Reading it for the first time as an adult, I picked up on many things that I had missed as a child. The grown up me found the second half a bit of a slog and somewhat of a flop, just like the second movie. I have to say, it felt a bit neverending once I moved into the second part of the book.

Even now I still felt the same wonder I had as a child at the possibility of being able to physically travel through the world within a book. I had forgotten how vivid and imaginative the world of Fantastica was. I enjoyed it just as much as I did as a child. I went into this book with lots of fond memories and I was a bit apprehensive that reading it now would possibly spoil those memories, but I am glad to say that didn't happen. My childhood copy is now owned by my daughter along with my original copy of The Hobbit. It's been a long time since I last read it and as my hubby bought me a new copy for Christmas I thought, why not? There's no time like the present. The Never Ending Story is one of my favourite books from childhood, I read and re-read this book many times and also watched the movie over and over until the tape was basically unplayable. Having said all that, it is also an adventure with magical swords, lions that turn to stone in the night and an island on a lake made of tears. Before long, there is more intrigue, Bastian falls under his dark side and he must slowly find his way to redemption.Īs a therapist, I was amazed at how much of the psychological tasks of growing up was reflected in the storyline and how the answers in Bastian's quest mirrored what is necessary for growth for my adult clients. At this point, I feared the book had lost its way but once again I was wrong.

While I feared Bastian would be just a framing device, he is really the central character and arrives in Fantastica (the land of the never ending story). Reading Neverending Story I was fascinated by two things: the book is coded with lots of advice for how to live plus how will Ende bring the two strands together?Īmazingly enough, Ende did not disappoint me. It has a princess in distress, giants, dragons and a huge flesh eating spider and Bastian's gasp of alarm can be heard in the story book. In the other, we have the magical faraway place that he's reading about which is at risk of being swallowed up by 'nothing'. We start with two strands of story, a boy called Bastian steals a book - on the spur of the moment - from a strange bookshop and skips school to read it. I am also interested in fairy tales and myths and in a way this book is a modern update I have never seen the movie but when my book group suggested this modern day fairytale I was intrigued - especially as I was told there are hidden references to Nietzsche, Steiner, and Crowley.

The neverending story novel