Coraline

A book review by Mighty Doom

British poof Neil Gaiman (and yes, amusingly enough, his last name is pronounced Gay Man), in addition to his acclaimed graphic novel series The Sandman, has written a number of contemporary fantasy novels, among them Neverwhere, adapted from his own TV miniseries, and American Gods. His latest effort is aimed at a younger audience – I’d say eight to fifteen – but it’s no less eerie, poignant or innovative. I read Coraline in three nights (it’s fairly short), and it made my skin crawl.

The title character, a young and somewhat apathetic London girl, moves into a new flat with her parents and immediately begins exploring, meeting in the process a number of eccentrics who occupy the house along with Coraline’s family. Most notable are Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, a pair of aging ex-actresses, and an unnamed old man who keeps mice he claims can play music on tiny instruments. Coraline also catches sight of something small and dark that darts from room to room in her flat. The oddest of her discoveries, however, is a door in the library that opens onto a brick wall.

Coraline discovers by happenstance a huge black key that fits the mysterious door perfectly, and when she opens it she finds herself in a sort of parallel universe. Her “other parents” are pale and have black buttons sewn into their eyes – and they want to sew buttons into hers as well, so she can stay with them forever. Coraline escapes back into her flat, but soon discovers that her parents have vanished, and that their counterparts must be responsible. Back in the lion’s den and searching for answers, Coraline is haunted by the lost souls of three children, held captive by the “other mother” like herself.

Coraline proposes a game to her other mother: if she finds the three children, the other mother will let them go and release Coraline and her parents – but if she fails, she’ll have buttons sewn into her eyes and will end up like the others. The search takes Coraline all over the flat, through some thoroughly unsettling locales – including an old theater with winged dogs hanging from the ceiling and a sinister basement with arcane symbols scrawled over its walls – and as Coraline takes the upper hand and the other mother (now revealed as some dark and ancient entity) grows angry, the world begins to dissolve. The house begins to lose its shape, the scenery becomes less and less detailed, the whole fabric of reality growing more and more simplistic.

This is an incredibly creepy book, and Dave McKeane’s illustrations suit it perfectly. Coraline is a likeable heroine, and her companion, a talking cat, is both witty and brutally honest. Gaiman does horror well, as he’s shown with numerous issues of Hellblazer he’s scripted, and some of the scenes in Coraline will keep you up an extra hour or two at night. The imagery is eerie and sometimes even revolting, such as when Coraline’s other mother is eating live beetles like bonbons, or when Coraline finds herself in the apartment of the “other” Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, who have melded into a slimy, sluglike thing hanging from the wall in the abandoned theater.

There isn’t a great deal wrong with this book. It’s essentially a fairy tale, in the same basic vein as the Brothers Grimm, so I can’t really complain that it’s too short, or that the characters’ motivations are not sufficiently explained. It’s a story about fear, and particularly the admirable ability to overcome fear. Gaiman’s writing is deft as ever, and though we may be used to McKeane’s intricate collage artwork, his line art in Coraline is, in its own way, just as complex and abstract. This is a unique story, a very different sort of haunted house yarn, and I’d recommend it to anyone with an interest in modern British horror and a few hours to spare.