InsaneJournal

Inkheart

I just finished reading Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart.  It was really wonderful.  It’s the story of a twelve year old girl named Meggie whose life with her bookbinder father, Mo, is disrupted when Dustfinger, a charming but untrustworthy figure from her father’s past appears at their house one night with a mysterious warning.  Gradually, Meggie learns that her father has the power to read people and things into and out of books and that nine years before he brought the Dustfinger as well as the villainous Capricorn and his henchman Basta to this world while accidentally banishing his wife into the pages of a book titled Inkheart. 

Capricorn, who has established himself as a crime lord, is after Mo hoping to use the bookbinders magical gift for his own gain.  Kindhearted but deserate to return to his own world Dustfinger is sometimes helps, sometimes hinders Meggie and Mo.  Their other allies are Meggie’s great-aunt Elinor, a devoted book collector, Farid a boy Mo reads out of The Arabian Nights, and Fenoglio, the author of Inkheart.

While Capricorn and his henchmen are certainly evil-- ruthless brutes who cheerfully commit arson and murder—Funke is not afraid to make her heroes deeply ambiguous.  Dustfinger’s loyalties are always questionable, Farid has a fascination for fire that sometimes make it seem as though he would be more at home among Capricorn’s followers than his enemies, Elinor lives in and for books and has little use for people, Mo keeps secrets from his daughter, Meggie herself is possessive of her father to the point where she isn’t sure that she wants to see her mother returned from the pages of Inkheart and Fenoglio takes an almost megalomaniac pleasure in the face that the characters he created have come to life.  Far from detracting from them, these flaws make the characters seem more human and in the end, even more heroic.

Inkheart is an exciting adventure story but it is all about books and the way stories can transform and enrich the world.  Books have great power in the world of Inkheart.  On the most superficial level Meggie, Mo and Elinor all love and value books, both for their content and as physical objects while Capricorn and his men are largely illiterate and actually burn books yet it is not that clean cut.  Books are not without their dangers.  This is illustrated by Elinor’s distain of real people and general disconnect from life as well as by the fact that the villain of the piece, Capricorn, actually comes from a book.  It is not just Mo’s power but Fenoglio’s skill as a writer that allows Capricorn to come to life.  The worlds that books open are far from harmless. 

I felt like Funke was very brave in introducing themes that couldn’t be easily resolved.  The easy way is to say “books should never be burned, books can’t harm anyone.”  Funke says “books should never be burned, but books just might have the power to burn you.”

There are two more volumes in the Inkworld Trilogy as it’s called, Inkspell and Inkdeath.  I’m looking forward to going to the library and devouring them.


German and English editions of Inkheart