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Product Reviews:
Inkdeath (Inkheart) |
Rating: 3 (out of 5)
Summary: Sad to see it end this way
Comments: Perhaps this book is payback for Cornelia Funke allowing filmmakers to destroy "Inkheart" for their, I do not know, convenience maybe, a la "Eragon." This book reads as though Ms. Funke struggled with the burden of tying up a thousand loose ends in her immense story-world, struggled and surrendered.
I was the reader who brought to life the "Inkheart" trilogy, reading aloud to my family. We came to love the Inkworld in all its rich detail, warmly fleshed-out characters, and fairy tale roster of fantasy creatures. We enjoyed indulging in the Inkworld despite all of the author's wrong turns, and anyone who read the 1st2books may feel the same.
The 1st book was marvelous, enthralling. The second, even more consuming, we couldn't wait for reading time each night, though I had to omit large portions of Ms. Funke's gore from the reading to little ears (while also deleting myriad "great heavens" and other too-frequently repeated phrases, perhaps unfortunate artifacts of the translation from German).
With "Inkdeath," the characters' continual despair and sadness through the 1st one-half of the book became a running joke with my audience. It got to the point where e time they heard the words "despair," or "cry," my listeners laughed out loud. Yes, 300 pages were too many to establish that life sucks inside a dark story. Real people find ways to cope. Storybook people should too.
Ms. Funke's Inkworld departed the second volume, "Inkspell," with a fistful of teasers. Orpheus entered the Inkworld, Dustfinger departed, leaving devoted Farid desperate to conjure him back. The Adderhead was left immortal, an untenable situation, while Cosimo, his double and his father were all dead, Lombrica taken over by Argenta. Fenoglio and all the Folcharts were inside the Inkworld, save the ultimate book fanatic Elinor. Basta was dead, however Mortola was still at large.
Ms. Funke concealed from us, in "Inkspell," Mo's sabotage of the book of immortality and anticipation that the villain's demise was imminent. Why she withheld this key detail until "Inkdeath" is hard to understand, unless she conceived it in the interim. We had been left wondering why Mo would do such a towering wrong as to hand the story's arch villain endless life, with only a vague notion of undoing it someday. Otherwise, the act was selfish and inconsistent with his character.
"Inkspell" was a fascinating exploration of the idea of entering the story that1is reading. 1of the almost all intriguing elements was how the author, Fenoglio, failed in his attempts to control the Inkworld by writing more pieces for his mystically endowed readers to bring to life. Fenoglio underestimated the complexity of the world he imagined, failed repeatedly to grasp how his book (or the readers) had merely set a world in motion, a world rapidly gaining its own logically consistent life.
From this point, Ms. Funke chose to spend the entirety of "Inkdeath" marching ponderously toward the undoing of the Adderhead's immortality. She struggles with the scale of her story and loses many of her characters along the way. Entire chapters are wasted telling us how Elinor pines to join her relations in the Inkworld, the reader Darius conveniently nearby as the obvious setup for what comes next. Meggie, central character of the 1st2novels, is a cardboard cutout of her former self, with a new and entirely irrelevant love interest perhaps serving as an apology for why she's uninvolved in deciding how this whole thing turns out. Farid never even puts up a fight to keep her. Clearly, Ms. Funke lost interest in these characters, which is offensive to readers who came to love them.
Obviously Dustfinger comes back, however not by the quick-turning-trite path of the reader's art, not by Fenoglio's reworking, or via Orpheus's manipulations. This is a fine turn by Ms. Funke, reviving Dustfinger with strings attached, not violating the strictures that had prevented Fenoglio from necromancing his beloved Cosimo.
however in the end, Dustfinger's presence is pretty much a distraction. We never get an enduring reunion of Dustfinger with his wife, Roxane, no full reconciliation between Dustfinger and his daughter Brianne. Dustfinger does little to decide the conclusion and acts pretty much as a red herring.
The wondrous innovation of "Inkheart" was Mortimer Folchart, the book doctor whose voice had unpredictable, dangerous power when used to read aloud. His voice...did it open the door to a world that already existed, or did it give life to the otherwise dead printed word? Rich innovation by Ms. Funke, wasted thereafter. Throughout the rest of the series, Mo never again used the power of his voice to do anything. Appalling oversight. Conceivably, Mo could have read characters out of any book that existed in the Inkworld, however that avenue was unexplored.
Instead, other readers--Meggie, Orpheus, even the milquetoast Darius--were allowed to perform the act with increasing nonchalance. Ms. Funke merely dismissed the previously ominous risks involved--you know, the1that deposited Resa Folchart into the Inkworld in the 1st place. How did those risks change when reading about the same story that1was inside? We never learned.
Many pages are wasted on Fenoglio turned pathetic drunk lost in his failures, when any author would more likely remain endlessly fascinated with the ability to interact with characters he himself had written. This is a plot conceit used by Ms. Funke to pad a story that needed no padding, had plenty of characters to explore. She temporarily suspended Fenoglio's ability to write so as to explain why he wasn't trying to regain control of his story. Fenoglio already had experienced spectacular failure; no need to waste thousands of words explaining why he might be having a hard time deciding what to do next.
Instead of indulging in her almost all developed characters, Ms. Funke elaborates on Orpheus, Princess Violante, and her awful son Jacopo.
Violante has to be fleshed out if she's to inherit rule over the Inkworld once her father passes. All in all, she is a bore. Jacopo goes from being an annoyance to taking some of the almost all decisive actions in the entire series. The story turns on Jacopo!! Perhaps the author thought this clever. Depriving the story's better characters of these significan not actions left them lacking. Surely Dustfinger, or the Black Prince, deserved a hand in deciding the outcome.
Orpheus is a satisfyingly repugnant villain whose end never comes, leaving open the future of this series. This is hard to stomach. Given that eone remains to live in Fenoglio's story, why wouldn't Orpheus continue to torment them with distortions of Fenoglio's words? After 683 pages, "Inkdeath" comes to an abrupt halt without resolving any however the almost all obvious plotlines.
Ms. Funke was so great at departing from convention in her 1st2books, I wish she had done so again and dispatched the Adderhead within the 1st hundred pages of "Inkdeath." Life after his passing should have been the conclusion that got fleshed out. The battle between Orpheus and Fenoglio to write the future of the Inkworld!! The largely forgotten argument over how and when to return to the real world!! What becomes of Dustfinger and Roxane!! Meggie's potential as reader and writer, hinted at in "Inkspell" however never elaborated!! The story that should have been written all got crammed into a few dismissive paragraphs at the end.
I thank Cornelia Funke for creating this wonderful set of people and places. They are powerful fuel for any great imagination, and for many years my family and I will keep the Inkworld alive in our minds, working to imagine where this story could have gone. |
Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: The all-time best children's author of our time.
Comments: I love Cornelia Funke and anything she writes. I recently discovered a book that told of a young lady that put the original german text of1of her beloved tales onto the hands of the Hary Potter Series publisher. I am so grateful for that!! This book was an AMAZING conclusion to the series!! Full of new characters and the ones I have come to care about, too. I am DYING to see how they roll this new Favorite Fairytale out in Hollywood. Just 22 days from the moment I am writing this until the movie version of the 1st book, Inkheart!! |
Rating: 3 (out of 5)
Summary: great, however not spectacular
Comments: I was highly anticipating the release of Inkdeath for months and months, and was hoping that it would conclude the trilogy with as much style and flair as Inkheart began the story and Inkspell continued it. In some regards I was disappointed, however in others was pleased.
Overall the book is much darker than Inkheart or Inkspell, and I found the middle rather dragging. However, the darkness works with the story and makes sense. After all, the book is called Inkdeath. Cornelia Funke's husband died while she was in the process of writing it, and I am sure that influenced the tone to some degree. The quality of writing is the same, though, magnificent as always.
I was disappointed in some characters, as alalmost all all of them had changed to some degree, however in some the change made sense.
If you have been loyal to the trilogy definitely read this book, however come into it with small expectations and you will be happier when you finish it.
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Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: Wonderful ending to a wonderful trilogy!!
Comments: I got this book for Christmas and just started reading it yesterday, and I finished it this afternoon!! I could not put it down. The book is wonderfully well-written and I couldn't have asked for a better ending.
The beginning of the book starts off a bit slow, and luckily there is an "A to Z of Inkheart" in the back to remind you of who all the characters are (since it does get a little confusing), however even considering this the story captivated me just as it did in Inkheart and Inkspell. Funke has written an exciting conclusion to this series.
I do not know about you, however I like to get lost in the books I read, and these books definitely did that for me. Funke's writing captures the heart and keeps you on the edge of your seat all the way to the end. Great writing, and highly endorseed!! |
Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: Amazing end to the almost all intriguing of trilogies
Comments: It makes me sad to read some of these reviews from people who thought INKDEATH was "boring" and that "absolutely nothing happened". I fell in love with these characters in INKHEART and followed them into the Inkworld in INKSPELL (probably the best of the3books). No, Meggie is probably not the protagonist in this finale, however the other "supporting actors" are pulled to the forefront, and their performances are beyond all expectation. The relationships between all the characters are more fully explored, especially the seemingly eternal bond between Mo and Dustfinger (my ultimate-favorite character). INKDEATH is much more dark and gruesome than the other two, and younger audiences should probably stick with INKHEART. However, all storylines are wrapped up beautifully, great wins out in the end, and the final chapters are skillfully written...I could not put the book down from about p.200 till the end. I have never in my 40+ years of reading been so invested in characters....I was sad in the end, only because I wouldn't "see" them anymore. I think if you loved the 1st two, you will not be disappointed by INKDEATH...you will want to stay in the Inkworld forever. |
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