Coraline
Author: Neil Gaiman
Publisher: Bloomsbury
This is an extremely spooky book. It tells the story of Coraline (who keeps getting called "Caroline"). When Coraline and her parents move into a new flat, in an old house, strange things begin to happen. There are weird neighbours, and a door in the drawing room that seems to have a brick wall behind it. One day, when Coraline opens the door in the drawing room, she discovers that it actually leads to a kind of parallel universe. In the 'other house' are her 'other parents'. In a terrifying twist, her 'other mother' has shiny black buttons on her face, instead of eyes. Would Coraline like to join her, and have shiny black buttons for eyes as well? From this point onwards, the book turns into a kind of horror story, where Coraline gets trapped in the alternative world, and can only escape if she saves some souls and releases her parents from a snow globe.
It's hard to do justice to this book by describing the story, because the weirdness of the story is part of the point of the book. Although the book is simple in terms of vocabulary and narrative, and it has a 'happy ending', it is genuinely disturbing. It is the kind of story that sits in your mind for a long time after you have read it, as you try to figure out what analogy Neil Gaiman is drawing. I'm still not completely sure what the book was 'about', but perhaps that is the idea. As one of the reviews quoted in the front of the book says, "it reads like Alice in Wonderland crossed with Stephen King". Just like the best horror stories, Coraline addresses your fears, turns them into fiction, and in doing so, helps you to cope with the dark, the hidden and the scary. It is unusual to find a book that is more disturbing for an adult to read, than it would be for a child. Coraline is that book. It is a short, but deeply affecting, read.
Coraline
Author: Neil Gaiman
Publisher: Bloomsbury
This is an extremely spooky book. It tells the story of Coraline (who keeps getting called "Caroline"). When Coraline and her parents move into a new flat, in an old house, strange things begin to happen. There are weird neighbours, and a door in the drawing room that seems to have a brick wall behind it. One day, when Coraline opens the door in the drawing room, she discovers that it actually leads to a kind of parallel universe. In the 'other house' are her 'other parents'. In a terrifying twist, her 'other mother' has shiny black buttons on her face, instead of eyes. Would Coraline like to join her, and have shiny black buttons for eyes as well? From this point onwards, the book turns into a kind of horror story, where Coraline gets trapped in the alternative world, and can only escape if she saves some souls and releases her parents from a snow globe.
It's hard to do justice to this book by describing the story, because the weirdness of the story is part of the point of the book. Although the book is simple in terms of vocabulary and narrative, and it has a 'happy ending', it is genuinely disturbing. It is the kind of story that sits in your mind for a long time after you have read it, as you try to figure out what analogy Neil Gaiman is drawing. I'm still not completely sure what the book was 'about', but perhaps that is the idea. As one of the reviews quoted in the front of the book says, "it reads like Alice in Wonderland crossed with Stephen King". Just like the best horror stories, Coraline addresses your fears, turns them into fiction, and in doing so, helps you to cope with the dark, the hidden and the scary. It is unusual to find a book that is more disturbing for an adult to read, than it would be for a child. Coraline is that book. It is a short, but deeply affecting, read.
