Cornelia Funke: More on choice by fictional characters

I previously used a post about Cornelia Funke's Inkheart to muse about the possibility of real people becoming part of a work of fiction, and the reverse. The second book in the series, Inkspell, takes this possibility even further. In Inkspell, most of the action is based in a fictional work by Fenoglio. (So, Funke's book describes a world which includes Fenoglio, who has written a book with a different world in it. Fenoglio, and most of the other characters, enter this fictional2 world. Have you got that?) Here's a relevant sample:

If anything, she was even more beautiful than his description of her. But after all, he had sought the most wonderful of words for her when he wrote the scene in Inkheart where Dustfinger saw her for the first time. Yet all at once, now that she suddenly stood before him in the flesh, he felt as lovelorn as a silly boy. Oh, for goodness sake, Fenoglio! he reproached himself. You made her up, and now you're staring at her as if this was the first time in your life you'd ever seen a woman! Worst of all, Roxane seemed to notice it. Cornelia Funke, Inkspell, translated from the German by Anthea Bell, New York: Scholastic, 2005. Quote is from p. 412.

The story doesn't stay exactly like Fenoglio wrote it, either. Characters go on after the events described in the book. One of them dies, for example.

Fenoglio isn't the only person who can translate people, and other things, from our mundane world to another. The protagonist, an adolescent girl, discovers that she can transport things, including herself, into the world that Fenoglio originally imagined. The book was written for a youthful audience, but is a good read for an adult.

As usual, I don't want to give away the plot. But I will say a couple of things about it. There is little or no sign that this is "Christian speculative fiction," but one character gives his life for another's. Lots of loose ends are left, and things seem to be getting worse, at the end, which cries out "sequel!"

If I create a fictional world, does it really exist, in some other plane, or a parallel universe? Do I have control over it? These themes rear their heads in this work by Funke.

Bringing Fictional Characters to Life

One of my daughters gave me her copy of Inkheart, by Cornelia Funke, to read. I was glad to read it, as I had enjoyed The Thief Lord, and others had, too.

I'm not going to dwell on the plot of Inkheart, except to say that it involves bringing fictional characters to life, or sending real people into a work of fiction. Here's a link to a post on the book by another blogger that does go into the plot.

When I finished the book, I thought about which, if any, fictional characters I'd like to bring to life, or which fictional universe I'd like to be sent into. I thought of Gandalf, from the Lord of the Rings, or Ogion or Ged, the quiet wizards from the Earthsea books by Ursula K. Le Guin. It would be nice to have a powerful wizard around, even a gruff and seldom-spoken one, I thought. But that wouldn't work. What would Ogion think of computers and cars? What would Gandalf do with air pollution and income taxes? These wizards wouldn't fit. I would have trouble following Gandalf or Ogion around, and would probably be pretty useless at traveling through Moria or taking care of goats.

I also thought about real people. What about bringing back Lewis and Clark, or Sacagawea? What about Will Rogers, or Henrietta Leavitt? What about George Washington Carver or Marie Curie? They wouldn't fit, either. And I wouldn't fit into their time or place, any more than they would into mine. I wouldn't know the language, or the customs, or how to make a living, or take care of an illness.

What about biblical characters? What about Paul, or Lydia, Dorcas or Peter? King David or Rahab? Clearly, they wouldn't fit, either. I expect that Paul or Peter, and maybe some of the others, might raise a ruckus over the way things are in the world in general, or in my church, or even in my own life. I guess I'd better leave them in the Bible, where they belong.

Finally, what about Jesus? Would He fit? Well, being God, He ought to, I guess. But I'm afraid He might throw out the moneychangers, or call some religious people white-painted tombstones, or do something equally outrageous, and make people unhappy.

Whoops--I forgot--I'm supposed to show the personality of Jesus in this world of the 21st Century. He's supposed to already be here, in my world, my neighborhood, my church, and my own life, and really so, not in my imagination (or yours). I hope sincerely that He is.

The problem with dying

". . . Do you know what the worst bit about dying is?"
"Tell me, Gran."
"You never get to see how it all turns out."
- Jasper Fforde, Lost in a Good Book: A Thursday Next Novel (New York: Viking, 2002) p. 136. Thursday Next, talking to her grandmother.

Some other miscellaneous quotes:

"I'll tell you what love is," I told her. "It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humilation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter!" - Jasper Fforde, Lost in a Good Book: A Thursday Next Novel (New York: Viking, 2002) p. 350. Thursday Next talking to Miss Havisham (from Great Expectations by Dickens).

"Isn't it odd how much fatter a book gets when you've read it several times?" Mo had said when, on Meggie's last birthday, they were looking at all her dear old books again. "As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells . . . and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower . . . both strange and familiar." Inkspell, by Cornelia Funke (translated from the German by Anthea Bell) New York: Scholastic, 2005, p. 47

When you don't have anything new to say, and what you've been saying in the past no longer has much plausibility, you have three choices. You can shut up. For conservative commentators, this is inconceivable, not to mention financially ruinous. You can re-examine your premises. This is not the conservative style. Or you can pump up the volume. - Timothy Noah, "Coulterized Conservatives," Slate, September 6, 2006 (The same thing could be said about lots of people, of all sorts of persuasions)

There are three types of people: those who count precisely and those who don't. Edward B. Burger & Michael Starbird, Coincidences, Chaos, and All That Math Jazz: Making Light of Weighty Ideas. New York: Norton, 2005. Quote is from p. 79.

Thanks for reading.