Book Review : Pan's Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro

By Murtaza Kuwarawala -
Book : Pan's Labyrinth

Author : Guillermo del Toro, Cornelia Funke

Genre : Children Fantasy

We have all heard about movies being made from books and at times criticized them for leaving out so much from the books but there are extremely less cases when we see movies translated to books and the one we are talking about here was a major success garnering critical acclaim all over the world. Pan's Labyrinth was a 2006 fantasy film which even made Stephen King squirm in his seat and we finally have the literary adaptation of the same.

Pan's Labyrinth is the story of Ofelia who moves in with her mother to her stepfather's place. A gullible girl who still believes that magic exists in the world looks at the people in the same frame of lens. Her surprise knows no bounds when she meets a Fawn who tells her that she is a princess of the Underworld and gives her three tasks to return back.

A book based during Spanish Civil War needs no introduction to readers who are familiar with the movie. The scene by scene adaptation has been done pretty keenly (unlike the screenplay adaptation of JK Rowling's Fantastic Beasts movies). You get to gasp at the right moment. You get happy for Ofelia whenever she does things right and are scared for her when she is in trouble. The best part about the books are its beautiful illustrations by Alen Williams that you must check it out.

The story is truly magical and it make me relive my time of those beautiful fairy tales that I used to read during my childhood. A must read for all children and adults alike. This has been one of my most memorable experience of 2019 in the literary world.

Rating - 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 (5 out of 5)

Book in Few Words - Truly Magical and Inspiring

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book Review : From Quetta to Delhi - A Partition Story by Reema Nanda

By Murtaza Kuwarawala -
Image
Never Judge a book by its cover nor by the name it possesses. The same case happened with me when I read the title of the name 'From Quetta to Delhi'. To be honest, I didn't take any pains to read the blurb because a story on partition is something I always wanted to read an action packed story on Partition. Sadly, the book wasn't what I had expected. So, what was the book about? What did made me read the book? Read further to know about it. Blurb: The invisible cost of the Partition of the Punjab in 1947 - besides the violence, loss of life and property - was that it destroyed the psychic equilibrium of the displaced population. This is the story of one such woman, Shakunt, who rebuilt her life but could never get over the trauma of losing her homes in Quetta and Jhang - not just the loss of a physical space but of the language, culture and ethos that it had embodied. A syncretic culture of multilingualism - Urdu, Persian and Punjabi - and of multiple identities o...
Read more

Travel : Trip of a Lifetime - II

By -
Image
The cruise.... Too excited to go on a cruise, we three musketeers reached the spot 4 hours before the departure time. Unfortunately, even the cruise was late that  night. Whatever might be the case, it was worth the wait. It was the first time in our life, we had dined, partied and slept (of course individually) on a ship. 24 hours later, we were heading towards the train station to our very next destination, “The Eternal City”, Rome. Roaming in Rome... Adventures started as soon as we reach Rome. We forgot to validate our ticket and were dead scared that we might get caught by the officials. Getting down at the railway station, we helped an old lady who was struggling to come out of the train. It took us 2 hours to reach our hotel even though we were roaming on the same street and finally arriving at a disastrous room. I regret not checking the reviews for this one. Of all the places, Rome turned out to be the cheapest and our little stint at Rome and Vatican took ...
Read more

Thoughts : Love Thy Neighbour

By -
Image
Ahhhh... Love Thy Neighbor .. Years back when I was doing my schooling, an extract of the classic novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was taught to us in our English Literature class. The extract was aptly titled "Love thy Neighbor  as it portrayed the way how Uncle Tom, the central character, lived his life spreading love everywhere. So, why am I talking about this subject right now? I believe that today technology has crippled us so much that we have forgotten what it means to be with real people than being virtual. In fact, the same even applies to me as I was unaware of my juniors living in the adjacent room of mine. A few weeks back, when I was returning back via Bangalore airport, I took some time to notice people around me. People were busy with themselves either working on their laptops or talking on phone, but there was this one small incident that caught my eye. A family of 3, father, mother and their son who must be of around 6 or 7, dining together. I...
Read more