Reviews From Our Customers
Uneventful, dark, standoffish book goes nowhere fast
I know I'll get lambasted for this, but I'm having a hard time understanding Neil Gaiman's appeal of late.
I know what he's capable of. I've read the Sandman series.
I've read Neverwhere and Stardust and American Gods and Smoke and Mirrors, too. Neverwhere is unbelievably brilliant and creative. Stardust is cute, and clever, but not extraordinary. American Gods is clever, but undeveloped in its execution.
I also have Gaiman's other works with illustrator Dave McKean -- The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch: A Romance...the Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish...Dustcovers: The Selected Sandman Covers and others.
So I'm no stranger to Neil Gaiman.
Neither am I devoid of ability to recognize talent, creativity and passion.
That said, I must admit Coraline left me cold. Not much went on in the book. The characters were flat. And it seemed very dark for supposedly being a children's book.
Frankly, the same problem that plagued American Gods seems to run rampant through Coraline: a good idea left undeveloped.
Coraline starts out promisingly enough. A big old house. A curious little girl. A bunch of odd neighbors. And a locked door with a brick wall on the other side. Great premise. Lots of things could happen in such a setting.
Things do happen, but too quickly without any character development. The stories goes from zero to 60 in a couple of pages and then wraps up -- before any explanation is giving as to why this other world existed, who or what those "other parents" are, who the strange neighbors are, and why the little girls seems wise beyond her years, able to face terror with hardly a blink of her eye.
I think Neil Gaiman needs a hard-nosed editor, one who'll tell him, "Great idea, Neil. But it needs to be developed more." Or, "Good draft. Could be published as-is. But I think it needs a bit more fleshing out in these areas..."
I said it in my review of American Gods, and I'll say it in my review of Coraline: Neil Gaiman is extremely talented and creative, but his best work is still ahead of him.
I can't recommend Coraline.
Coraline in Dangerland.
Forty year old Englishman Neil Gaiman is the author of an impressive array of work, including "The Sandman" series of graphic novels. Also planned for the big screen, with Neil as screenwriter and possibly director, is my favorite "Death: The High Cost of Living." (Every 100 years Death spends a day as a mortal) Add to his credits the novel "Good Omens," co-written with Terry Pratchett, "Thief of Time," will soon to be released as feature length film.
In "Coraline" a bored girl passes through a portal in her home to a parallel world where people and things are much stranger, and in some ways much better. We see this universe through Coraline, a wondrous child who does not fully realize the danger she is in. It was difficult for me not to think this work was inspired by the story "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." An Alice in Dangerland perhaps?
In an interview Gaiman said, "The thing I find oddest about Coraline, is those people who, after reading it, tell me that it seemed really familiar. They don't mean familiar in the sense they've read it before, they mean familiar in that the shapes, once they've read them, just sort of assimilated into the way they saw the world." I somewhat agree. Although the familiar shapes I saw, after reading "Caroline," were the monsters that my child's mind manifested in the shadows of my darkened bedroom the night I read "Coraline." Cammy Diaz A @ L.
The book is good, the audio CD is wonderful.
In addition to being a master storyteller, Neil has a wonderful speaking voice. It's always interesting to listen to an author read his own work, and particularly so when the author's also fun to listen to. Neil's performance on the audio CD is excellent.
