I bought this book sometime back when I realised that the "Absolute Sandman" series would be absolutely beyond my budget (not to mention space!) to have.
There Coraline sat in my office cupboard until last week when I had to take time off to see the doctor. From prior experience I knew that it would be a wait at the doc's, so I decided to take a book along.
I opened my cupboard to evaluate the book stash: Coraline, The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli. Reasoning that in my current state I was probably in no frame of mind to read the latter 2, I took Coraline with me, thinking that the graphics could occupy me even if the words couldn't make sense in my current sick frame of mind.
All in all I liked the book very much, writing, storyline and graphics.
Coraline is this young and feisty girl who fancies herself an explorer. An only child, she is sometimes lonely and feels unloved and unattended in the company of adults (which child doesn't?).
One day she opens a door in her house. Previously, the door had opened to a wall, but now it led to another world.
A world which is eerily like her own only now, her other parents are very much more attentive and she is given food which she very much likes to eat.
But something is not quite right -- a veneer of falseness tinges this new world, (this is also the part that made me avert my eyes away on seeing the graphic because Coraline's other parents have buttons for eyes. Black opaque ones where the light is reflected in them) and soon she wants to return home. To her real home. Her Other Mother refuses.
Somehow Coraline manages to return, but she soon discovers that she has to go back to the other world to save her parents, who have been trapped. Against her fears, the brave child goes back in, and eventually saves the day. Seeing past the make-believe world that her Other Mother creates, she manages to get her parents back as well as save other children whose souls were trapped in marbles by the Other Mother, with the help of a mysterious black cat. (The Other Father is but a pawn created by the Other Mother.) Returning to her own world, she eventually traps her Other Mother in a well.
Like many of Gaiman's books, the story is easy enough to understand, yet the writing is compelling to read. Graphics are lovely too, kudos to PCR. [I couldn't put down the book even after I came out from the doc's; as I walked back to my office tower I was still furiously devouring the book. I finished the last 2 pages in the office, unwilling to put it down until I had seen the ending.]
One sentence that Coraline said, when in a typical Devil's Bargain, the Other Mother offered her the world (and then some), if Coraline would but love her and renounce her world, struck me. I don't have the book with me right now, so I can't recall the exact words, but it ran something like "Who wants to live in a world where you can everything? Nobody!". Which struck me as quite true. Wants are but wishes, and if you have all of them fulfilled simply by asking for it, it's never gonna be quite as fun. It was not exactly a sudden epiphany, but it came close. Sometimes wishful thinking, has its fun bits too!
Geek rating: 4 out of 5
