Título: Coraline
Autor: Neil Gaiman
Editorial: Bloomsbury
Canción Identificada: Closer (Nine Inch Nails)
Sinopsis:
The day after they moved in, Coraline went exploring....
In Coraline's family's new flat are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close.
The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall, until the day Coraline unlocks the door to find a passage to another flat in another house just like her own.
Only it's different.
At first, things seem marvelous in the other flat. The food is better. The toy box is filled with wind-up angels that flutter around the bedroom, books whose pictures writhe and crawl and shimmer, little dinosaur skulls that chatter their teeth. But there's another mother, and another father, and they want Coraline to stay with them and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go.
Other children are trapped there as well, lost souls behind the mirrors. Coraline is their only hope of rescue. She will have to fight with all her wits and all the tools she can find if she is to save the lost children, her ordinary life, and herself.
In Coraline's family's new flat are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close.
The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall, until the day Coraline unlocks the door to find a passage to another flat in another house just like her own.
Only it's different.
At first, things seem marvelous in the other flat. The food is better. The toy box is filled with wind-up angels that flutter around the bedroom, books whose pictures writhe and crawl and shimmer, little dinosaur skulls that chatter their teeth. But there's another mother, and another father, and they want Coraline to stay with them and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go.
Other children are trapped there as well, lost souls behind the mirrors. Coraline is their only hope of rescue. She will have to fight with all her wits and all the tools she can find if she is to save the lost children, her ordinary life, and herself.
Opinión:
“The cat looked as if it were about to say something sarcastic. Then it flicked its whiskers and said, "Challenge her. There's no guarantee she'll play fair, but her kind of thing loves games and challenges.” Por el momento, de los libros que me he leído de Neil Gaiman (este, The Graveyard Book, y Fortunately, The Milk), Coraline es el libro que más me ha gustado de todos, con diferencia.
Coraline está aburrida.
Sus padres siempre están trabajando y, aunque lo hacen en casa, es como si no estuvieran.
Coraline se acaba de mudar.
Así que, para matar el aburrimiento, decide explorar la casa...
“The names are the first things to go, after the breath has gone, and the beating of the heart. We keep our memories longer than our names.”
Y, cuando la atraviesa, se encuentra en la misma casa... sólo que no es la misma. En esa casa esta la Otra Madre, y el Otro Padre, padres perfectos y muy atentos con ella, que siempre están dispuestos a jugar y a hacerla las comidas más ricas.
Por eso, Coraline no presta atención a que no tienen ojos sino botones, ni a las alertas del gato vecino... Esos padres son perfectos.
Eso, hasta que la Otra Madre le revela que no quiere que Coraline se marche nunca... Quiere a Coraline sólo para ella...
“Nothing’s changed. You’ll go home. You’ll be bored. You’ll be ignored. No one will listen to you, really listen to you. You’re too clever and too quiet for them to understand. They don’t even get your name right.”
We are many we are small
We were here before you rose
We will be here when you fall”
Para hablar de libro, hay que hablar de su protagonista: sin ella, este libro no habría sido posible.
Ha sido su curiosidad y su aburrimiento, su sensación de soledad y su búsqueda de alivio en los misterios, lo que ha hecho que se adentre en el otro mundo... Y ha sido su tenacidad, su fortaleza y su valía. He admirado y amado lo fuerte que era para ser tan sólo una niña, lo decidida, y, sobre todo, lo sabia, porque Coraline es un personaje tanto entrañable e inocente como inmensamente inteligente y astuto.
“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
Su gran personalidad es la que ha guiado al libro, y esto es algo fascinante: lejos de que la trama avance y el personaje se adapte, era la trama la que se moldeaba para dar la forma adecuada a Coraline, algo que me ha gustado mucho.
“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?”
Sin ella, este libro no podría haber sido hecho.
Lo mismo ocurre con el personaje del gato... un elemento interesantísimo, divertido e ingenioso, independiente y gracioso, condescendiente, burlesco y sarcástico... Otro personaje increíble, también ofreciendo al lector una visión nueva del mundo.
“The cat wrinkled its nose and managed to look unimpressed. "Calling cats," it confided, "tends to be a rather overrated activity. Might as well call a whirlwind.”
“What's your name,' Coraline asked the cat. 'Look, I'm Coraline. Okay?'
'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.”
La narrativa es sensacional, en un rango que engloba tanto el lenguaje más infantil y de relato fantasioso y sumamente original, sencillo y fácil de seguir; como un lenguaje adulto, serio, con un toque gótico y muy oscuro, capaz de dar pesadillas, tiñendo este cuento de hadas en algo tenebroso.
“Because,' she said, 'when you're scared but you still do it anyway, that's brave.”
Toques de novela gótica, pinceladas del estilo de Stephen King, tiznes de humor aniñado y momentos de terrores nocturnos, hacen que este libro no esté recomendado para una edad concreta... a distintas edades, hará sentir distintas cosas, pensar de distinta manera, pero algo es indudable: este libro es una joya de oro, cautuvador, ingenioso y tremendamente único, y su lectura ha sido increíblemente tierna, inspiradora, preciosa... ¡y también muy tenebrosa!
Su originalidad, su preciso vocabulario, sus descripciones y su atrapante trama son algo que difícilmente podrá negar un lector... En todos los aspectos, este libro ha sido una maravilla, increíblemente imaginativo y espeluznantemente cercano...
Con un ritmo ágil, con misterio, con adrenalina, y con retorcidos juegos, Coraline posee el encanto fantástico, desbordante de originalidad que tanto caracteriza a Gaiman, y una prosa bellamente y cruelmente preparada para hacer que el relato sea sobrecogedor.
Un libro enganchante, breve, oscuro y totalmente único, que será imposible dejar de leer... Y que aterrorizará a un público de todas las edades...
Un libro enganchante, breve, oscuro y totalmente único, que será imposible dejar de leer... Y que aterrorizará a un público de todas las edades...
“How do I know you'll keep your word?" asked Coraline.
"I swear it," said the other mother. "I swear it on my own mother's grave."
"Does she have a grave?" asked Coraline.
"Oh yes," said the other mother. "I put her in there myself. And when I found her trying to crawl out, I put her back.”
PUNTUACIÓN
♫ Personajes: 3.75/5
♫ Acción: 4/5
♫ Trama: 4/5
♫ Originalidad: 5.5/5
♫ Desenlace: 3.75/5
♫ Pluma: 4.5/5
VALORACIÓN PERSONAL: 10/10
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