Open AccessWord-Power: Reading, Writing and Traveling from Story to Story in the 'Inkheart' Novels
Author(s) -
Babette Puetz
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
papers (victoria park)/papers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1837-4530
pISSN - 1034-9243
DOI - 10.21153/pecl2009vol19no1art1157
Subject(s) - trilogy , fantasy , metafiction , literature , reading (process) , fictional universe , power (physics) , reciprocity (cultural anthropology) , art , history , psychology , linguistics , philosophy , narrative , social psychology , physics , quantum mechanics
Many readers of fantasy books have wished they could meet the characters or even enter the fantasy worlds of these works. This idea is played out in Cornelia Funke's 'Inkheart' trilogy, where characters move back and forth between the primary world and the secondary one which is set inside a book that is also called Inkheart. The processes and consequences of these appearances and disappearances of characters in both worlds, which - for lack of a better term - I will refer to as 'world-travel', are explored in great detail in the 'Inkheart' series. A striking example of metafiction, the work centres around the processes of reading and writing fantasy. Through a discussion of the power, reciprocity, and responsibility of the author, the reader, and the characters of the story this article will examine the author's claim that her fantasy is not escapist.