Dreams of the Purple Buffalo

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende.
Book Review by Michael Isenberg.

Every once in a while at Nerds who Read, we like to revisit one of the classics.

The Neverending Story was written by German author Michael Ende and initially published in Germany in 1979, where it became an instant bestseller. Its audience expanded worldwide thanks to the 1984 film starring Barret Oliver and Noah Hathaway. To use a phrase which I think came from Cinema Sins, the theme song is so aggressively ‘80s it’ll make you spit out your Tab. And while the special effects seem cheesy and dated in this CGI age, they were groundbreaking at the time.

I loved it.

1980s me couldn’t get enough. Went out to Waldenbooks at the mall and bought a special edition of the novel; I think it had extra pages with glossy stills from the movie (I wonder what ever happened to it). But upon reading it, I had decidedly mixed feelings. It was one of those rare cases where the movie was better than the book. That was because the movie kept what was good about the book, and left what was not so good behind.

On the opening page, we meet Bastian Balthazar Bux (three B’s), “a fat little boy of ten or twelve. His wet, dark-brown hair hung down over his face, his coat was soaked and dripping.” We learn he is neither athletic, nor bright, nor popular. On the run from bullies, Bastian takes refuge in a used bookstore where he encounters the crusty old proprietor, Carl Conrad Coreander (three C’s). But it’s the book that Coreander is reading that has Bastian mesmerized. “It seemed to have a kind of magnetic power that attracted him irresistibly…It was bound in copper-colored silk that shimmered when he moved it about…in strangely intricate letters, he saw the title: The Neverending Story.”

Yes, like The Tennessee Waltz, or a drawing by M. C. Escher, The Neverending Story is a work of art which contains itself. Which probably accounts for the double uroborus device on the spine—two snakes, intertwined, biting each other’s tails.

Anyway, the one thing Bastian loves is books and, thrilled by the prospect of one that never ends, he steals it when Mr. Coreander steps away to take a phone call (or in the case of the movie, borrows it without permission). Blowing off classes, Bastian locks himself in the school attic, stretches out on a pile of old gym mats, and begins to read.

He reads that the Land of Fantastica (Fantasia in the movie) is in danger. Piece by piece, it’s being devoured by—nothing. A conversation between Blubb, the will-o’-the-wisp and Gluckuk the rock chewer explains:

“Something has happened in Moldymoor,” said the will-o’-the wisp haltingly, “something impossible to understand. Actually, it’s still happening. It’s hard to describe—the way it began was—well, in the east of our country there’s a lake—that is there was a lake—Lake Foamingbroth we called it. Well, the way it began was like this. One day Lake Foamingbroth wasn’t there anymore. It was gone. See?” “You mean it dried up?” Gluckuk inquired. “No,” said the will-o’-the-wisp. “Then there’d be a dried up lake. But there isn’t. Where the lake used to be there’s nothing—absolutely nothing. Now do you see?” “A hole?” the rock chewer grunted. “No, not a hole,” said the will-o’-the-wisp despairingly. “A hole, after all, is something. This is nothing at all.”

We later learn that the pieces of Fantastica that are swallowed by the nothing reemerge in our own universe—as lies.

But the people of Fantastica know nothing of that. They send petitioners from all over the land to the Ivory Tower to warn the Childlike Empress of similar occurrences, and beseech her for help. It turns out that the Childlike Empress herself is suffering from a mysterious illness, somehow linked to the destruction of Fantastica. Still, she takes action. She orders that a hero, a savior, be sent on a quest to save the land: Atreyu, who lives in the Grassy Ocean beyond the Silver Mountains and hunts the purple buffalo. Her emissaries travel to the Grassy Ocean and find him. And to their amazement, he is a ten-year-old boy.

Then the adventure begins in earnest.

This movie follows the first half of the book very closely, and I love this part of the book for the same reason I loved the movie: Atreyu’s heroism. He even looks like a hero:

His long trousers and shoes were of soft buffalo leather. His body was bare from the waist up, but a long purple-red cloak, evidently woven from buffalo hair, hung from his shoulders. His long blue-black hair was gathered together and held with leather thongs. A few simple white designs were painted on the olive-green skin of his cheeks and forehead.

But it’s not his looks, or even his skill with a bow that make Atreyu heroic. It’s his persistence, that he keeps going despite cold, despite hardship, despite nightmares. Each night he dreams that “he got closer and closer to the same purple buffalo—he recognized him by a white spot on his horsehead—but for some reason he was never able to shoot the deadly arrow.” He even goes on despite loss. Early in the quest, in the Swamps of Sadness, his beloved horse Atrax succumbs to hopelessness and sinks into the muck, meeting his death. But Atreyu masters his sorrow and plods on.

Of course we see Atreyu as a hero because we see him through Bastian’s eyes, and Bastian sees him as a hero. As Atreyu overcomes one obstacle after another, Bastian’s admiration and compassion for him draws him ever more deeply into the story, until he is literally transported into the Land of Fantastica. Which, it turns out, was Atreyu's real mission all along.

The 1984 movie pretty much ends at this point. A brief montage shows us that Bastian has a whole series of fantasy adventures of his own in Fantasia, and then the credits roll. These adventures constitute the second half of the book, the part I didn’t like as much. Some of them found their way to the big screen in The Neverending Story II: The Next Chapter (1990), which was such a critical and box office flop that, despite being a fan of the original, I didn’t even know it existed until I started putting this review together. As for The Neverending Story III: Bastian goes to High School (that’s not what it’s really called), the less said the better.

Atreyu is still around in the second half, and he and Bastian become friends. But it’s really Bastian’s story now.

Much like Butters in the “Imaginationland” episodes of South Park (which were no doubt partly inspired by The Neverending Story), Bastian is human, and unlike the natives of Fantastica has the power of imagination: whatever he wishes, comes to pass.

This power proves extremely useful, as—once again similar to Imaginationland—much of Fantastica needs to be reconstituted out of the devastation left by the nothing. Indeed, Bastian’s imagination is quite fertile, and the Fantastica of the second part of the book is far more…fantastic. There’s a forest of gigantic night-blooming flowers in phosphorescent colors, which crumble into sand dunes under the heat of the sun, each one a different color. “The nearest was cobalt blue, another was saffron yellow, then came crimson red, then indigo, apple green, sky blue, orange, peach, mauve…” The list goes on for some time. The Desert of Colors. Then the sun sets and the night forest grows again.

But things take a dark turn as Bastian uses his power on himself: to make himself handsome, strong, brilliant, athletic, adored. All the things that he’s not in the real world.

That power comes with a price. Each time he wishes for something, he forgets a little bit of his real life. He forgets who he is. He becomes greedy for power. He creates enemies for himself to defeat, such as the evil witch Xayide. But unlike the obstacles that Atreyu faced in the first half of the book, there is no challenge for Bastian. The power of his wish predictably carries the day every time. He drifts apart from Atreyu as he puts his confidence in Xayide, who unlike Atreyu, doesn’t have his best interests at heart. She convinces him that Atreyu is conspiring against him, setting up a final conflict between the two. In short, Bastian becomes a dick.

Lies are nothing. Imagination is forgetting. It seems to me that, in addition to creating a spectacular fantasy world that is home to some memorable characters and exciting adventures, Michael Ende was trying to say something profound. But I’ll be damned if I can figure out what. Like Atreyu’s dream of the purple buffalo, I keep getting closer and closer, but never seem to be able to hit the target. If you got an idea, please leave a comment.

Michael Isenberg drinks bourbon and writes novels. His latest book, The Thread of Reason, is a murder mystery that takes place in Baghdad in the year 1092, and tells the story of the conflict between science and shari’ah in medieval Islam. It is available on Amazon.com Please follow Mike on Facebook and Twitter. Subscribe to Nerds who Read.