The Inkheart Trilogy by Cornelia Funke

I’ve just completed the fantastic Inkheart Trilogy (novels published 2003-2008) audiobooks. I’ve been weeks about it, but they are truly quite long stories.  As a writer, you can imagine how I adore the premise: a writer’s novel turns out to actually be another real world, which he seems to control (if not create altogether!). 

Funke’s storytelling is rich and meandering. Aside from the part of the story set in Europe in modern times, she’s truly created another universe, a complex one that seems rather medieval. Her characters are faulty, and very little is truly ideal. I listened to it probably over a decade ago and liked it more this time than last time, though perhaps that’s because I knew better what to expect.

Twelve-year-old Meggie is the main protagonist (if these stories can be said to have one), not the old Inkweaver, and of course she’s my favorite character. Her father, a bookbinder called Silvertongue, is warm-hearted and steadfast, tall and handsome (I suspect Funke was somewhat gone over him—and he’ll forever be Brendan Fraser in my mind, as that’s who played him in the movie version). The aged scribbler is likeable—fiesty and warm-hearted and full of himself to a ridiculous, perhaps justifiable, degree. You never know exactly how people are going to behave, yet it’s always believable—and sometimes breaks your heart with disappointment. Yet you often get happy endings of a sort.

During the process of listening to these novels, I was seized with the notion of rebinding some of my falling-apart study manuals from my naturopathic school days, and only as I was in the midst of rebinding them did I realize that I must have been inspired by Silvertongue’s craft!  I was sometimes hours on a single volume—but that was nothing next to the painstaking rebinding Silvertongue did, usually taking days, which was rather a consolation.  So not only was there bookbinding going on (albeit mostly just replacing tattered covers and old, broken plastic-comb spines on the books), but at least some of the manuals were in part about herbal therapies, an occupation of Roxanne, one of the most beautiful women imaginable. She is associated (being vague here to try to avoid spoilers!) with Dustfinger, the fire dancer. Yes, I suppose I should have said there is very powerful magic in the Inkworld. Fairies, giants, and enchantments—of course.  Most of the story does center on the adults, and it seemed to me that Funke was fairly realistic (as realistic as a fantasy story can be) in the process of giving Meggie her time in the spotlight; Meggie is quite subject to the whims, expertise, and authority of the adults, but she inevitably plays an essential role, if not always the key role, in the stories. I appreciate that Funke’s plots are hard to predict that way—and in many other ways.

I very much recommend this YA Fantasy Trilogy for anyone who appreciates this genre. Be forewarned that it’s more emotionally complex than most YA Fantasy, and the meandering style of storytelling is reminiscent of historical novelist Phillipa Gregory’s writing, in my opinion. I highly recommend both authors to about the same degree, depending on your genre preference—and mind you, Gregory is one of my favorites!