, but families, as well. That grief, which also changes a person entirely, without, seemingly, changing anything about them, is an absence of love, which can only be healed by an introduction of more love. The book also examines grief in relation to family - and how parents might love too strongly one another, so much so that the great quantity of love, upon losing their partner, crushes them underneath itself and becomes grief. Or perhaps how a parent needs to learn to love their child, and how that child also needs to learn to love their parent - in a conscious way, not just in that unconscious, basic manner.
There is so much that the book does, I find it hard to properly capture in the confines of this review, without bloating it to unbelievable proportions. For "The Neverending Story" considers the importance of names and the incredible weight they carry, as well as the stupendous value they indicate. It considers the meaning of meaning itself, and it asks questions of stupendous ontological, epistemological and cosmological proportions, only to go on to keep telling that story and without considering the seeds for incredible contemplation that have been sown.
As a children's book, "The Neverending Story" does not go into too much detail on anything, not conceptually. Naturally, it does describe fantastic sights and quirky Characters constantly, it presents immense adventure and engaging action, but to do so, and to do so for a child, it forgoes almost all contemplation. Even so, it does attempt some - only in regards to the most important bits of thought related to the story itself - and then it only occurs for a few sentences, related to the description of something fantastical.
That is both a strength and a weakness. I would have loved to read more into the reasons as to why great meaning is found in, say, the death of Grograman, and how a conscious, sapient being is capable of understanding and accepting it. I found myself seeking more and more contemplation on the part of the author, or, rather, on behalf of the Characters going through these great self-related revelations.
What I described is why I consider the manner of presenting the concepts and contents of this book a weakness, but for a children's book it is a strength. For, in a children's book, there is little room for proper contemplation. There is little room for rumination and examination of concepts, for those are not as engaging for children as are other things, such as the description of places, Characters or actions.
I am very satisfied by every concept that shows itself in this book, no matter how short a stay it has, for the fact that it was there is good enough. These questions that present themselves and remain mysteriously unanswered and slightly bothersome for even the Characters, might have long standing effects on the reader - they might provoke the reader into seeking out an answer, or into contemplating them themselves. How come it was as old as time and yet also only made yesterday? How could that be? The ontological significance of that question is great, and by introducing children to questions, there is room to believe that Michael Ende purposefully did leave them unanswered, in an attempt to provoke thought and contemplation within his young readers.
There were some oddities, here and there. An example of such an oddity would have to be the way good and evil are portrayed, and how they are also almost not considered at all. There is not contemplation on what good and evil are, only that they exist as qualitative assessments. There are evil Characters, and then there are evil Characters who are evil in an entirely different manner, which hints at the existence of different types of evil, or is it that there are just different types of people who can exhibit evil in different ways?
And then there is no good answer to the question of why someone is evil or good - especially in relation to the Characters of Fantasia - for humans, like Bastian, are revealed to be capable of becoming both evil and good, whereas fairytale creatures, like Xayide or Atreyu, are good or evil by default. The fact that evil is treated as something inherent to those who are evil, and good is such to those who are good, leaves a foul taste in my mouth.
It puts a damper on the amount of change and growth a Character, be it a fairytale creature, can go through, and it makes them, by default, lesser than humans - not only in regards to the fact that they cannot create new things, but also because they are stifled in a manner so restrictive. An evil Character can not reach redemption and become good, not can an evil Character fall from grace and become evil. No amount of effort, it appears, would be enough to make them change, and that sours my mood greatly. For Atreyu grows and changes, he develops into a real hero, but then no villain - mainly referring to Xayide - even gets the chance to grow.
An example can be found in the case of Hynreck. Hynreck is a good Character, and he starts off good, if a bit brash and maybe even unlikable, but his reasons are so clear that even the Main Character understands them and empathizes. Then, Hynreck winds up in a bit of a villainous role, but he remains good. Even at his lowest, he is still good, irreversibly so, and then he is given a task and goes on to have an adventure, becoming famous and being good.
He does not have the luxury of becoming an evil villain, he is just a good, though slightly misled, obstacle in the Main Character's way. There was never any doubt that he was a good Character. Similarly, every Character is somewhat predetermined, and there is no room for freedom, or at least no freedom appears to be given to them, when it comes to choosing their path or their position on the scale/spectrum of good and evil.
Granted, it is said that this does not matter - good and evil are irrelevant to the Childlike Queen, and similarly the Main Character is always in a position that renders him relatively distant from good and evil - but it matters. When not protected by the macguffin, the Main Character is clearly threatened by those who are evil by nature, whereas those who are good by nature never pose any threat. Even when shielded by the macguffin, those who are evil act in their evil ways to accomplish their goals, even if said goals go against those of the Main Character and are supposed to be conflicting.
I suppose my issue here is that there seems to be nothing that really differentiates the denizens of Fantasia from humanity, aside from the fact that humans can, supposedly, come up with new things. However, at the same time, there is an objectivisation of these beings, one that turns them from subject, from conscious entities, into object, into literal things for the subjects to interact with - and those subjects would be the Childlike Queen, the human Characters and, potentially, the old-stranger-man-in-an-egg.
Compared to them, even Atreyu is an object, a thing. A very complex thing, yes, but one that is inferior to a human in more ways than just what was given as a reason by the book. But I digress.
This neverending story hits the mark in all the ways necessary, and even if I have a few gripes of my own, I am left with the impression that with further examination I will find an answer. 3/3
Richness of Expression
Now, here's the deal - reading translated stuff often impacts the way it is received. That is, in part, owed up to the way the translator has done their job, but also to the way the writer had also done his (in the case of Michael Ende) job. And so there's this profoundly weird number of things that might come off wrong, but then they might be faithful attempts at showing whatever it is that was said, or maybe the fault is within the author himself and not within the translator.
What, then, am I getting at? I am leading into the problem of poetry and of translating poetry. Translating poetry, most often, means that the resultant work will be considerably lesser than the original, which is already tremendously prone to being bad. Naturally, this stems from my perceptions of good poetry and of bad poetry, and how most poetry is actually not good, on account of lacking the important elements that make a poem… Good… But the fact is that I can't be certain if the translated version adequately portrays what the original has been going for.
In the case of the many poems and songs in "The Neverending Story", I am befuddled. There are moments when the translated work rhymes and sounds good, and can be considered decently poetic, but then I think to myself if that's how the original went. So then I take a look at the original and am left with a bit of salt in my mouth. There are times when the translation is better than the original, there are times when the original is better than the translation, and then there are times, which are most of them, when neither is good.
As a result I will condemn the poetry found within "the Neverending Story", as well as the songs, and I will move on to the rest.
The prose in this book is, actually, quite good. It flows nicely and manages to paint the enchanting sights experienced by the Characters in a very adequate manner, with some moments actually being more than just satisfactory, while others are a bit less so. Naturally, when a book makes the mistake of having its characters plopped onto its cover, the reader will be a bit hard pressed with the task of coming up with their own interpretation of the Character - which undermines the work of the author.
However, at the same time, there were moments when even though the characters were on the cover, the descriptions of them managed to overpower that depiction and lend themselves to the reader's imagination. That's very commendable… And, well, everything is quite smooth and quite splendid. 2/3
Story
This is where I think this book runs into trouble. "The Neverending Story" has two distinct parts, with the first being Atreyu's journey, while the second is Bastian's stay in Fantasia.
The first part starts off with already high stakes - once the Neverending Story gets going - and the stakes constantly keep growing as the plot moves forward. I will be spoiling it thoroughly, so keep that in mind.
Atreyu's appearance only comes after the stakes have grown already. For as the story begins, the stakes are established to be that there are zones of Nothingness that have appeared and which threaten all of Fantasia. Then, it is revealed that the only person who will know what to do about this Nothingness, and save Fantasia, the Childlike Queen, is deathly ill. Following that escalation of the stakes, the reader is introduced to their second/first Main Character - Atreyu.
Now, this is another odd moment, and it is rooted in the fact that Fantasia does not simply have two parts, it also appears to have two Main Characters. The book begins in reality, with Bastian stealing a book and hiding up in his school's ceiling to read it. Bastian, being the Character with whom the story the reader reads actually begins, is the de facto Main Character, but he does barely anything for the duration of the first part, only becoming active in the last few moments.
However, due to the fact that all Bastian does for the first part of the book is read - much like the reader - and react to things that occur, he is so passive, maybe reactive but, ultimately, passive - that he is barely a Character. There are a few things that are established about him, but the way things go make it feel as though he is not really that important.
As the story moves forward, Bastian's importance is slowly revealed, but the type of person he is interferes terribly with his ability to act, or to even react, and so he is a very neutral Character - he has some endearing qualities, but his unwillingness to act is quite annoying.
Even so, Bastian's utter lack of action is contrasted with the other Main Character - the true Main Character of the first part of the book and, arguably, the protagonist of the second part of the book (more on that later). Atreyu starts off already established as being so and so, and the story does its best to keep revealing more and more details about what kind of person he is. Immediately, it is easy to see a contrast between him and Bastian, which comes into play in the very story itself, but the main element of that is his mindset and his personality.
Whereas Bastian runs from encounters that might be unpleasant, Atreyu barely faces them. Granted, Bastion's encounters have no bearing on the fate of the world, whereas Atreyu's adventures are all tightly related to that - he is found by a messenger of the Childlike Queen and is granted the macguffin - which has many different names and is translated in even more, different-er manners throughout - and is sent on a journey to find a cure for her.
Curing the Childlike Queen will save Fantasia from the Nothingness that is slowly consuming it. So Atreyu goes with his trusty steed Artax, on a mission he understands the importance of. Very shortly thereafter, he experienced tremendous hardships - Artax dies, and it is very nearly for naught.
The death of Atreyu's horse, who is barely a Character, was terribly impactful for me, but that I attribute to the fact that I have read the book as a wee little child, and thus I might remember that event as very sad. Alternatively, it could be the absolute helplessness of Atreyu to help his friend, or it could be that the words used to describe Artax in the translated edition invoke a feeling of endearment - rather than saying "horse", the word used to refer to him is more reminiscent of "cute little horse; baby horse" and the painful death of such a Character is more impactful than the death of just a horse.
Regardless, Artax - Atreyu's steed - dies, and the stakes grow ever higher - for now time, which was already of the essence, becomes even shorter, due to the fact that Atreyu must travel on foot. He finds out that only one being might know of a cure for the Childlike Queen, but that Atreyu's quest is hopeless due to just how far away that being is located.
Atreyu soldiers on and is even forced to trust an evil bug-creature that its bite will allow him to teleport anywhere he wants to be, and, deathly injured, he manages to reach the place where he might find the answer. However, there is more to it than that - the stakes rise even higher, as time keeps passing and the challenges before Atreyu grow and grow.
He must now enter the Southern Oracle, which is guarded by a set of trials so challenging and terrible that an unbelievably small number of creatures have managed to succeed in them. And so he goes and goes through those trials and bests them, only to find out that the cure he needs is a new name for the Childlike Queen, and that it can only be given to her by a human.
However, there have been no humans in Fantasia for a very long time, so the task evolved, and the stakes grow ever higher as time keeps running shorter and the Nothingness becomes more and more immediate. Atreyu tries to find the borders of Fantasia, so he can go to the human world and bring a human to name the Childlike Queen, but is stricken with grief and uncertainty when he finds out that Fantasia is without limit.
Then, the stakes grow even higher, for Atreyu is stricken down by the wind spirits who do battle, he is separated from his new steed/buddy Falkor, and he even loses the macguffin. Without Falkor, he cannot get where he needs to be, not in time, anyway, and without the macguffin he is no longer protected or guided by the Childlike Queen - now, evil creatures are at liberty to attack him.
He finds an abandoned city, the denizens of which have thrown themselves into the Nothingness, and looks for someone. He finds a werewolf, and finds out that humans, themselves, want to destroy Fantasia, and that he cannot go to the human world. With Nothingness closing in around them and threatening to consume them, the Werewolf dies of hunger, but not before Atreyu reveals to him that he is the Childlike Queen's Champion, while the Werewolf reveals to Atreyu that he was sent here to hunt down and kill the champion.
However, seeing as things are the way they are now, there is no need for that. Even so, the Werewolf's jaws bite down Atreyu's leg and keep him where they are, as the Nothingness closes in around them. The tension keeps growing - and then Falkor sweeps in, having recovered the macguffin, and manages to save Atreyu. A momentary shift in tension, but as they travel to the Childlike Queen, they find that the Nothingness has already reached the Labyrinth that frames the Ivory Tower of the sickly queen.
The two of them start making their way there, but wounded and tired, Falkor falls. Atreyu, bleeding out from his wound, crawls to the Queen's chamber and shares his findings, certain that he has failed.
And indeed, it would appear that he has, for all the while Bastian has been reading, and he has grown attached, but he has not yet come to save them. The Childlike Queen informs Atreyu that their savior would need only to speak her name, and he would save them and be with them.
This is exactly where Bastian becomes unlikable, or at least annoying. He does not do it. It is late in the afternoon, nighttime. No one will hear him if he does so, and yet he convinced himself that they will not be happy with him, for he does not look like a real hero, or at least he has convinced himself so.
While that is an immaculately important way of indicating just how impactful bullying can be - so much so that it alters the perception of a person of themselves - it… It does not feel right. Many times Bastian has said that he would love to go and help Atreyu and Fantasia, but when the time comes for him to do it, he gets cold feet. Not only that, he has stolen, skipped school and does not want to appear before his father due to those reasons. He appears to have plenty of reason to say the name and go, to escape into Fantasia.
This is where the second part begins - the Childlike Queen winds up personally forcing Bastian into going to Fantasia, by seeking out God (or the closest equivalent) and then forcing him to restart the story, which repeats itself more than twice before Bastian is finally sucked into the book/story… And Fantasia is saved.
The tension, which has so far been going through the roof, disappears without a trace. What has happened is that, so far, the reader has been watching the equivalent of a man struggling to survive in a hostile jungle, being slowly encircled by predators, an encounter with whom would lead to certain death, who has gotten sick and is unable to find food, suddenly being yoinked out of there, put in the suburbs of some American city and given fifty billion dollars.
Naturally, Bastian goes on to do all the things someone in that situation would do. He gets a new, fancy outfit, he becomes strong and beautiful, he improves himself in every way he can imagine, for he is given the macguffin by the Childlike Queen and asked to wish for whatever he wants. And so he does!
But in doing so, he starts forgetting things - naturally, unbeknownst to him, but they start happening. That introduces a bit of tension, but the way that forgetfulness is introduced is very misleading. It is made to seem completely reasonable - he becomes strong and he forgets ever being weak, for whoever is strong has never been weak. Similarly, he becomes brave and forgets being frightful, because you are either brave or a coward.
This is misleading, because it can be interpreted not as a consequence of him making wishes and forgetting, but, rather, as an ontological prerequisite for being brave, or for being strong. So when things start happening, it's a bit sudden and odd that he is forgetting things - it is hard to tell if he has started forgetting from the fourth or fifth wish on, or if he has started forgetting from the first wish onwards.
Regardless, guided by his wishes, Bastian starts doing things and becomes the Main Character, while Atreyu is nowhere to be found. Bastian creates new places, travels to others, showcases his power and makes friends, finds Atreyu and impresses him with his ability to tell stories. However, all the while the stakes are so unbelievably low and utterly nonexistent, that there is no tension, there seems to be almost no reason to keep reading, or to keep telling the story.
In a sense, the shift from the first part into the second part is so tremendously violent and grand that it leaves the reader with an emptiness within themselves. Sure, it is interesting to read about the wonders of Fantasia, or to meet the Characters, but the juxtaposition between the PURPOSE and goal of the first part, and the total lack of direction of the second part, is so striking that it leaves a resoundingly sour taste in the reader's mouth.
Even so, the second part has its own sources of tension, but they are very odd. One of them is, naturally, the forgetfulness Bastian experiences after each whim of his. However, that forgetfulness is… Well, poorly explained, or at least not quickly enough. It starts off, as mentioned, appearing to not be a side effect or a negative at all. Then, it turns out to be there, but it still is presented as just forgetting certain moments. However, what it actually does, is that it changes the type of person Bastian is, and that much is established far too late for the reader, or for Bastian, for it to be as impactful as it could be.
It feels as though he forgets too little, whenever he is said to have forgotten something, but then somehow he forgets far too much. He winds up forgetting everything off of less than twenty wishes/whims, but it appears to me as though a person who has lived for ten years knows a lot more than that, and has a lot of stuff that could be forgotten.
Regardless of all that, though, the changes Bastian goes through are somewhat unjustified, or, at least, nonsensical. The first few things he wishes for are all related to being a hero - he wants to be a hero. And a hero is one who does good things and solves problems - yet the way Bastian changes is such that he stops being a hero. He goes from what can be interpreted as a protagonist to the antagonist, to a clear-cut villain.
That contradicts his wishes, and that is such a shift in his personality - even before he wishes to become indifferent to things, which he fails to become, which is really baffling because how come he forgets things BUT does not get his wish? He wishes to be wise and indifferent to things, and he is both foolish and completely unhinged when it comes to things, he reacts incredibly emotionally and violently. That's utterly nonsensical.
He even goes so far as to attempt to kill Atreyu - nearly succeeding - which he does in a fit of blinding rage. Neither heroic, neither indifferent nor wise. Ultimately, via a great personal threat, he manages to change his ways and remembers everything, regrets what he has done and, with help from Atreyu, manages to go back to the real world, where he rekindles his relationship with his father and makes a friend in the face of the man from whom he stole the book.
However, there is one thing "The Neverending Story" does that is most saddening - it introduces far too many Characters, some of them in impressive detail, and then goes on to do nothing with them, or it only does one single thing with them, and then they disappear from the story completely. The examples are countless - Cairon, Hynreck, the-old-man-stranger-in-an-egg, that one fellow, that other fellow - everyone, safe for the couple that saves Atreyu from the insect's poison, Xayide, the Childlike Queen, and Falkor is just a plot device. Or, rather, has a story of their own, in most cases, but is, ultimately, not important enough to the story that is being told herein.
All of these Characters are simply Characters. They have their static personalities, they have something to do in the story, and then that's all there is to them. Even Falkor is barely a Character, for, had he not saved Atreyu from certain death, he would have only been his steed. What this invokes is a resounding feeling of revolution around the Main Character - be he Atreyu or Bastian at the time - and how the world is exclusively there for that Character.
In a META sense, it makes sense and works. "The Neverending Story" is a story, and all stories are about a Character, or a set of Characters, and their journeys. But in this book, it felt as though the author attempted to make Fantasia important, attempted to make it a Character itself, and somehow failed. For there are, naturally, written books about worlds, which treat their worlds as Characters, and which provide immense depth for those who explore them. The way Fantasia appears in this book makes it seem as though it, too, warrants such great depth, but then it does not have that depth. It is only barely there.
This throws a great wrench in my enjoyment of this book. It feels as though it should be MORE, but it is not enough. There's only enough for the story to be told, and barely anything on top, which does not give off the right vibes.
Regardless, the journey through which Bastian goes, although slightly fumbled with regards to the clarity of events, is believable and understandable, especially considering he is a child on his way into puberty. The growth he experienced, as a person, is magnificent and leaves me satisfied beyond measure. Alas, the issues I listed siphon too much good out of the book's story. 1/3
Legendary Point
Does this book get the Legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time?
Tentatively, incredibly so, I am nudged ever-so-slightly, to say yes. Perhaps it is because of the great value I attribute to things out of my childhood, perhaps it is because of the emotional weight of Artax' death, perhaps it is because of the message - ultimately, "The Neverending Story" gets the point. I feel as though it is a tad too generous a gift, but I will grant it nonetheless. 1/1
Conclusion
7/10. "The Neverending Story" is a splendid book for children that I would say must be read by every child. It is, actually, a book that must be read by everyone who can get their hands on it. It might have some flaws, but even just the first part is good enough to warrant a thorough reading of it… If only because of its message. It is a very important one.
I tuck it under my belt, another shining, albeit thoroughly scarred achievement that I proudly display.