Coraline

Что делать, если ты переехала в новый дом, до школы еще целая неделя, на улице дождь и туман, а родители вечно заняты? Разумеется, ИССЛЕДОВАТЬ! Так юная Коралина знакомится с весьма странными соседями и в высшей степени независимым черным котом, а потом обнаруживает запертую дверь, ведущую в… никуда? Как бы не так! За этой дверью - целый мир! Мир, в котором все точно так же - и совершенно по-другому.Мир, в show more котором тебя ждут вкусная еда и красивая одежда, но главное - другие мама и папа: точно такие же, но более внимательные и заботливые.Только кожа их тонка и бела, как бумага. Только пальцы их чересчур длинные и нервные, а вместо глаз у них - круглые пуговицы. Только слишком уж жутко от одной мысли остаться с ними навсегда… show less

K and I were in a bookstore not long ago, and I was looking for something. Anything. I wandered around my favorite sections, and nothing jumped out at me. I hit the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section last – because I don't often buy anything there – and saw a new copy of Coraline. Attracted as I am to flashy marketing, the silver print on black background appealed to me. Plus, it's one of the few Gaiman books that I've never read. So I picked it up and took it back to the café, where K already had a stack of books she was skimming through to see which ones she wanted to buy.

It's a quick read, let me tell you. I was 50 pages into it by the time K was ready to leave. Considering the book itself is only 162 pages long, I knew I had to take it show more home with me. I finished it that afternoon.

What an amazing little novella. Creepy even for adults but clearly targeted towards children. The surreal alternate world that Coraline steps into reminded me a little of Alice's Wonderland if it were painted in hues of gray and if the Queen of Hearts wanted to pluck out Alice's eyes and replace them with sewn-on buttons.

Gaiman is a master at creating an unsettling mood and characters that you care about and would therefore like to see them get back to an environment less hostile. But I think his true genius is in the story creating. Sure, he borrows elements from other stories (doors in the house leading to alternate realities... sounds familiar) but it's the way in which he weaves them together that amazes me.

I've now read all of Gaiman's novels (and novellas) and though I'm hard pressed to say which one is my favorite, I think this will hold a special place in my heart because of the bravery and fortitude of a little girl named Coraline. Oh, and her cat. show less

My favourite Gaiman so far. I don't quite know what to say about this marvellous book without giving too much away - Coraline is a thoroughly modern heroine but the roots of the story are firmly in the past. She's strong and brave but still very much a naughty child who comes to discover a doorway into a parallel world where getting what she wants has unintended consequences and she has to fight to regain what she really loves. Marvellously eccentric support characters too... Loved it.

A creepy, fantastical, well-done children's tale. I actually listened to the audiobook for this one, which is unusual for me. Gaiman does a stellar job, drawing out the creepy sounding name and the weird townsfolk who add charm. Those rat songs voices? Eerie. He creates strong atmosphere here, it's easy to see those blank and staring button eyes. A girl gets bored, then gets more than she bargains for, but comes to realize in the end that imperfections are what makes perfect stand out.

Now this was a bit scary and creepy and unsettling, which I'd forgotten. I finally got around to watching the film recently and enjoyed it a lot, and it's a good example of a film that changes aspects of the book to take advantage of the medium - stop-motion animation - that add to rather than detract from the source material. Still the book is better, because it's hard to beat Gaiman's prose, with its cool, sinister economy and rich characterisation and evocation of a deliciously skewed variations of reality.

Coraline Jones discovers a doorway to a neighbouring world that's a lot like her home, filled with people that are a lot like her family and neighbours, but which isn't or aren't. Her other mother and her other father might seem show more like they want to bring her joy and happiness and interesting things, but there's something off and wrong about everything. Unfortunately now that she's passed through the door, her other mother isn't going to go away. She loves Coraline and wants to make her happy, no matter what.

Spooky and creepy but also lovely and lively and oh-so-readable. It may seem more subdued than the elaborate pyrotechnic visuals of the film, but this pulls you in and takes you along with the mounting suspense and atmosphere of foreboding. And the rats' song remains one of the creepiest things ever. show less

This a perfect, traditional fairy* tale, with a slightly surreal twenty-first century warp. The writing is as magical as the plot.

Its thirteen chapters are delightful, dark, and funny, with a heroine many can relate to, as child, parent, or both.

Coraline is intelligent, inquisitive, slightly contrary, hates being bored, and wishes her parents paid her more attention, and didn’t feed her “recipes”. Perhaps, she wishes she had different parents. And you should always be careful what you wish for, even if you don’t know you’ve wished for it.

So begins an adventure in which Coraline unlocks a door, goes down a secret passage, and finds herself in an alternate world that is eerily familiar, and scarily unfamiliar. She must show more conquer fears, discover the truth, and solve problems to find and rescue her parents, herself, and others.

"A book is not supposed to be a mirror. It's supposed to be a door." Fran Lebowitz.

There are echoes of Grimm, Lewis Carroll, Roald Dahl, Dickens, Greek myths, and others, but it's also thoroughly original. It is YYA, rather than YA. I only wish it had been published a decade ago, so I could have read when my son was YYA.

Learning Outcomes

This isn’t a remotely teachy or preachy book, but Coraline learns a lot about life, familial love, and especially herself. She finds bravery she didn’t know she had, but she faces temptation as well. “The other mother loved her… as a dragon loves gold.” The other mother offers her everything she thinks she wants. But there is a price, and Coraline has a Eureka moment, and declares:
“I don’t want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted? Just like that, and it didn’t mean anything?”

The Importance of Names

Names are often endowed with supernatural power, but in this book, it’s almost the reverse.

In Coraline’s real world, there is a strange man who has an apartment in the same house; Coraline doesn’t know his name (it hadn’t even occurred to her that he had one), and he always gets hers wrong (Caroline).

The equivalent man in the alternative world always gets her name right, and yet that's also where the cat explains why names are unimportant: “We [cats] know who we are, so we don’t need names.” When Coraline asks what she'd do if she needed to call it, the cat replies, “Calling cats… tends to be a rather overrated activity. Might as well call a whirlwind.”

The Importance of Fairy Tales

In the introduction, Gaiman says that the prime message he wanted to convey to his young daughters was that bravery is “when you’re scared but still do it anyway”.

Hence, he opens with a quote from GK Chesterton:
“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

That reminded me of an equally pertinent one from Ursula Le Guin:
“People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.”

Chris Riddell’s Illustrations Compared with Henry Selick's Film

My edition of the book is illustrated by Chris Riddell, who has also illustrated Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. I have fond memories of his collaboration with Paul Stewart on The Edge Chronicles, read with my son a dozen years ago, and enjoy his cartoons in The Literary Review.

The slightly different imagery of the film is probably familiar to more people. I saw it several years ago, and it feels like a Tim Burton work, but it was actually adapted and directed by Henry Selick, who worked with Burton on The Nightmare Before Christmas, and also directed James and The Giant Peach (Miss Spink and Miss Forcible reminded me of aunts Spiker and Sponge).

Submit to being entrapped in this tangled web of creative talent.

Quotes

• “It wasn’t the kind of rain you could go out in, it was the other kind, the kind that threw itself down from the sky and splashed where it landed. It was rain that meant business.”

• “'Go away,' he said cheerfully.”

• “An argument as old and comfortable as an armchair… that no one ever really wins or loses.”

• “The mist hung like blindness around the house.”

• “She had the feeling that the door was looking back at her, which she knew was silly, and knew on a deeper level was somehow true.”

• “There was something slightly vague about his face – like bread dough that has begun to rise.”

• “Her long white fingers fluttered gently, like a tired butterfly.”

• “Her hair was wriggling like lazy snakes on a warm day. Her black-button eyes seemed as if they had been freshly polished.”

• “If she were nowhere, then she could be anywhere. And, after all, it is always easier to be afraid of something you can’t see.”

• “Her voice did not just come from her mouth. It came from the mist, and the fog, and the house, and the sky.”

• “Mirrors… are never to be trusted.”
But Gaiman is.
This book is magical.
I already said that, but it’s worth repeating.

* No actual fairies in this fairy tale, but that's true of most of the best fairy tales, imo. show less

Coraline is an explorer. She moves with her parents into a strange new flat with even stranger neighbours. There are Miss Spink and Miss Forcible who used to be in the theatre and can't seem to let their previouslife go. Upstairs is a crazy man who claims to have a trained mouse band who will perform for her when they are ready. He also keeps calling her Caroline not Coraline much to her frustration.

Neither her father or mother has much time for her, leaving her to amuse herself often while she waits to start her new school. Luckily she has an excellent imagination and is very intelligent. She ignores warnings from the crazy man's mice as well as the tea leaves both Miss Spink and Miss Forcible read telling her she is in danger, by show more going through a secret door. It leads her into an alternative version of her house inhabited by her other mother and other father with eyes made of buttons. They want her to stay with them where they can love her and spend all their time with her. She will have to choose between staying and having buttons sewn where her eyes are, or going back to her neglectful parents.

She decides to go back home, but things are not so simple. Her other mother is relucant to let her go and agrees to a game to decide Coraline's fate. If she finds her parents who have been hidden somewhere in the fake house by her other mother, along with the souls of three lost children she has captured she can go home. Her other mother is not to be trusted and Coraline pits her wits against the horrors within the house accompanied by a sarcastic black cat.

A chilling and surreal read written for Gaiman's two daughters. It is a children's tale, but I certainly wouldn't read it at night if I was a kid! Lots of bumps in the night and some very graphic imagery as Gaiman does what he is best at. Illustrated by Dave McKean which really ramps up the chill factor. Another great collaboration. show less