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Neil Gaiman's Coraline is perhaps the only novella that has won the Hugo and Nebula awards to have been published separately as a novel.
After years of building cult status with the Sandman comics, and with his novel Neverwhere, which was adapted for the BBC starring Lenny Henry, Neil Gaiman broke through to the front rank of novelists in 2001 with American Gods. His novella Coraline was published the following year, and is perhaps the only novella that has won the Hugo and Nebula awards to have been published separately as a novel; this is not because of its length, but because it was published as a large-print children’s novel with illustrations. Whatever the reader may think of a publisher charging six pounds (twelve dollars) for what is effectively a less than sixty page story, the narrative itself is wonderful, typically picaresque as is much of Gaiman’s work. At the start of the summer holidays, Coraline Jones’ parents have moved with her into a rambling old house that has been converted into self-contained apartments. Coraline is bored despite meeting and befriending all her neighbours – two retired actresses who spend their time reminiscencing about their days on the stage, and a mustachio-ed old gentleman with a mouse circus that refuses to perform -- and reduced to exploring the old house, finds a door that opens only onto a brick wall. Later, when she tries it without her mother being around, she steps into an alternate world. Here the house exists, but is slightly wrong. So too are her parents, who have pallid faces and buttons for eyes. Her mother is a little too bright, a little too friendly, and doesn’t want to let her go. When she does, and Coraline returns to her own reality, her parents are missing. Reduced to fending for herself, she seems them in a mirror; they have written “help us” in reverse on the glass. She reluctantly returns to her other mother and father, and accepts food from them, but unwilling to accept her Other Mother in place of her real one, Coraline is imprisoned in a cupboard with three wraiths, whose souls have been stolen by the Other Mother. Coraline’s only ally is a cat that can talk in the unreal world, and it suggests that Coraline challenge the Other Mother to a game. Coraline does; if she finds the souls of the children and her parents, the Other Mother will let her go. So begins a desperate hunt around the unreal house. As Coraline finds the souls one by one, so the unreal house starts to flatten out, and the Other Mother to reveal her true nature. Everything in this unreal world is dark, decaying and twisted. The mice are rats, the Other Father a decaying blob of dough-like flesh without real volition, the actresses imprisoned in spider’s webs. Coraline is wonderful and inventive, but although it is ostensibly a children’s book, it may be too dark for some parent’s taste. Better that the adults enjoy it.
The copyright of the article Neil Gaiman's Coraline in Sci-Fi/Fantasy Fiction is owned by Colin Harvey. Permission to republish Neil Gaiman's Coraline in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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