Inkheart - Cornelia Funke

I don't know what it is at the moment but I'm in love with books confronting the theme of the 'danger' of book; first with The Handmaids Tale, then Fahrenheit 451 and now onto the list Inkheart! I won’t lie (and this is shameful as a self-proclaimed bookworm) I had been avoiding this book for the size, but mainly because I watched the film when it first came out and really didn't enjoy it, but after having it on my bookshelf for years I finally caved and I'm so glad I did. I've always loved fantasy and as my favourite fantasy novel is Funke’s Reckless, I was desperate for her not to disappoint and she really didn’t. Mo, one of the main characters, has the power to paint beautiful pictures when he reads aloud from books and Funke achieves this skill on every page of the book, making it really difficult to put down. 

Inkheart’s characters are so lifelike it’s hard to choose a favourite and I feel Funke was presented with a battle of trying to match her real characters (Mo, Meggie, Elinor, etc) to characters who had been red out of Inkheart (Capricorn, Basta), as fantasy book characters can afford to be far more eccentric and so are easier to style up than characters who are meant to relate to reality. However, I think Cornelia meets this challenge incredibly and some of the characters that haven't been read out are better than those who are. All this being said, my favourite character by far is Basta (which shocks even me as I normally despise the more formidable characters), his twisted nature holds something enthralling I just can't put my finger on. On the surface he’s presented as a shallow man who has eyes only for his knives and desperation for Capricorn’s approval. I think one of the benefits of Funke only presenting us with small sections of Fenoglio’s Inkheart means a whole lot more of the characters is left to the reader’s imagination. To me Basta was the deepest character in the text because he had so many personality pitfalls, making the reader question why he was like that, and where did it come from?

If ever there was a book full of allusions Inkheart is that, each chapter being started with an extract from another text. Cornelia Funke said in her ‘Inkfolio’ notes that she “chose to use quotes at the beginning of the chapter because it was so relevant to Inkheart to have the voices of other books within it”. I feel these extracts give so much to the text, somehow these passages from other texts add to the content of the chapter they prelude. It also makes for a nice break from a book of such length, it gives you a break every now and again to dip your toes into books you've perhaps never heard of, and for me it also provided new editions to my summer reading list (particularly the Princess Bride).

The whole novel is written in 3^rd person though Cornelia Funke was still writing from particular characters perspective. The characters that the perspective the story is told from changes regularly and the first time it did it I found it hard to adapt because it’s not clearly indicated if you're not fully concentrated. Although I feel the change of perspective made for a more interesting narrative, it also made for quite awkward reading. However, this is a very personal issue with the text and with everything else in the text it’s a very minor issue.

All in all Inkheart is a brilliant text, full of beautiful images of everything mentioned. Although at first I was terrified by the length and thought I'd never get through it, recently I've probably read it faster than any other books because it was just so enjoyable. Any faults in the text were simply down to me and very minor. I wish the story within Inkheart (Fenoglio’s Inkheart) actually existed. Funke presents the lesson I'm always trying to convince my friends of that there is always more than just paper and ink to a story, and she presents it in the best of ways. I've adored this book and can't wait to read the following two novels (despite hearing bad reviews) but for the first in the series a perhaps slightly conservative 8/10!