2015 Book #10: The Neverending Story

I should have written this post right after I finished reading The Neverending Story, if only as a public service to save you the trouble of trying to read this stupid book. My anger has lessened as I’ve subconsciously begun to repress the crap my eyeballs transmitted to my brain over several days. Ugh.

SO short spoiler-free review: DON’T.

For those of you who want to know the whole truth, I present some highlights, in bulleted form. I’m assuming you’ve seen the movie, as I’m pretty sure everyone has, so I’m sticking to the many differences.

The movie only covers the first half of the book – the relatively good half. The second is ridiculous and terrible. I’ll get to that in a minute.
At first I was like, okay, this is interesting. We get more background on Atreyu and Falcor.
Except Falcor doesn’t just drop in to save Bastian: After he goes through the swamp and loses Artax (who talks in the book, but only a couple of times, which somehow makes his death less sad?), he discovers that he needs to go to the far end of Fantastica (and yes, I spelled it correctly. In the book, it’s Fantastica, not Fantasia), which involves crossing this abyss, which is guarded by the Scariest Monster Ever. It turns out to be a ginormous spider-thing that’s made up of millions of tiny insects, and it has a web crossing said abyss with Falcor stuck in it, stung by the monster and slowly dying. Atreyu has the emblem-necklace the Childlike Empress gave him, which the spider-thing respects, so it tells him its secret: if it stings him, it will kill him in an hour, but within that hour, he can magically travel anywhere in Fantastica that he wishes. Yep. So Atreyu asks to be stung, effectively committing suicide, so he can travel to the south of Fantastica and…die? Except Falcor hears what the monster says, too, and wishes himself to Atreyu’s location, then flies him to the little people and on we go with the Southern Oracle and such.
After all of that and various other adventures, Atreyu and Falcor head back to the Childlike Empress to explain that a human needs to give her a new name. In the movie, the storm is going on, etc, and the Empress talks to Bastian through the book, then he yells her name into the storm and is magically transported to Fantasia. But no! Bastian is worried that once he gets there, they’ll laugh at him because he’s fat and awkward. MEH. SO the Childlike Empress has to go on a quest of her own go find an elusive old man on some mountain who can make Bastian say her name and show up. Bastian only does it because he has to.
THEN, by the time Bastian gets to Fantastica, it’s only a grain of sand, etc, etc, and he has to wish it back into existence bit by bit. This is the book’s halfway point. He creates a beautiful night forest with plants made of light. Then, he thinks there’s not enough trouble in the world, so he wishes to find the Greatest Enemy Ever. He wakes up the next morning and discovers that his forest has become a desert, then travels across it, eventually finding a lion who kills everyone except whoever is wearing Moonchild’s (ugh) emblem. Bastian is comfortable and stays there for a really long time until the lion hints that he should move along.
And then a long string of stupid and unnecessary adventures commences, each involving a wish. Bastian quickly becomes a selfish, dumb kid who makes terrible decisions. And I’ve forgotten to mention that he’s wished himself a new body: he’s big and strong and Middle Eastern and wears a turban.?. Yep. Moving on.
As Bastian becomes more and more of an asshole, Atreyu and Falcor figure out that every time he makes a wish in Fantastica, he loses a memory from Earth. (I’ve forgotten exactly how this relates to the SECOND movie, but the whole situation is turned around in Bastian’s favor, so Bastian is the good guy in the movie but the bad guy in the book.) They try to explain that he needs to leave Fantastica before he loses all memory of Earth and causes Fantastica to be forgotten and destroyed again, but Bastian is having too good a time and doesn’t want to go home.
It also turns out that, after he forgets almost everything and tries to declare himself Emperor of Fantastica but fails and runs away, he’s not the first: there’s a whole village of humans who gave the Childlike Empress new names but who couldn’t get back to Earth for various reasons. This part was a wee bit interesting, and the experience finally convinces Bastian that he needs to go home.
Bastian eventuall figures out that to get home, he has to find his true wish. Get ready for it! It is…drumroll please…to learn how to love. SERIOUSLY. Any possible redemption that this book was heading toward fizzled out in that very instant. Eff you, Michael Ende, is what went on in my head. UGH.
And it only gets worse! Other non-movie things happen, and eventually he ends up back in his school attic. The school is closed, so he crawls down some scaffolding, then runs home, where his dad is waiting. If my kid skipped school and was gone all night then came home safe and sound, I’d be furious. But no! Bastian’s dad is just glad he’s home. He makes Bastian some toast, and Bastian tells his story. Again, if my kid told me a story like that, I’d either be furious or immediately seek some professional help depending on whether I thought he actually believed it. But no again! When Bastian finishes, his dad starts crying, hugs his son, and says things between them will change – and not because Bastian is about to be admitted to a mental hospital. Bastian’s dad believes everything he says. REALLY. He even volunteers to talk to Mr. Coriander about Bastian’s little thievery incident, but Bastian says that he has to grow up and do it himself.
SO he goes to see Mr. Coriander, who also believes his stupid story. The book had disappeared from the attic by the time Bastian returned, but, luckily enough, Mr. Coriander says that he didn’t have a book like that to begin with, though he’d been to Fantastica himself some other way, that most people find their way there at some point. Groan.
And Bastian lived happily ever after.

Wow. I didn’t think my list would be that long. The Neverending Story is the worst book I’ve read in a long time, and I’ve read some doozies here lately. It’s also a HUGE example of a movie being better than a book. You don’t find those often. And this book is so terrible that you should leave your childhood memories alone on this one. Don’t spoil the whole idea by slogging through this piece of crap, and don’t even tell your kids that the movie is based on a book. There’s a reason everyone’s seen the movie but no one’s read the book.

End of PSA.

BONUS: Turns out some guy likes the movies so much that he outfitted a Neverending Story-themed custom van. Oh, yeah.