The Neverending Story     by Michael Ende, Translated by Ralph Manheim Original title: Die Unendliche Geschicte Original language: German Original year: 1979 Country: Germany   Published by Dutton Books Pub. Date: May 1997 Pub. Place: USA Format: Hardcover, 384 pages Dimensions: 1.40 x 8.58 x 5.82 inches ISBN: 0525457585 List Price: $22.99 Not available for ordering Published by Doubleday Pub. Date: 1983 Pub. Place: USA Format: Hardcover ISBN: 0385176228 List Price: $31.95 Not available for ordering Published by Puffin Pub. Date: 1985 Pub. Place: USA Format: Paperback, 445 pages Dimensions: 1.00 x 7.25 x 4.25 inches ISBN: 0140317937 Edition: Reprint List Price: $4.99 Not available for ordering Published by Penguin Pub. Date: 1984 Pub. Place: USA Format: Paperback Dimensions: 0.72 x 7.74 x 5.08 inches ISBN: 0140074317 List Price: $11.95 Not available for ordering

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The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S.Lewis) meets Lord of the Rings (J.R.R.Tolkien) but with postmodern touches — this is a fable for children but with adult intent.

The Neverending Story is set both in our world and in the unreal world of the imagination Ende calls ‘Fantastica’. These two worlds touch intimately in the book ‘for a serious purpose’ — just as they do in real life. Fantasy, paradoxically, as Ende tells us, is in fact one of the things that makes life real, for without it the vitality and colour in life just drains away.

His parable, based around this quite simple idea, is extended to startling complexity in a classic quest story where the quest-seeker is a little boy who passes from the prosaic world of school and home into marvellous Fantastica, a land with a superabundance of different creatures all living together tranquilly in a sort of anarchist federation.

At the centre of the book is the idea of ‘following your dream’ as an essential part of achieving a happy or tolerable existence when childhood dreaming and wishing become instead adult life. It’s not unlike the message of many of Hermann Hesse’s books or the ancient injunction ‘To thine own self be true’. What Ende achieves is to explore in an easy-to-read way the connections between the imagining that comes before any act of creation, between permitting oneself to have wishes and desires and the finding of a purpose in life. Conversely he warns about the effect of curtailing the dreaming side of our natures.

Perhaps Germany’s (or is it Prussia’s?) rather strict, disciplined culture is bound to produce writers like Ende who kick against its restrictions and Neverending Story has been a cult book for rebellious young Germans. In any case it’s a book to be recommended for anyone who needs to open up to the voice of the heart. There is also a very nice dragon, who sings.

‘Throughout the day they were joined by new adherents, not only those Atreyu had sighted the day before, but many more. There were goat-legged fauns and gigantic night-hobs, there were elves and kobolds, beetle riders and three-legses, a man-sized rooster in jackboots, a stag with golden antlers who walked erect and wore a Prince Albert. Many of the new arrivals bore no resemblance whatsoever to human beings. There were helmeted copper ants, strangely shaped wandering rocks, flute birds, who made music with their long beaks, and there were three so-called puddlers, who moved by dissolving into a puddle at every step and resuming their usual form a little farther on. But perhaps the most startling of all was a twee, whose fore and hindquarters had a way of running about independently of one another. Except for its red and white stripes it looked rather like a hippopotamus.’ p262-263