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Coraline

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Coraline
AuthorNeil Gaiman
IllustratorDave McKean
LanguageEnglish
GenreFantasy
PublisherHarper Collins
Publication date
2002
Pages192
For the vampire character Coraline on the television series "Moonlight", see Moonlight (TV series).

Coraline (2002) is a novella 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. It has been compared to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland books because of its surreality and its alternate-reality based plot.

Plot

Having recently moved into a new apartment with her loving but 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 but was bricked up when the building (which was once a single house) was separated 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, but the door, which was previously closed by her mother, is slightly cracked.

The next day she takes her mother's key and opens the door to find, instead of a brick wall, a dark corridor which leads to another apartment, seemingly a twisted copy of her own. This alternate world is inhabited by her Other Mother and Other Father, who are almost exact physical duplicates of her real parents. The only difference: a pair of black buttons sewn in place of their eyes. These Other parents seem at first to be more interesting, and more caring duplicates of her real parents, particularly her Other Mother, who seems intent on keeping Coraline happy and entertained. Coraline spends a pleasant day exploring this alternate world, making the acquaintance of a rather self-centered black cat that can actually speak, and visiting her neighbors, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, and the crazy old man upstairs, all of whom have been changed into more eerie versions of themselves. At the day's end, Coraline is met on her way to the door by her Other Mother, who offers her a chance to stay in this new, exciting world forever...if only Coraline is willing to do one small thing. She ushers Coraline to the kitchen, where a plate with a needle, thread, and two small black buttons awaits. Coraline decides she'd much rather go home, much to the disappointment of her Other Mother, who calls for her to come back soon as Coraline steps back through the corridor to her own flat once again.

Upon her return to her flat, Coraline waits in vain for her parents to return from their errands, but after a day or two passes without any sign, she suddenly sees them reflected in a hallway mirror, upon which her mother quickly breathes and writes "Help Us" backwards before vanishing. Coraline knows instantly her parents have been kidnapped by her Other Mother, and resolves to rescue them. She gathers her courage, and with a special stone given to her by Misses Spink and Forcible, travels once more to the Other Mother's world. After angering her Other Mother by refusing to accept any proffered gifts or love, she is taken to her room, where her Other Mother opens a door hidden in her mirror and casts her into a small, dark room. While in the room, Coraline meets the souls of three other children from different eras whom the "beldam" has tired of and cast into the darkness. Coraline promises to free them, and just before falling asleep, she is told to "look through the stone" that she brought with her, which has a small hole in its middle.

The next day, Coraline is freed from her prison behind the mirror. Desperate to escape, she 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". With the help of her new feline friend, Coraline uses the stone to find the children's souls one by one despite attempts by the Other Mother to trick her, discovering that each soul is trapped inside a grey marble that glows with firey color when seen through the stone. The children warn Coraline that the Other Mother will break her word before she would let Coraline leave. Coraline and the cat, whom Coraline has promised to rescue as well, confront her Other Mother and Coraline pretends to guess falsely that her real parents are trapped in the corridor between the two flats. When the Other Mother opens the locked door to prove that she's wrong, Coraline throws the cat in her arms directly at the Beldam, who bleeds black tar from the cat's scratches instead of blood. Coraline and the black cat escape with the souls, the key to the door, and her parents (who were actually hidden as ornaments in a snow globe above the Other mantelpiece), but almost perish as something "very old and very slow" in the corridor awakens to her presence. However, Coraline reaches her flat, and finds, to her delight, that her parents have been restored to their usual, boring selves.

The next night, Coraline dreams that the children are able to finally pass on to the afterlife, but she discovers that her task is not yet done. After breaking her word, the Other Mother sends her good right hand to retrieve the black key that opens the door between the two worlds, the key that Coraline now carries on a string about her neck. The hand enters Coraline's world and tries several times to steal the key from her, gouging claw marks in her window at night and injuring local pets. Coraline uses the key to lure the hand to a very deep well on the property and tricks it into falling in, ridding the world of the danger of the Other Mother forever.

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: Coraline's mother (Mrs. Jones) works at her house on the computer. She is very busy most of the time, but she loves and cares about Coraline. She is married to Mr. Jones, Coraline's father. She is pretty, nice, helpful, and outgoing.
  • Daddy: Coraline's father (Mr. Jones) works at his house on the computer which he spends most of his time on (his job). He cares about Coraline very much and is very nice, gentlemanly, handsome, and helpful.
  • 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 does so in the Other Mother's world.
  • The Other Mother or Beldam: The creature 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 scottie 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 Old 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.

Adaptations

Film

Main article: Coraline (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 was illustrated by P. Craig Russell and lettered by Todd Klein.[1]

Musical

A theatrical adaptation, with music and lyrics by Stephin Merritt and book by David Greenspan, will have its world premiere on May 6 , 2009.

Translations

  • Koralina (Polish), ISBN 83-89004-34-8
  • Kóralína (Icelandic), ISBN 9979-3-2488-0
  • Coraline (Slovenian), ISBN 978-961-010-512-1

References

  1. ^ P. Craig Russell - Adapting Coraline and More, Newsarama, August 19, 2008
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