# Die unendliche Geschichte



## Sheilawisz (Jan 20, 2012)

Hello everyone =) 

I was wondering if you have read the Fantasy novel Die unendliche Geschichte by German author Michael Ende, known in English as The Neverending Story and first published in 1979. It's a style of Fantasy very different to Tolkien and so many stories similar to his works, and really it's one of my favourites and a great influence for me.

Some movies were based on Neverending Story, but they are not like the original novel at all!! I really love The Neverending Story, personally I read a Castilian version of it and I even write my novels with two different colours, like Michael Ende did back then =)


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## Anders Ã„mting (Jan 20, 2012)

The Neverending Story is one of my all-time favourite books. It had a _huge_ impact on me - I big part of my entire worldview growing up was all because of Michael Ende.

The first movie isn't bad, but it's only the first half of the novel and kinda misses the whole point about the story. Also, it cut out most of the dialogue between Atreyu and Gmork, which was kinda important since it explained Gmork's entire motivation, and also covered what exactly the Nothing was and what it was actually doing to Fantasia. Most of the symbolic impact was lost, as was one of the most unusual werewolf interpretations I've ever seen. A shame, really.


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## Sheilawisz (Jan 20, 2012)

Hello Anders, it's great to find another fan of The Neverending Story!!

That novel had a great, very positive impact on me as well: The Neverending Story is most likely why my worlds are so dream-like, my magic so unrealistic and my characters not humans =)

I loved the part when Atreyu meets Gmork, and Falkor is perhaps my favourite character in the story (what a shame what they did with him in the movies!!) I have a question for you: What do you think that Xayide really wanted to do with Bastian??

Xayide said that her Will could control anything that was empty (like her soldiers were) so I think that she was waiting for Bastian to become crazy and empty like the other emperors before him, so she could control him and rule Fantastica forever- she was great: I even have a character with eyes of two different colours, because of her =)


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## Anders Ã„mting (Jan 20, 2012)

The part with Xayide is sorta hazy to me - it's been too long since I read the novel. I think maybe she was just acting out her nature, trying to manipulate a being she recognized as more powerful then her? Or maybe she saw emptyness in him? Anyway, the whole Emperor Bastian thing was basically about Bastian losing himself to escapism and forgetting who he was, IIRC. Maybe that is a sort of emptyness? (By the way, Bastian losing his memories was another thing the book did a lot better.) 

Oh well. If I can find my copy of the novel, I might reread that part.


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## Sheilawisz (Jan 21, 2012)

Definitely, Xayide wanted Bastian to become totally empty and memoryless so she could take over Fantastica =)


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## Amanita (Jan 28, 2012)

I've read it years ago, when I was much younger and probably too young to understand the story properly.  
I loved the first parts, but the part from meeting Xayide onwards wasn't really for me. Maybe I should reread it now and would understand it better. 
It's definitely fantasy that's very different from the stuff usually discussed here and I like that. Many of the images in there are extremely powerful inspite of being rather surreal at times.


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## Sheilawisz (Jan 29, 2012)

@Amanita: That is exactly the right word for this style of Fantasy!! Surreal =) I am still trying to come up with a sub-genre to describe my stories with, and apart from saying simply that I write _Unreality_ I think that the best option is to call my stuff _Surreal Fantasy_.

This is why so many times here in Mythic Scribes I feel like an intruder from a different world...

You should really re-read The Neverending Story =)


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