Coraline
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| Author | Neil Gaiman |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Dave McKean |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy |
| Publisher | |
| Publication date | 2002 |
| Pages | 192 |
Coraline (2002) is a novella for children and adults by the British author Neil Gaiman. It was awarded the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Novella, the 2003 Nebula Award for Best Novella, and the 2002 Bram Stoker Award for Best Work for Young Readers.
Plot
Often compared to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland books because of its surreality and its alternate-reality based plot, Coraline is the story of a young girl named Coraline (similar to Caroline, but with a reversal of the first two vowels).
Having recently moved into a new apartment with her loving but terminally distracted and preoccupied parents, Coraline finds herself bored one rainy day and, upon her father's suggestion, decides to explore the flat. She finds a locked door in the drawing room, which her mother opens and explains once led to the flat next door and was bricked up when they separated the building (which was once a single house) into apartments. That night, Coraline hears a strange noise and sees a small black shadow slip down the hall outside her bedroom and into the drawing room; when Coraline turns on the light, it has vanished.
The next day she takes her mother's key and opens the door, to find that it suddenly opens not onto the brick wall, but onto a dark corridor, down which she finds another apartment, seemingly a twisted copy of her own. This alternate world is inhabited by her "Other Mother" and "Other Father", two duplicates of her parents except with buttons sewn over their eyes. Once there, her Other Mother traps Coraline in the other world by kidnapping her parents, wanting her to live there forever. Coraline learns that her Other Mother captured three other children before her and turned them into ghosts, stealing their souls. Desperate to escape, Coraline makes a bet with her Other Mother: If she can find the three children's souls and her parents, then they can all go home. The Other Mother agrees, swearing to honor the agreement on her "good right hand". Caroline uses a stone with a hole in it (given to her previously by an eccentric neighbor) to find the children's souls, despite attempts by the Other Mother to trick her. The children warn Coraline that the Other Mother will break her word sooner than let Coraline leave. Coraline confronts her Other Mother and guesses falsely that her real parents are trapped in the corridor between the two flats. When the Other Mother opens the door to prove that she's wrong, Coraline escapes with the souls, the key to the door, and her parents (who were actually hidden as ornaments in a snow globe). The children are able to pass on to the afterlife, but Coraline's task is not yet done. After breaking her word, the Other Mother lost her good right hand, which entered Coraline's world and tries to steal the key to the door from her. Coraline manages to lure the hand to a well and tricks it into falling into the well, ridding the world of the danger of the Other Mother forever.
This novel deals with concerns about identity, family love and belief in one's self.
Characters
- Coraline Jones: The titular young heroine and self proclaimed explorer, she is young, clever, and as curious as they come. She is often aggravated by rain, crazy grownups (as they all seem to be,) and not being taken seriously because of her young age and quiet demeanor. Perhaps her single biggest pet peeve is that everyone mistakes her name for Caroline (everyone in the real world at least, except the mice and her parents).
- Mummy and Daddy: Coraline's parents, loving but distracted computer workers, who do most of their work from home.
- The Cat: A black cat from Coraline's world (as opposed to that of the Other Mother). The cat acts as a mentor to Coraline and guides her through her journey. It claims to have no name, explaining that cats do not need names to tell each other apart. It can talk but only talks in the Other Mother's world.
- The Other Mother: The person (or thing) that created (or found) the 'Other' world. She is almost identical to Coraline's real mother but taller and thinner, with long black hair that seems to move by itself, black button eyes, paper-white skin, and too-long, twitchy fingers with long dark red nails. She cannot create, but only copy, twist and change things from the real world when constructing her version of it. She collects children, whom she quickly becomes bored or frustrated with, after which she imprisons them behind a magical mirror and slowly sucks the life from them; she intends to do the same with Coraline. She is referred to several times as 'the beldam.'
- The Other Father: A 'creation' of the Other Mother; he follows the Other Mother. He is punished by the Other Mother for talking to Coraline behind the Other Mother's back.
- Miss Forcible and Miss Spink: A pair of retired actresses who live in the flat next door to Coraline. They own several Scottish dogs, and talk in theater jargon, often referencing their time as actresses. They recognize the danger Coraline's in after reading her fortune through tea leaves and give her a stone with a hole in it to help protect her. In the other world they are young, pretty and perform unendingly in front of the Scottie dogs, who, in the other world, behave like humans.
- Mr. Bobo: A retired circus performer living in the flat above Coraline's; he is commonly referred to as the Crazy Man Upstairs. Over the course of the book he claims to be training mice to perform in a mouse circus, and often brings Coraline messages from the mice. His 'Other' world counterpart trains rats, and is in fact made of rats.
- The Three Children: Former 'children' of the Other Mother, lured from their ordinary lives in the same manner as Coraline and imprisoned behind a mirror. Coraline has to find their souls as part of a challenge she makes with the Other Mother in an attempt to win both her, the children, and her parents' freedom.
One of them is a boy and the other two are girls, one with strange characteristics of a butterfly, or fairy. Judging by their out-dated manner of speech, and references they make to their former lives, they have been imprisoned for a very long time.
Film
Laika Entertainment House (formerly Will Vinton Studios) is in production on an upcoming film based on the book to be directed by Henry Selick.
Graphic Novel
A graphic novel adaptation is in the works. It is being illustrated by P. Craig Russell and lettered by Todd Klein.
Translations
- Koralina (Polish), ISBN 83-89004-34-8
External links
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