Coraline :)

Fairy tales are more than true -
not because they tell us dragons exist,
but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.
~G. K. Chesterton

Neil Gaiman uses the above quote to start Coraline (2002), the horror children (and adults) story that is often compared to Alice in Wonderland..

Let me tell you about my experience with Coraline.. One time i was at Diwan, i sms'ed Karim Sobhi (aka Karembu) to recommend a book and he replied saying "Coraline".. i searched for it but with no use.. i checked out on B&N (i like B&N more than i like Amazon)... aaaaaaaaanyway, i decide to order the book and the next day, with no preamble, the door bell rings.. a messenger with a small package... mama goes like "that's definitely something from Karim" (dont get me wrong here, its not that i dont get stuff from other people.. and its not like Karim gets me a _lot_ of stuff or anything.. it was just pure chance that she guessed right.. oh, but you dont know she guessed right yet, i ruined it for you).. soooo, its Coraline from Karim :)

"It is the story of a young girl, daughter of loving but terminally distracted parents, who finds a door in the family apartment which previously opened onto a concrete wall but now opens onto a corridor, down which she finds another apartment, seemingly an exact copy of her own, inhabited by her Other Mother. The novel deals with concerns about identity, familial love and self-belief." (from en.wikipedia.org)

The story is more of a comic story actually than a horror one.. it has many of these sentences that make you go "hmmmm" like this one:
"Coraline wondered why so few of the adults she had met made any sense. She sometimes wondered who they thought they were talking to."

Coraline (pronounced Cora-line not Cora-leen) illustrates to us how, in the process of becoming adults, we can overlook the basic things in life.. Gaiman has a dark sense of humor; sort of like the one in black comedies.. He is fond of vampires and creatures with long nails and fangs and all.. but he also puts them through in a twisted way..

Here is another favorite quote from Coraline for cat-lovers :)
"The cat yawned slowly, carefully, revealing a mouth and tongue of astounding pinkness. "Cats don't have names," it said.

"No?" said Coraline.

"No," said the cat. "Now, you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names."


Gaiman is also the author of the Sandman graphic novels series, a comic-like series that talks about the Endless family: Destiny, Death, Destruction, Dream, Desire, Despair, and Delirium who was once Delight.. a real witty reading!

If you actually want to get a feel of what Gaiman is like here is a link to a *very* interesting article he wrote...
"Books have sexes; or to be more precise, books have genders"
http://www.powells.com/features/gaiman.html

Enjoy!