Neil Gaiman
Coraline
Harper Trophy 2003
ISBN 0-380-80734-3
Monika says:
Coraline is bored during the summer holidays because her parents rarely
have time for her. They both work at home, but this doesn't mean they can
spend more time with their daughter than parents working outside their
house. The family recently moved into a new flat in a big old house, and
one rainy summer day Coraline's mother tells her bored daughter to go
exploring the house. Among other things, Coraline is supposed to count all
the doors. She finds one of them locked, it is the door at the end of the
drawing room where the family keeps her grandmother's furniture and which
Coraline isn't allowed to enter. When her mother opens the door, they find
themselves facing a brick wall blocking the passage to the flat on the
other side which is still empty. When Coraline opens the door again later,
there is no brick wall, though. Instead, she finds a corridor leading into
a mirror world inhabited by Coraline's other parents and her other
neighbours...
Okay, this reminds the reader very much of Lewis Carroll’s Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland or rather Through the Looking Glass,
but Neil Gaiman didn't populate his "mirror world" solely with
sympathetic though crazy characters. Mind you, some of them actually are
crazy, but not exactly in a harmless way. Coraline becomes aware very soon
that there is something fishy going on and that she isn't dreaming. While
trying to free herself from the clutches of her other mother who resembles
at first sight the wicked witch from the fairy tale trying to lure the
children into her gingerbread cottage with false promises and sweets,
Coraline discovers a dark secret.
I don’t know if this story would have given me nightmares if I had
actually read it when I was eight (the book is for children aged 8 and
up). Maybe not, though I would call it nightmarish today, but then, fairy
tales usually aren't any nicer, and lots of children love them. Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland definitely was among my favourite books when
I was a little girl (and I still like it today). But in contrast to Lewis
Carroll, Neil Gaiman doesn't make the slightest effort to make us believe
Coraline has accidentally entered a world where a lot of things may be
upside down but which still has its advantages. It becomes obvious too
quickly that any seeming advantages are worthless. In the end, Alice
simply awakes from a dream while Coraline has to fight her way back into
the real world. She does it in an intelligent and clever way. Something
that bugged me a bit about this story was the fact that we never learned
anything about the motives of Coraline's other mother, but then, evil
usually doesn't need a motive.
Coraline was my first book by Neil Gaiman and made me really
curious about his fantasy for adults. |
Any comments? Write us:
Monika
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