Coraline

I'm dispensing with the "Chapter #" headings because it's kind of tedious and a bit of a pretentious conceit. Anyway, I know that Coraline is not exactly a lesser known novel, but I saw the film over the weekend and I thought it would be fun to do a comparative bit about the two.



Coraline by Neil Gaiman is a fairy-tale esque story about a ten-year-old girl that discovers a doorway into a mirror-like world in her new apartment. This world is inhabited by her "other" mother and father, as well as alternate versions of the other tenants in the buildings. Her other parents are attentive and fastidiously loving, unlike her somewhat absent-minded and busy parents in the real world. Coraline is lured further and further into this world, before discovering that the "other mother" is actually a creature from nightmares that spins her trap out of the wishes of unhappy children. Coraline is a brave, imaginitive, resourceful girl, the perfect heroine for a reader to invest themselves in. Gaiman's prose is, as always, dark and eerie, weaving a childhood nightmare into an urban fairy tale quite deftly. The issues I had with the story where few; generally, I didn't always buy that Coraline was such a young girl. There were moments when her gravity and intellect seemed far beyond her prescribed ten years, which was only distracting in that I don't care for idealized characters. The syntax also fell flat in parts - it wasn't as vivid or as energetic, reading more like a Victorian tale (which may have been the point, I don't actually know). But the villain was suitably creepy, and the final scene was so disturbing me to me that I actually dreaded seeing it in the film. So overall, it's a good read - although I don't think I would ever actually let my child read it unattended.

All my issues with the book were ironed out and perfected in the film. Henry Selick takes the story and breathes an all-together new life into it, creating breathtakingly gorgeous scenes with stop-motion animation. Coraline, voiced by Dakota Fanning, is all that she is in the book, with a few key adjustments: in addition to being bored, she's impatient; she's intelligent and creative, but with the limited experience of a child. She needs help finding the answers in the end, even though it's her own bravery and skills that save her in the end.

The biggest thing that separates Coraline the novel from Coraline the film is possibly unfair; the visuals give the story more dimension than Gaiman's text ever does. There were two large additions to the story that I also thought added to the spirit of the thing, rather than distracting from original material: the woman who owns the apartment building had a sister who was taken by the "other mother" when she was a girl, giving the nightmare the history and mythos it needs to be truly horrifying; Wybie, this woman's grandson, is an added character of an age with Coraline who gives her someone to bounce off of and also to shade in another creepster element to the villain (in her "other" world, the changes that the other mother makes to Wybie are skin-crawling).

If you get a chance to see this in 3D, absolutely take it - the stop-motion was meant to see on a three dimensional platform. It adds a level of depth to be able to see the elements as they were modeled.

Chapter Six: Odds and Ends

I haven't ACTUALLY finished reading anything since I reviewed The Brief History of the Dead, but I did want to make a couple of notes on some things I'm in the process of reading, and I think you should, too.

Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell: Ah, the wide and wonderful world of webcomics. Why do I like this one? Well, for one thing, the art is beautiful. It's almost cubist in nature - the angles are kind of boxy, things are a little pointy, and the whole visual scheme has a very post-modern, surrealist feel to it. But more than that, the art is whimsical and pretty; it's not vibrantly colored, but the palate is varied enough that it's always interesting to look at. Unlike a lot of comics, there isn't a huge chasm between the quality of the art in the first strips and the quality now. It has improved, but it was never bad.

The story arcs are fabulous. The whole story is set in a Western European boarding school situated across from a forest (think the Forbidden Forest from Harry Potter), and each arc contains an interesting fantasy story artfully entwined with the daily ministrations of main character Antimony, a student at the school. Tom's awareness of his characters' ages, and how they react to situations and still manage to worry about their homework (in a very non-trite fashion) is incredibly endearing. Each arc builds to its own crescendo and wraps itself up neatly, while also continuing to build on the ongoing plot and character developments.

Where Gunnerkrigg Court really pulls its own is in the characters. It has a very large cast, with members fluctuating in and out of storylines, but each one is very distinct and unique. They're all easily identifiable and enjoyable to read about, and each supporting cast member seems carefully chosen for their roles in the stories - they all serve a purpose. The main cast, Antimony and her constant companions Kat and Reynnard the demon, become more complex and interesting with every page.

OK, now that I've waxed poetic about a webcomic for way too long, I'd like to talk briefly about an intriguing wiki a friend of mine sent me called The Holders Series.

The Holders Series is trying really, really hard to be a post-modern, gothic horror story on par with House of Leaves. Visually, it resembles a wiki page, with a News front page and all the pices listed as articles after the introductory article. The general gist of the story is that there are a certain number of objects (538, but this appears to be mutable) that, if gathered together, something TERRIBLE and AWFUL will happen. Each object is currently in the possession of a Holder, and the Seeker (an individual who, for some unknown reason, is questing for all of the objects) must pass a set of trials and face the Holder; if the Seeker is successful, the object passes into their hands. If not, we are repeatedly told throughout each piece that insanity or some horrifying death awaits them.

The concept is interesting, and has the makings to be a pretty interesting story (I'm through maybe 50 of the short pieces). The problem is sort of inherent in the set-up: The Holders Series is almost mind-numbingly repetative. There is a set of guidelines for would-be authors (anyone can submit a Holders piece to be included, which presumably then goes through a selection process), which is something in itself that I support, but which places more limits on the potential pieces than I think the creators intended. Every single piece, for example, begins with the lines "In any city, in any country, go to any mental institution or halfway house in you can get yourself to. When you reach the front desk, ask to visit someone who calls himself 'The Holder of '." "Mental institution or halfway house" are occasionally substituted for a morgue, or hospital (or a hardware store, in one of the more unique ones). So far, every single piece is written in second person. But my biggest issue is the repetatition of the trials the Seeker is intended to face.

There simply aren't enough synonyms for "insanity" to make it a more interesting by-product of failure. There are only so many hellhounds one can be chased by. In a huge number of these, there is a sound described as part of the background noise, and God forbid it should ever stop - something is guaranteed to rip the Seeker to pieces, or cause him to go insane, or something of that nature. Don't ever look at the walls! Don't look in their eyes! Don't sit down, don't stop walking! It's as though every individual who wrote one of these had the same idea for a mind-rending horror, and used it over and over again. After a while (and remember, I'm on 50 out of 538) it gets tiresome rather than horrifying.

So why am I still reading? The places where the authors' creativity really shines is in the objects themselves; they can be anything. Each one also has a bit of a tagline after it, a warning or somesuch - these are fun to read and make for neat little conclusions to the pieces. And, I suppose, I'm waiting for someone to break out of the box and write something that will really make my skin crawl. I'll keep you posted.