I have yet to find a stealth-signed Neil Gaiman book in an airport. Maybe it’s just the places I’ve been lately, like Omaha, Nebraska, or maybe just my luck and not finding the right one (the signed one), especially since there’s currently some massive Gaiman book displays in honor of the new season of American Gods and the forthcoming live-action Good Omens. At the bookshop in the Omaha airport, I made an impulse decision to console myself by getting a copy of Coraline.
Coraline is one the one hand classic Gaiman, but on the other not my favorite. I like his general take on children’s stories and fairy tales by going back to the original tone of including some actual scary bits but nothing too horrific or at least graphic. The Graveyard Book nailed it for me, and Coraline has that edge too. I also like the gradual increase of the creepy level as Coraline gets to know the Other world a little better and starts to notice things about it that aren’t quite right. I also liked that things weren’t quite over even when it seemed like they should be. This bit was especially good in that Coraline herself says that she triumphed and it should be over, and it’s not quite fair that it’s not really over. I liked that little meta-moment. Also, the cat. And the illustrations- I liked the style; it fits the story.
The things that I didn’t like as well are that the button-eyes aren’t really explained; why buttons? A reason for that would have been nice, and not making me guess about it’s a doll thing, or maybe there’s something else I’m missing, or or or…. And how exactly did the Other Mother get Coraline’s parents stuck where she did? The other thing was Coraline herself, at least at first. She was a little too realistic in how she thought about her parents. Like refusing on principle to even try her dad’s “recipe’s” (apparently something Gaiman is himself guilty of- he’s the dad in this one) but complaining that no one pays enough attention to her or thinks about her. This bothered me just enough that I started to dislike the character a little. On the one hand, it’s reasonably accurate, but it’s also bratty. Granted, Coraline matures a little by the end of the story, and it was pretty touching how she remembers about her dad and the hornets and what bravery really is. But what about Mom, real Mom that is? Why’s there a bad one, but nothing to redeem the real one from Coraline’s perspective?
One of the more interesting things I saw in an excerpt of interview in an appendix was that the story was started for one daughter and finished for another one. This got me thinking: what would have a dad who thinks up stories like this do to a person and their taste in stories or literature? Apparently the older daughter for whom it was started liked the finished story (when she was 16), but no mention of what the younger one thought. That would have been interesting to know. I wonder what I would have thought of this as a six-year old. I’m now old enough to be parent to a child of that age, and there’s a lot to appreciate here, but I’m not sure 6-year old me would have liked it. I genuinely don’t know. I may have to give this to my 7-year old niece for her birthday to find out.