The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

Published 1979 · 112,058 words · about 10 hours at an average pace · Children's Literature, Fantasy

How hard is The Neverending Story to read?

The Neverending Story scores 62 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 60 out of 100
The text introduces numerous invented names for creatures and places (e.g., will-o'-the-wisp, night-hob, rock chewers, Gnomics, Ygramul, Perilin, Goab, Grograman). While these are often explained or contextually clear, the sheer volume of unique terminology elevates complexity beyond typical accessible fiction. Occasional sophisticated words like 'pince-nez,' 'hypotaxis,' and 'phantasmagoria' also appear, though less frequently than in high-complexity anchors.
Sentence structure: 55 out of 100
Sentences are generally well-structured and clear, avoiding the extreme length or nested clauses found in 'Ulysses' or 'Absalom, Absalom!'. However, the narrative occasionally employs longer, descriptive sentences with multiple clauses, particularly when detailing fantastical landscapes or philosophical concepts, making it more demanding than direct, declarative prose.
Abstraction: 68 out of 100
While primarily a fantasy adventure, the narrative frequently delves into philosophical and meta-fictional concepts, especially through the interactions with Morla, Uyulala, Gmork, and the Old Man of Wandering Mountain. Discussions about the nature of reality, lies, wishes, and the story itself elevate the abstraction significantly beyond a purely concrete adventure, approaching the level of philosophical drama seen in '2666' or 'Brothers Karamazov'.
Information density: 62 out of 100
The story introduces a vast array of unique creatures, cultures, and magical rules at a steady pace, requiring consistent attention to detail. The dual narrative structure, alternating between Bastian's reading and Atreyu's quest, also adds a layer of information to process, though the pacing allows for comprehension without feeling overwhelming like 'Finnegans Wake' or 'Ulysses'.
Narrative indirection: 45 out of 100
The narrative primarily employs an omniscient third-person perspective, directly explaining events and character motivations in both Bastian's world and Fantastica. While the meta-narrative twist of Bastian being a character in the book he reads requires a significant conceptual leap, the story explicitly reveals and then explains this dynamic through characters like Uyulala, Gmork, and the Childlike Empress, reducing the need for deep reader inference.
Symbolic density: 78 out of 100
The Neverending Story is deeply allegorical, with Fantastica itself symbolizing the realm of human imagination and storytelling, and 'The Nothing' representing the loss of belief and creativity. Key elements like AURYN, the Childlike Empress, and Bastian's transformation are rich with meaning beyond their literal descriptions, though these symbolic connections are often made explicit or are readily apparent within the narrative.
Ironic distance: 30 out of 100
The text maintains a largely earnest and sincere tone, directly engaging with the characters' emotions and the fantastical events. While characters like Mr. Coreander exhibit personal quirks that might be perceived as ironic, there is no pervasive authorial ironic stance or unreliable narration that creates a significant gap between what the text states and what the author intends.
Resolution withholding: 85 out of 100
The novel's title and central premise, the 'Neverending Story' and the 'Circle of Eternal Return,' inherently resist traditional narrative closure. The excerpt concludes with Bastian's entry into Fantastica, marking a new beginning rather than a definitive end, and leaving the ultimate fate of both worlds and the full implications of Bastian's wishes unresolved.
Structural complexity: 75 out of 100
The primary structural complexity arises from the meta-narrative, which interweaves Bastian's 'real-world' reading experience with the unfolding events in Fantastica, explicitly shifting between these two perspectives. The recursive loop of the Old Man of Wandering Mountain writing the story as it happens and then rereading it creates a self-referential structure that challenges conventional narrative linearity.

How The Neverending Story is regarded

The Neverending Story holds a literary regard score of 62 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

Where The Neverending Story sits in Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism

Placed by a full reading of the text (206 passages), not from reputation. Each verdict quotes the passage that earned it. On the axis from myth to irony, The Neverending Story scores 32 out of 100. A second mythos, tragedy, pulls at it with a weight of 0.25. About the map of stories.

Mode: Romance
She didn't rule, she had never used force or made use of her power.
Symbol: Mythical (archetypal)
'No, you've got it wrong. This book is all Fantastica - and you and I.'
Mythos: Romance iii (the quest) (romance iii)
'Wherever you like, Artax,' said Atreyu. 'From this moment on we shall be on the Great Quest.'
Genre: Romance + Anatomy
If you stop to think about it, you'll have to admit that all the stories in the world consist essentially of twenty-six letters.

Where the story of The Neverending Story takes place

  • Fantastica, an imaginary otherworld, the main setting
  • Schoolhouse attic and bookshop of a modern German-style town, a rainy November weekend (1970 to 1979)
  • Fantastica, from the Ivory Tower to the Sea of Mist

5 things that are true of The Neverending Story, with the passage for each

  1. Atreyu's name means 'Son of All' because the whole tribe raised him after a buffalo killed his parents.

    That's why they called me Atreyu, which in our language means "Son of All"!

  2. The Wind Giants, asked in the name of the Empress, answer that Fantastica has no borders in any direction.

    Who are you, who bear the emblem of the Childlike Empress and don't know that Fantastica has no borders?

  3. The inscription on the back of the Childlike Empress's amulet reads 'DO WHAT YOU WISH'.

    "DO WHAT YOU WISH." That must mean I can do anything I feel like.

  4. The monkey Argax tells Bastian he has only three or four wishes left, which will hardly be enough.

    'Not very many. In my opinion three or four at the most.

  5. After his entire adventure in Fantastica, Bastian's father says that only one day has passed, and it was a Sunday.

    'Yesterday?' said his father. 'Yesterday was Sunday.'

Scenes in The Neverending Story that Frye would name

64 sightings of Frye's terms in the text. The strongest:

Anagnorisis, untitled
Why, this was all about him! And it was the Neverending Story. Bastian realizes he is a character in the book he is reading.
Hamartia, untitled
Bastian tugged at the hilt of his sword. He tugged with all his might and finally managed to draw Sikanda from its sheath. Bastian draws Sikanda by will, the fatal act Grograman had forbidden.
Cognitio, untitled
He saw tears in his father's eyes. And he knew that he had brought him the Water of Life after all. The father's tears confirm the boon has been delivered and the family restored.
Demonic imagery, untitled
And farther still there was nothing, absolutely nothing. The Nothing is the central demonic image of annihilation.
Pathos, untitled
Half the horse's head was already in the black water. Artax's death in the Swamps of Sadness is the first sacrificial scene of the quest.
Anagnorisis, untitled
Bastian gave a start when he realized what he had just read. Why, that was him! Bastian recognizes himself as the fat boy in the Magic Mirror Gate, the first pivot of the metafiction.

Books that share these scenes with The Neverending Story

About the author

Michael Ende