Pan's Labyrinth

Pan's Labyrinth is a novel version of Guillermo del Toro's 2006 film, written with Cornelia Funke. It follows Ofelia, a girl whose head is full of fairy tales, into a story where fantasy becomes a way of looking squarely at both cruelty and wonder.

The story is set in Spain in 1944, in the aftermath of the civil war. Ofelia travels with her pregnant mother to a remote house in the middle of a dense forest, where her new stepfather, the Capitán, is stationed. Fairy tales have taught her that the world holds men and wolves, beasts and dead parents, girls and forests, and one look at the Capitán in his spotless uniform, boots and gloves, tells her which kind he is. He smiles, and she sees a wolf.

The forest hides a great deal. Half-remembered tales of lost babies linger around the place, and rebel fighters conceal themselves from the army among the trees. There are also fairies, a faun and other creatures, and at the center of it all stands an old labyrinth. A voice warns that it is easy to get lost in there, and that others have before.

With no one to protect her, Ofelia is drawn toward the labyrinth and into a story of her own. In it the monstrous and the human cannot be separated, and old myths seem to have living blood in them.