The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
"The Neverending Story" by Michael Ende is a richly layered fantasy novel that explores themes of escapism, identity, and the interconnectedness of different worlds. The narrative follows a troubled boy named Bastian Balthasar Bux, who, seeking refuge from his isolated life, steals a book that transports him to the magical realm of Fantastica. The story within the book details the adventures of a young hero named Atreyu, who is tasked with saving Fantastica from a consuming force known as Nothing, which is linked to the illness of the Childlike Empress.
As Bastian reads, his world gradually intertwines with Atreyu's journey, leading to a pivotal moment where Bastian must give the Empress a new name to restore balance to both Fantastica and his own life. The novel employs unique formatting, using different colors to differentiate between Bastian's reality and the story he reads, which enhances the immersive experience. Beyond its fantasy elements, the book offers profound reflections on the nature of power and the importance of self-discovery, ultimately guiding Bastian on a quest to understand how to use his newfound abilities responsibly.
Published originally in Germany, "The Neverending Story" has achieved significant success and continues to resonate with readers of all ages, emphasizing that the joy of storytelling is a universal experience that can lead to personal growth and connection.
Subject Terms
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
First published:Die Unendliche Geschichte, 1979 (English translation, 1983)
Subjects: Animals and the supernatural
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Fantasy
Time of work: The 1970’s
Recommended Ages: 10-15
Locale: The attic of a school and the imaginary world of Fantastica
Principal Characters:
Bastian Balthasar Bux , an ineffectual schoolboyCarl Conrad Coreander , a mysterious booksellerThe Childlike Empress , the ruler of FantasticaAtreyu , a young heroCairon , an old centaurMorla the Aged One , a giant turtleFalkor , a luckdragonDame Eyola , the matriarch of the House of Change
Form and Content
The Neverending Story is an extended fable detailing the rewards and hazards of escapism. The text is typeset in two colors, with sequences occurring in the world of Bastian Balthasar Bux being set in red and the story that he is reading reproduced in green. In the early phases of the novel, Bastian’s world and the world of the book-within-the-book are distinct, but they gradually intersect until Bastian is incorporated into the story that he is reading.
The miserable and overweight Bastian, whose widower father is a remote figure and who lives in fear of the ridicule of his schoolfellows, takes refuge in an attic so that he may read a book called The Neverending Story, which he has stolen from a strange shop and its mysterious bookseller. He discovers that the story is set in Fantastica, an imaginary world whose outlying regions are being consumed by Nothing—an affliction whose onset corresponded with the illness of the Childlike Empress, who lives in the Ivory Tower.
The empress divines that the hero who can save the world is one Atreyu, and she commissions the centaur Cairon to give him the talisman AURYN. Cairon is alarmed to find that Atreyu is a mere boy but sends him forth nevertheless on the Great Quest.
In the Swamps of Sadness, Atreyu learns from Morla the Aged One that the empress can only be healed if someone from outside Fantastica gives her a new name. After encountering the monster Ygramul the Many, Atreyu and the luckdragon Falkor brave the baleful sphinxes that guard the Great Riddle Gate, the first of three through which he must pass in order to reach Uyulala, the Southern Oracle. Uyulala tells Atreyu that only a human can give the Childlike Empress a new name but that humans have forgotten how to enter Fantastica. Subsequently, Atreyu discovers that humans are, in fact, bent on Fantastica’s destruction, not realizing that the health of the human world and the health of Fantastica are dependent on each other.
Atreyu returns to the Ivory Tower to confess his failure to the Childlike Empress, but she is able to look out from the text at Bastian, who realizes that her new name is Moon Child. The Childlike Empress also has a book called The Neverending Story; at her command, the Old Man of the Wandering Mountains begins to write in its pages the story of Bastian Balthasar Bux, which has already been set in red, thus drawing him into the green-set text to give the Childlike Empress her new name. This event occurs at the half-way point of the novel.
The remainder of the green-set text tells how Bastian is rewarded by becoming the possessor of AURYN and having all of his wishes granted. He uses this gift to save Fantastica all over again from various new enemies, but ultimately he becomes ambitious to establish himself as the Childlike Emperor. Atreyu is forced to raise a rebel army against him, and, although he cannot be defeated, Bastian is brought to recognize the extent to which unlimited power has corrupted him.
The humbled Bastian sets forth on a Great Quest of his own to figure out how best to use his wishes—and how to get back to his own world. In the House of Change, he encounters the maternal Dame Eyola, who sets him on the right path. In the end, he must willingly surrender everything that the Childlike Empress gave him and drink the Water of Life in order to return to reality.
When he does so, Bastian finds that although many years have passed in Fantastica, he has only been away one night in the real world. Fortunately, even that brief absence has persuaded his neglectful father to take notice of him, and the mysterious bookseller reappears to prophesy that he will one day become a writer who will show many others the way to Fantastica, from which they will bring back abundant supplies of the Water of Life.
Critical Context
Many fantasy novels make a case for the necessity of fantasy, but few have ever done so as elaborately and as steadfastly as The Neverending Story. The book sold more than a million hardcover copies in its native country of Germany—a success which emphasizes that although the story is designed for children, the message it contains is relevant to everyone. Its allegorical apparatus aims to be universal, occasionally echoing devices from mythology and folklore (as with the centaur Cairon) but refusing any single anchorage. The novel appeared when fantasy role-playing games were becoming widely popular, and it has many parallels to them.