The Writer and the Christian

I have taken a brief rest from posting on Jim Wallis, but I will return to this later. For now, I would like to begin reviewing some of the fiction I have been reading.

First up is Coraline, by respected fantasy writer and graphic novelist Neil Gaiman. I confess myself a fan of Gaiman, whose Stardust I am currently reading - and loving - and whose Good Omens is both literary and hilarious. Coraline is a young adult work, and it is good - really, really good.

The book is creepy and other-worldly, like a dream remembered after waking. Coraline and her parents have just moved into a very old house, which has been separated into three apartment-like flats. The bottom floor is the dwelling of two gigantic old ladies, ex-theatrical actresses both, who are named Miss Spink and Miss Forcible. The top floor, the third, is the home of “the man upstairs,” who claims to be training up a mouse circus.

Coraline is restless, wandering around trying to find something to do, and unable to connect with her distant parents, both of whom did “things on computers” and were always consumed with their work.

So she explores, both inside and out. In the course of her exploration, she discovers a door that used to lead to other parts of the house, before they’d walled it up to make three apartments. The door opens to a brick wall - and sometimes it opens to another world, which is completely identical to the real world, right down to discovering Other Mother and Other Father in the Other Apartment. They, unlike her real parents, don’t have work, and will never be distant and do whatever Coraline wants to do, and love her forever. There’s just one catch.

Other Mother

. . . sounded like her mother. Coraline went into the kitchen, where the voice had come from. A woman stood in the kitchen with her back to Coraline. She looked a little like Coraline’s mother. Only . . .

Only her skin was white as paper.

Only she was taller and thinner.

Only her fingers were too long, and they never stopped moving, and her dark red fingernails were curved and sharp.

. . .

And then she turned around . Her eyes were big black buttons. (Coraline, 27-28).

And Coraline can stay with her loving Other Mother in the Other Place, but something must happen first.

“If you want to stay,” said her other father, “there’s only one little thing we’ll have to do, so you can stay here for ever and always.”

They went into the kitchen. On a china plate on the kitchen table was a spool of black cotton, and a long silver needle, and beside them, two large black buttons. (45).

Coraline would really rather not, and conflict ensues, amid a number of wonderful and insightful events. The book is well-suited for tweens, I think, and there is always a profound lesson. Coraline learns a bundle of them.

“Because,” said Coraline, “when you’re scared but you still do it anyway, that’s brave.” (59)

A good lesson. Here’s an even better one, the heart of the story, so to speak.

“The world will be built new for you every morning. If you stay here, you can have whatever you want.”

Coraline sighed. “You really don’t understand, do you?” she said. “I don’t want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted? Just like that, and it didn’t mean anything. What then?”

“I don’t understand,” said the whispery voice.

“Of course you don’t understand,” she said . . . (120)

All in all, Coraline is one of the most terrifying, well-written, moral fantasy stories for young adults I’ve ever read. So I highly recommend you go thou and read likewise.