Inkheart, by Cornelia Funke, has received much praise as a children’s book and has made it on to reading lists of many elementary schools. I have read many reviews about the book from people of all ages who thoroughly enjoyed it. I have also talked to people that have likewise read and enjoyed it.
Because of its acclaim, it has now been made into a major motion picture staring Brendan Fraser.
It is entirely because this story is so realistic and its characters so life-like that I didn’t like it.
A good fantasy, to my point of view, is a struggle between good and evil where the heroes are heroic, the villains are unbelievably evil, and the endings are happy.
Inkheart, on the other hand, stars a villain who is so believably evil that you would be afraid of encountering him on the back alleys of a major metropolitan city and would definitely be the worse for doing so. I felt more like I was reading a crime drama (or even a crime documentary) than a fantasy novel.
I don’t want to give away the ending, but I certainly was not expecting the ending of a children’s fantasy book that was neither entirely happy nor entirely sad. It certainly mirrored life a lot more closely than I would have liked.
If you are the type of reader who prefers a fantasy novel that is more true-to-life than fantasy, by all means read Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart. It is certainly the type of novel that you would enjoy and appreciate.
If you are like me and prefer your fantasy novel to be a means of escape from the all-to-realistic and depressing world around us, then I don’t think Inkheart is the novel for you.
Ravenhurst says:
It didn’t really belong in the article, but I have a hard time believing that Brendan Fraser was the person that Cornelia Funke was envisioning when she wrote Inkheart. Brendan Fraser usually plays the goofy hero. While I was reading Inkheart, I didn’t see a goofy hero. Indeed, a goofy hero would have seemed quite out of place in the dark, depressing, true-to-life adventure that Funke painted for us.