When Coraline steps through a door to find another house strangely similar to her own (only better), things seem marvelous.
But there's another mother there, and another father, and they want her to stay and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go.
Coraline will have to fight with all her wit and courage if she is to save herself and return to her ordinary life.
Definitely creepy, honestly a little surprised it's marketed as juvenile fiction. Granted, there's nothing super horrible that happens, but some of the imagery I could totally see scaring the little ones pretty bad.
I was confused having watched the movie first, because Wyborn is not in the book. The movie is pretty dang true to the book, so I had to look into it to see why a whole character was made for the movie. Apparently, he was made to fill the gaps in the movie where Coraline's thoughts were on the page. So it's at least understandable. Honestly I felt like Coraline literally being on her own to get everything figured out and get away from the other mother added some additional suspense to it.
It is nice to have a character that is scared but still manages to put on a brave face and meet the challenges head …
Definitely creepy, honestly a little surprised it's marketed as juvenile fiction. Granted, there's nothing super horrible that happens, but some of the imagery I could totally see scaring the little ones pretty bad.
I was confused having watched the movie first, because Wyborn is not in the book. The movie is pretty dang true to the book, so I had to look into it to see why a whole character was made for the movie. Apparently, he was made to fill the gaps in the movie where Coraline's thoughts were on the page. So it's at least understandable. Honestly I felt like Coraline literally being on her own to get everything figured out and get away from the other mother added some additional suspense to it.
It is nice to have a character that is scared but still manages to put on a brave face and meet the challenges head on.
This is one that I'll be saving and revisiting another time. The audiobook with the full cast was amazing, cannot recommend it enough!
A girl is trapped in a mirror world inhabited by doppelgangers with black buttons for eyes. Can she escape becoming a meal for its architect? Creepy! But excellent. Too much tension for a sleep story.
This collection of Neil Gaiman short stories is sort-of aimed at children, teenagers, and young adults. Not all the stories involve mortal danger, and some are just mood pieces riffing on the themes of fantasy. Listen to the ghosts! Do go through the door! Do not go through the door!
As Gaiman quotes 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.
These tales have all appeared else where before, some in other Gaiman collections like Fragile Things. Locations from Gaiman's own childhood repeat - big houses, the Sussex countryside, etc.
The particular edition I read came from the Wrenbury Heath book swap depository in an old red telephone box, and I shall return it to circulation in other.
Coraline is a children's book good enough to be organically read by adults. As it's fairly similar to the movie, I'll cover some not-so-obvious interpretations I had:
Throughout the read I couldn't help but feel like Coraline's other mother was a perfect embodiment of a BPD parent. Aside from the obvious BPD characteristics exhibited by the other mother, I felt the following quote summed everything up beautifully: "It was true: the other mother loved her. But she loved Coraline as a miser loves money, or a dragon love its gold. Int the other mother's button eyes, Coraline knew that she was a possession, nothing more. A tolerated pet, whose behavior was no longer amusing."
BPD-aside, very fun book. Made me laugh a few times, a bit creepy, and …
Coraline is a children's book good enough to be organically read by adults. As it's fairly similar to the movie, I'll cover some not-so-obvious interpretations I had:
Throughout the read I couldn't help but feel like Coraline's other mother was a perfect embodiment of a BPD parent. Aside from the obvious BPD characteristics exhibited by the other mother, I felt the following quote summed everything up beautifully: "It was true: the other mother loved her. But she loved Coraline as a miser loves money, or a dragon love its gold. Int the other mother's button eyes, Coraline knew that she was a possession, nothing more. A tolerated pet, whose behavior was no longer amusing."
Coraline slips into some kind of parallel version of the new house she has moved into with her parents, where there are copies of everything and everyone that she knows of in the real world, even of her mother and father, who are called 'her other mother' and 'her other father'.
But there is one big difference: each copy is some sort of distorted mirage with black button eyes of the real version, and everything there is much more exciting, but also much more scary. And one of these things has kidnapped her parents.
She has to go through several creepy encounters with those monsters to save her parents. While doing this she is far from being fearless, she is actually terribly scared. But Coraline summons her bravery out of love for her parents and out of her desire to save them and that is what makes this book so …
Coraline slips into some kind of parallel version of the new house she has moved into with her parents, where there are copies of everything and everyone that she knows of in the real world, even of her mother and father, who are called 'her other mother' and 'her other father'.
But there is one big difference: each copy is some sort of distorted mirage with black button eyes of the real version, and everything there is much more exciting, but also much more scary. And one of these things has kidnapped her parents.
She has to go through several creepy encounters with those monsters to save her parents. While doing this she is far from being fearless, she is actually terribly scared. But Coraline summons her bravery out of love for her parents and out of her desire to save them and that is what makes this book so creepy and beautiful at the same time.
And it also gives us the important message, that being brave doesn't mean you aren't scared. It means you are scared and do the right thing anyway. Something that author Neil Gaiman wanted to tell his daughters, for whom he has written the book.
Coraline will always hold a special place in my heart. I love the film, book, and audiobook, and I will always come back for the pure creativity, nostalgia, and wonder that Coraline brings me every time I revisit it.
Coraline is one of those books that you can keep reading. It's a fun, dark story, but it goes so deep and has inspired so many kids. It's a must read. Read it for yourself, or read it with your kids. Or do both. Just read it :)
Good Reads says I wrote a review of the Kindle edition. I didn't. I don't have a Kindle. I merely said I wanted to read the book, any edition, whichever I could get hold of, and so I'm reviewing the one I read. So what did I think?
I think it was a child's vision of hell.
You could sub-title it, "To hell and back".
C.S. Lewis wrote to J.R.R. Tolkien on 7 December 1929, after reading Tolkien's poem on Beren and Luthien, "The two things that come out clearly are the sense of reality in the background and the mythical value: the essence of a myth being that it should have no taint of allegory to the maker and yet should suggest incipient allegories to the reader."
And I think one could say that about this book too. I think it has no taint of allegory to [a:Neil Gaiman|1221698|Neil …
Good Reads says I wrote a review of the Kindle edition. I didn't. I don't have a Kindle. I merely said I wanted to read the book, any edition, whichever I could get hold of, and so I'm reviewing the one I read. So what did I think?
I think it was a child's vision of hell.
You could sub-title it, "To hell and back".
C.S. Lewis wrote to J.R.R. Tolkien on 7 December 1929, after reading Tolkien's poem on Beren and Luthien, "The two things that come out clearly are the sense of reality in the background and the mythical value: the essence of a myth being that it should have no taint of allegory to the maker and yet should suggest incipient allegories to the reader."
And I think one could say that about this book too. I think it has no taint of allegory to [a:Neil Gaiman|1221698|Neil Gaiman|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1234150163p2/1221698.jpg], but it suggested several incipient allegories to me while I was reading it.
Spoilers may follow
Note that these are incipient allegories, not actual allegories. They could become allegories in the hands of a fan-fic writer who wanted to extend them in that direction, but if they became fully-fledged allegories they would cease to be true myth.
Coraline had moved with her parents into a new house, which is actually a large old house that has been divided into flats. The apartment next to theirs is still empty, and the interleading door has been bricked up. But one day Coraline, feeling bored, opens the interleading door and finds a passage beyond, which leads to a another flat just like hers, with another mother and father, like hers in some ways, but having buttons for eyes. Coraline's other mother cooks a much more interesting meal than her own mother, and begs her to stay, saying that she loves her more. All she needs to do is let the other mother sew button eyes on her.
Coraline declines the offer, and returns along the passage to her real house but finds her parents gone. Her mother went shopping but did not return. Her father went to see someone on business but did not return. After two days Coraline returns to the other flat with the other mother to find out what has happened to her real parents. She explores the other house, and finds different versions of the neighbours in the other flats; younger versions of two retired actresses, reliving their memories to an audience of dogs. A cat that lived in the real world is there, but has gained the ability to talk. But as Coraline explores the woods and fields away from the house, she finds that the further she gets the less real they are. The trees look like photographs, and then like drawings, and beyond there is just a mist.
And this is the first incipient allegory, when Coraline realises that the world beyond the door is the creation of the "other mother". She displeases the other mother, and is locked up in a dark closet, where she discovers the shades of children of long ago who had likewise been lured by the other mother, and have lost their souls. Coraline discovers she has a mission, to seek and save the lost, and makes a bargain with the other mother -- if she can find the souls of the lost children, and her lost real parents, she can take them unmolested to the real world. The other mother agrees, but has no intention of keeping her side of the bargain.
Coraline realises that the world behind the door is not even the creation of the other mother. It is simply an imitation. The other mother, like Satan in the Christian myth, cannot create anything, but can only twist and distort the things already created. And Coraline comes to realise that the task the must accomplish is the harrowing of hell. She doesn't use those words, of course, but that is another of the incipient allegories that it suggested to me.
The other mother isn't an allegory of Satan, and more than C.S. Lewis's white witch of Narnia is, but her evil works in the same way. And the book suggests incipient allegories to the reader, while containing no taint of allegory to the writer.
So, if you have read the book (and I hope you have already done so before reading this) I wonder what incipient allegories it suggested to you.
What a creepy and satisfying story. As a child I wouldn't have found this half so scary, just wonderful in creepy sort of way. But as an adult it seems we learn to fear so much more, and there were moments when I cringed far more than a child's story should ever have made me. But, that's Gaiman for you. Brilliant.
This book was pretty odd, but I liked it. I'd totally read more of Gaiman's work. Especially if he reads the novel himself. Coraline does complain a lot about being bored at the beginning of the book, but when the book gets going, there's no stopping her. :)
