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Less Smoke, More Mirrors
A Review by Chris Bolton

Neil Gaiman might disagree, but it’s difficult for me to imagine he will conjure another fantasia that exceeds or even equals his Sandman graphic novels (his Death graphic novels come close, but technically they fall under the Sandman umbrella). Perhaps it’s just as well, then, that he continues to experiment in different genres.

Gaiman’s newest book is a children’s story. An antidote to those who found last year’s American Gods too long and episodic, Coraline is only 30,000 words long. It also contains a handful of superb black-and-white illustrations by Gaiman’s longtime collaborator, Dave McKean (Signal to Noise, Violent Cases).

Coraline is a pungently macabre tale of a young girl who finds a doorway in her new home that leads to a crack’d-mirror-image of her own world. There is a house that looks much like her own, but not quite, and a mother who resembles her own, but not quite. Perhaps it’s the buttons where her eyes ought to be, or possibly the smile full of teeth that are just a little too long. Whatever this place is, and whoever this “other mother” may be, something just isn’t right for poor Coraline:

She stared at the picture hanging on the wall: no, it wasn’t exactly the same. The picture they had in their own hallway showed a boy in old-fashioned clothes staring at some bubbles. But now the expression on his face was different — he was looking at the bubbles as if he was planning to do something very nasty indeed to them.

I could tell you that Gaiman’s tale reads a little like Alice in Wonderland as rewritten by Roald Dahl, with a touch of Edward Gorey, but that isn’t doing Gaiman justice. After all, every children’s fantasy with a little girl ends up being compared to Alice, even when (as in this case) the resemblance is only superficial. Gaiman’s story is an original.

And yet, somehow, like the other mother, something isn’t quite right. Perhaps it’s the prose, which is plainer than one expects from Gaiman, or the characters, who are intriguing without ever taking hold the way so many of the Sandman’s supporting cast (Death, Delirium, and Lucifer, to name a few) have lived on past the series’ conclusion. Coraline herself is sympathetic yet bland; I found myself wishing Gaiman had borrowed a page from Lewis Carroll, after all, and written a wittier heroine.

Coraline is an entertaining, more than competent story. Compared to American Gods, a meandering shaggy-dog tale with an even blander protagonist, the book is a welcome return to form for Gaiman. The plot moves at a steady clip, although the first half is stronger due to the excitement of Coraline’s discoveries. The ending of Coraline is suspenseful and satisfying; the villain is cleverly dispatched — though for how long is uncertain.

Children reading Coraline — or, better yet, having it read to them with panache and theatricality, perhaps by Gaiman himself, in the audiobook, with its hauntingly catchy theme by the Gothic Archies — will be drawn into the story and enjoy its creepy imagery. Things that cause adults to shudder often bring a grin to the lips of a child. It’s a fine introduction to Neil Gaiman’s fantasy writing, likely to inspire further reading. I suspect that children who start with Coraline and work their way to the Sandman books as teenagers are going in the right order; along the way they may be dazzled by Gaiman’s earlier fantasies, Neverwhere and Stardust, and savor the short tales in his Smoke and Mirrors.