Inkdeath (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Inkdeath Karen Coats Funke, Cornelia Inkdeath; tr. from the German by Anthea Bell. Chicken House/Scholastic, 2008 [704p] ISBN 978-0-439-86628-6 $24.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 7–10 The hefty conclusion to the Inkheart trilogy begins, helpfully, with a map and summaries of the prior two books, and points to a character list in the back of the book. This is good, because the densely populated Inkworld has gotten no less crowded following the deaths of some of its choicest villains. Meggie, Mo, and Resa are now living with the band of robbers led by the Black Prince, and Mo is relishing his outlaw role as the notorious Bluejay—relishing it a bit too much for his daughter’s and pregnant wife’s taste, and indeed sometimes for his own, as it is quite a blood-splattered persona. Farid is still prostrating himself to Orpheus, badgering him to read Dustfinger back from the dead, while Orpheus himself is having a grand time making himself grand in this world of words that he, to some degree, controls. Indeed, Orpheus does find a way to bring Dustfinger back, by offering the Bluejay’s life in exchange, but Death makes a bargain of her own with the Bluejay: he must find the book he bound for the Adderhead, which has made him immortal but also causes his flesh to molder and decay, and write in it the three words that will kill him. Funke weaves her complicated plot with the multitextured threads of precarious alliances, crafty greed, thwarted attempts at entrapment, loneliness, betrayal, first and second love, and the complexities of filial affections and disaffections; the cloth she comes up with is rich and enveloping, rimed at times with a chill layer of grief, while at other times freckled with sparks of unabashed wonder and grisly violence. Could it have been edited and tightened, especially when the story turns to Fenoglio’s tedious writer’s block or Orpheus’ endless self-congratulations? Undoubtedly. But this is without question a book-lover’s book, from the quotations that frame each chapter and tempt the tastebuds for other books, to the unusual fantasy-frame ending that leaves the characters happily at home in their book rather than back in their real-world beds. Settle in and read. Copyright © 2008 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois