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‘My name is Bastian,’ said the boy. ‘Bastian Balthazar Bux.’
It came to Bastian that he had been staring the whole time at the book that Mr Coreander had been holding and that was now lying on the armchair. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. It seemed to have a kind of magnetic power that attracted him irresistibly.
Some think their only hope of happiness lies in being somewhere else, and spend their whole lives traveling from place to place.
He settled himself, picked up the book, opened it to the first page, and began to read The Neverending Story.
His horse, Artax, was standing outside the tent. He was small and spotted like a wild horse. His legs were short and stocky, but he was the fastest, most tireless runner far and wide. He was still saddled as Atreyu had ridden him back from the hunt.
On a remote night-black heath the darkness condensed into a great shadowy form. It became so dense that even in that moonless, starless night it came to look like a big black body. Its outlines were still unclear, but it stood on four legs and green fire glowed in the eyes of its huge shaggy head. It lifted up its great snout and stood for a long while, sniffing the air. Then suddenly it seemed to find the scent it was looking for, and a deep, triumphant growl issued from its throat. And off it ran through the starless night, in long, soundless leaps.
my childhood nemesis
But that is another story and shall be told another time.
There is, in Fantastica, a being older than all other beings. In the north, far, far from here, lie the Swamps of Sadness. In the middle of those swamps there is a mountain, Tortoise Shell Mountain it’s called. There lives Morla the Aged One. Go and see Morla the Aged One.’
Or perhaps they’d be climbing rope – an exercise that Bastian especially detested. Most of the others would be all the way to the top while he, with his face as red as a beet, would be dangling like a sack of flour at the very bottom of the rope, unable to climb as much as a foot.
i have never understood why americans do this
Bastian would have given a good deal to be like Atreyu. He’d have shown them. He heaved a deep sigh.
He rode by day and he rode by night, in the scorching sun and the pelting rain.
prince charming from shrek 2 is quaking in his boots
Artax whinnied with horror.
same artax
At length Atreyu dismounted and led Artax by the bridle. Several times the horse sank in, but managed to pull himself loose.
this is horrifying to read already and nothing has even happened
He tugged at the bridle, but Artax stood still. He had sunk in up to his belly. And he made no further effort to extricate himself.
NOPE.
The little horse uttered one last soft neigh.
This whole Tortoise Shell Mountain – it suddenly dawned on Atreyu – was one enormous beast, a giant swamp turtle; Morla the Aged One.
its giving detective pkachu
‘Sakes alive!’ Morla gurgled. ‘We’re old, son, much too old. Lived long enough. Seen too much. When you know as much as we do, nothing matters. Things just repeat. Day and night, summer and winter. The world is empty and aimless. Everything circles around. Whatever starts up must pass away, whatever is born must die. It all cancels out, good and bad, beautiful and ugly. Everything’s empty. Nothing is real. Nothing matters.’
‘Your life is short, son. Ours is long. Much too long. But we both live in time.
The Childlike Empress has always been there. But she’s not old. She has always been young. She still is. Her life isn’t measured by time, but by names. She needs a new name. She keeps needing new names. Do you know her name, son?’
Where can I find the name?’ ‘None of us,’ Morla gurgled. ‘No inhabitant of Fantastica can give her a new name. So it’s hopeless.
‘Strange,’ he said aloud, ‘that no one in all Fantastica can give the Childlike Empress a new name.’ If it had been just a matter of giving her a name, Bastian could easily have helped her.
From then on he would be all alone in the big schoolhouse – all that day, all that night, there was no knowing how long. This adventure of his was getting serious.
In the end, his father would resign himself as he did to all the disappointments Bastian had given him.
god damn
‘No,’ he said aloud in the stillness of the attic. ‘Atreyu wouldn’t give up just because things were getting a little rough. What I’ve started I must finish. I’ve gone too far to turn back. Regardless of what may happen, I have to go forward.’
Bastian doesnt dnf
And then he saw: An enormous spider web was stretched from edge to edge of the Deep Chasm. And in the sticky threads of the web, which were as thick as ropes, a great white luckdragon was struggling, becoming more and more entangled as he thrashed about with his tail and claws.
!!!
Luckdragons are creatures of air, warmth, and pure joy.
They swim in the air of heaven as fish swim in water. Seen from the earth, they look like slow lightning flashes.
‘But that’s the wonderful part of it. From now on you’ll succeed in everything you attempt. Because I’m a luckdragon.
‘By the way,’ said the dragon. ‘My name is Falkor.’
But still he was afraid, as if the school were a person watching him.
‘No pain?’ she asked. ‘None worth mentioning,’ Atreyu answered. ‘Nonsense!’ the old woman snapped. ‘Does it hurt or doesn’t it?’
why did i just feel that in my bones?
The telescope was aimed at the great stone arch, or more specifically at the lower part of the left pillar. And beside this pillar, as Atreyu now saw, an enormous sphinx was sitting motionless in the moonlight.
With that he turned away and strode toward the Great Riddle Gate.
He had been through a good deal in the course of the Great Quest – he had seen beautiful things and horrible things – but up until now he had not known that one and the same creature can be both, that beauty can be terrifying.
What he saw was something quite unexpected, which wasn’t the least bit terrifying, but which baffled him completely. He saw a fat little boy with a pale face – a boy his own age – and this little boy was sitting on a pile of mats, reading a book. The little boy had large, sad-looking eyes, and he was wrapped in frayed gray blankets.
‘Who can give the Childlike Empress The new name that will make her well? Not you, not I, no elf, no djinn, Can save us from the evil spell. For we are figures in a book – We do what we were invented for, But we can fashion nothing new And cannot change from what we are. But there’s a realm outside Fantastica, The Outer World is its name, The people who live there are rich indeed And not at all the same. Born of the Word, the children of man, Or humans, as they’re sometimes called, Have had the gift of giving names Ever since our worlds began, In every age it’s they who gave The Childlike
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No longer was Atreyu a dragon rider, and no longer was he the Childlike Empress’s messenger. He was only a little boy. And all alone.
But what are you here? What are you creatures of Fantastica? Dreams, poetic inventions, characters in a neverending story.
When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies. Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts.
‘When your turn comes to jump into the Nothing, you too will be a nameless servant of power, with no will of your own. Who knows what use they will make of you? Maybe you’ll help them persuade people to buy things they don’t need, or hate things they know nothing about, or hold beliefs that make them easy to handle, or doubt the truths that might save them. Yes, you little Fantastican, big things will be done in the human world with your help, wars started, empires founded …’
Most likely he would never have set his young friend free if luck hadn’t come to his help. But luckdragons, as we know, are lucky, and so are those they are fond of.
Here it seems necessary to pause for a moment and explain a special feature of Fantastican geography.
i love narration like this
In Fantastica you can never be sure in advance what will be next to what. Even the directions — north, south, east, and west — change from one part of the country to another. And the same goes for summer and winter, day and night. You can step out of a blazing hot desert straight into snowfields. In Fantastica there are no measurable distances, so that ‘near’ and ‘far’ don’t at all mean what they do in the real world. They vary with the traveler’s wishes and state of mind. Since Fantastica has no boundaries, its center can be anywhere — or to put it another way, it is equally near to, or far
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But the luckdragon made no answer. He lay as though dead.
no thank you
Then he heard her say: ‘But you’ve brought him with you.’ Atreyu looked up. ‘Who?’ ‘Our savior.’
For a twinkling the thin wall between us became transparent.
the gays will save fantastica
‘Why,’ he finally managed to ask, ‘why did you send me then? What did you expect me to do?’ ‘Exactly what you did,’ she replied.
‘Humans are our hope. One of them must come and give me a new name. And he will come.’
‘Only the right name gives beings and things their reality,’ she said. ‘A wrong name makes everything unreal. That’s what lies do.’
michael ende really said "trans rights"!!
‘The old folk in our tent camps tell the children about him when they’re naughty. They say he writes everything down in a book, whatever you do or fail to do, and there it stays in the form of a beautiful or an ugly story. When I was little, I believed it, but then I decided it was only an old wives’ tale to frighten children.’
