Somehow I have always liked stories that explored the lines between reality and illusions. Illusions can take various forms – dreams, day dreams, imagination, hallucination, schizophrenia and religious beliefs! I have read quite a lot of theories that suggest that strong belief can convert imagination into reality. A lady called Rhonda Bryne has written a book called '
The Secret' around this concept and almost got a cult following. Then we have Hindu Advaita philosophy which takes the other side and suggests that what we perceive as reality might itself actually be an illusion. We have lot of books and films exploring the entire range of possibilities around reality and illusion. ‘
Matrix’, ‘
Inception’, ‘
The Truman Show’, ‘
The Fight Club’, ‘
Mulholland Drive’ are some movies that immediately come to my mind.
The Ink World series by Cornelia Funke consisting of 3 books – '
Inkheart', '
Inkspell' and '
Inkdeath' explores the theme of the characters and the world from a story book springing to life. The concept kind of appealed to me because I always felt reading a story from a book felt more real than idle imagination inside my head.
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16 comments:
Wow! Sounds like a nice concept. But what I am intrigued with is how come you decide to review this 4 years after you have read this??
I am yet another buff of magical, mystical, adventurous and science fictions. Although, I guess I have started searching for the familiar human emotions and predicament in those as I get older.
The theme of the Ink series strongly reminds me of the adventure game of early 1990s called MYST. The protagonist of the game is a character called Atrus who writes books that go on to become 'Ages'. He has, again, God-like powers in that whatever he writes becomes true and again, he was bound with several rules. The characters could travel back and forth through the books that link the ages. The player of the game is a stranger who stumbles upon an Age where he must find clues to other Ages. It was a deeply absorbing game and one of the pioneers in 3-dimensional reality platform that went to become a milestone in video games. The game was followed by many sequels and spawned a generation of RPG games loosely based on it. It was probably the best selling game till 2002 when SIMS overtook it.
You have written a well-measured review of the Ink series. We briefly learn about the stories in the three volumes and the central theme weaving them together. It’s good that you have opined that they lack depths enough to engage the attention of adults.
Translation is always a dicey proposition. It is next to impossible to convert the various connotations and nuances of one language into another. An excellent translation thus becomes an art in its own right, having a beauty strikingly different from the original.
It is indeed an interesting series, DS. There are lot of nice books I have read from before the time I have started blogging. So whenever I have the mood, I am trying to write reviews of the books I have read - especially the fantasy and science fiction one.
I have played the game, umashankar. It is not an adventure game. It is more of a puzzle solving game. It was very difficult for me. I did not proceed much on that. The game story was actually written as a book also. I liked that story. One day maybe I will review that as well.
Glad you like the review.
Tough, was that! It took me more than 10 days to finish the game only to realize there could be three possible ends! I played some of the later games of the saga too: Real Myst (3D workd of the original and a lot more exciting), Riven, Myst III Exile (couldn't complete it) and Uru (abandoned). There were more to come: Revelation and End of Ages.
Do write a review of the series. It will be worth reading.
By 10 days you mean 10 days doing nothing but playing the game? Unfortunately for me the choice was between completing my final term BTech project and completing the game. I chose the former. After that I did not get the game again. I think I should look for the game.
These Book reviews of yours are excellent TF! Keep them going.
Ooooooooh!! i have read all three TF!! and that too a long time back. i was so happy to see its review here!
yes, Mo and dustfinger were certainly my favorite characters. i read the series loooooong time back but i remember this other guy... Farid i guess... used to like him a lot too. well what you have said IS true... even I hardly remember anything about Meggie.
Cornelia Funke is SUCH an amazing fantasy writer. the first book that i had read was the Dragon Rider which i read and re read till its ingrained in my mind. It had a map in the middle of the book and i LOVED it. i read the inkheart trilogy after that, then thief lord, reckless and a few other books. Do read the Dragon Rider if you havent TF! its an AWESOME book :)
and yes, splendid review. you describe everything without making it a spoiler!!(something that i need to learn) :P :)
PS: sorry for the extra long comment, but i gush whenever i see a book i love :P
Thanks, CS. Glad you liked it. My reviews are different from the traditional reviews and I need to know if people are seeing some value in them.
Thanks, Kirti. You don't have to say sorry. I have to thank you for the long comment. The reason I don't write more reviews is the utter lack of comments for reviews. Comments like yours encourage me to write more of the reviews - Because reviews are not as much fun to write as stories. I am writing them only so that people find them useful.
Hi TF
I have seen the movie InkHeart starring Brendon Fraser. Loved the movie but did not know that its adapted from a book. I remember that the protagonist's wife gets locked in the world of stories and becomes mute or something . Right? Nice post.Enjoyed the read :)
My last comment disappeared somehow.Hope am successful this time :)
Thanks Jaishree. I did not know the movie was out. It did not become famous like HP seems like. Your comments will appear only after I approve them. That is why your last comment disappeared.
Ahem--I have never read them nor even heard of them :( I came to this post wondering what you are writing about...but I don't understand the series even now. I guess I need to read one...thanks for the new info...your still puzzled reader:)
Well, Bhavana. Fantasy is not everyone's cup of tea. What I like most about fantasy is that it is totally unbelievable and out of the world.
Wooohooo!!!!! the new blog look is FANTASTIC!!!! :D :)
Thanks a lot, Kirti.
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