As a writer I was immediately intrigued by Cornelia Funke‘s premise for Inkheart and when I saw the previews for the movie adaptation of the book I couldn’t wait to see it.  It didn’t hurt that the yummy Brendan Fraser and Paul Bettany star in this movie!

The premise is this simply–a man “silver tongue” can bring characters to life from books when he reads them aloud.  The only bad thing is that when a character comes out of the book someone from our world has to go into the book.  And silvertongue has no control over who comes and goes.  Through the course of the story they encounter the author of the book that most of the characters have come from.  The book is full of characters/people who love books in all their different forms.  Silvertongue is a book-binder who repairs old books, there is a bookworm who adores who books and keeps them locked away in a library where they won’t ever get damaged, and then there are a couple of writers who like inventing new worlds.

And this is the part that I want to talk about.  The author of Inkheart (the fictional one inside the book) is enchanted by seeing his characters in the real-world.  He remarks that it is just as he imagined it.  He longs to go into the world he created.

The bookworm is forced out of her house and her safe little world into a real adventure, the first that isn’t in her imagination and she remarks that she prefers her characters on the page and not in the real world.

The bookbinder just wants his story to have a happy ending and will do whatever he has to in order to make that happen.

I have been all three of this characters or types through out my life.  I am an author who loves the worlds she creates and enjoys seeing those characters come to life when I re-read a book I’ve written.  I’m a bookworm who loves the adventures I’ve been on–especially going back in time say to the French Revolution and rescuing French royals along with the Scarlet Pimpernel.

And like the bookbinder I care for my books but at the end of the day just want a happy ending to my own story.

What I loved about this book was that I got every character’s motivation.  One of the major characters has a major ephiphany throughout the movie and realizes he can be more than who he was written to be.  And I think about that every day.

Who are you?  Are you the bookworm who prefers his/her adventure on the pages of a book?  Are you like the author who’d like to escape into the world of fiction?  Or are you like the bookbinder more interested in making your adventure a happy-ever-after?

Happy reading!

Kathy