Coraline

Finally, I started reading for RIP III! My first forey into the horror genre this month was Coraline by Neil Gaiman. I have never read anything by this author and have to admit, unlike public blog opinion, I didn’t really love Coraline.

The premise is cool – A young girl moves with her parents into a flat in an old house. She is left to explore on her own while her parents practically ignore her, busy with their work lives. She discovers a door than enters into a home eerily similar to her own and that’s where she finds her other mother. At first, her other mother seems perfect. She pays attention to Coraline, makes her wonderfully home cooked meals and even gives her a room full of fanciful toys. The only real physical difference between her mother and this other mother are the eyes – two large, shiny black buttons. All is well until both her other parents tell her that if she really wants to stay with them forever and always, she has to do just one little thing…

They went into the kitchen. On a china plate on the kitchen table was a spool of black cotton, and a long silver needle, and, beside them, two large black buttons. “I don’t thinks so,” said Coraline.

That’s when the real trouble starts for Coraline.

I’ll admit that this was a pretty scary book and I mean that in a good way. Instead of blood and gore, Gaiman uses the feeling of foreboding to make you get creeped out. Similar to M. Night Shyamalan’s style of movie-making, Coraline was plenty frightening without being gratuitous. I probably won’t ever look at a shiny black button the same again.

Having said that, the book felt a little unfinished to me. I would have appreciated if the author discussed where the “other” mother came from. I understand that she is kind of like a witch, but I would have apprecaited finding out how she came to be on the other side of that door. This seems to be to be a huge plot hole that was never quite explained. Coraline is a novella for children and maybe that is where the problem lies. I gobbled this book up in practically one sitting and had it been a bit longer, with a little more detail throughout, then maybe I would have enjoyed more. I also found the illustrations by Dave McKean in my version of the book to be uninspiring. I much prefer the below posters for the movie version of Coraline coming out in 2009.

 

Even though I didn’t fall in love with this book, I appreciated the very creative idea of the storie and look forward to the movie. Based on the trailer and the “making of” videos below, the fact that I love this type of animated stop motion film-making and since it will be in 3-D, I’ll be sure to add this to my list of must see movies. 

All in all, Coraline was an interesting book, it just left me wanting more.

Advertisement