Discover the novel’s running threads

For Coraline, her hammock is her inner peace: “my safe space, not an open space” (ch. 1). From there, she watches the hummingbirds, the metaphor for all our facets: hers, the Viking’s, her parents’, everyone’s. She sees them from every angle, the better to understand and accept them: “all the versions of me that are scared, that protect themselves, that freeze, or that laugh about it” (ch. 39). Accepting the hummingbirds lets her live in peace in her hammock. But from protecting herself so much, her hammock becomes…: “the bunker keeps out the bombs, but the kisses too” (ch. 43). As soon as she realises it, she climbs out: “I haven’t changed my nature. I’ve changed the way I look.” (ch. 47). From then on, she invites readers to create with her: “My book becomes a playground, an open door” (ch. 47).

For Coraline, saying NO is a source of huge anxiety, and she doesn’t know why. She finds it very hard to say, and when she does: “Amazing how one tiny two-letter word can set off a cold war” (ch. 18). Those used to her saying yes to everything don’t understand, and react even harder. All the tougher for her, since she does everything not to displease. And when you can’t say NO, others take advantage. She suffers abuses of power, and wears herself out: “because I can’t say no, I keep attracting the same problems.” (ch. 29). At the end of her limits, she has no strength left, and it’s her body that says NO for her: “a silent NO settles in. It stands on its own. No emotion.” (ch. 35). Since she can’t say NO in the moment, she picks up her pen to write everything she couldn’t say: her bottled-up emotions, her conflicts, her mockery of herself. The key comes much later: “Saying NO = mortal danger + guilt.” (ch. 39). At last she sees what had been completely unconscious: an event in her childhood created that link. Her survival reflex was to adapt, for fear her loved ones would die. Once she understands where it comes from, she defuses the NO, and finally says it without guilt. She says NO to abuse, to respect herself: “My pen is my no. A calm, living no that protects the peace. Not against others, for me.” (ch. 47).

For Coraline, saying NO means starting a conflict, and conflict is the worst thing there is for her. So she does everything to avoid it: so as not to displease, she says yes. But the opposite happens: “with the Viking, the same script keeps playing!” (ch. 17). And yet she sees clearly: “I’m angry! And too clear-headed to stay that way.” (ch. 1). But when the moment comes to say NO: “I was just… frozen, my logic was out of order” (ch. 39). So she swallows it, and the anger builds up: “I feel ANGER rising inside me! — This time, it’s NO!” (ch. 1). When she can’t take any more, the volcano explodes: “the biggest eruption of modern times” (ch. 32). Whoever can say NO as they go along has no need to get angry. Coraline, though, sees her hummingbirds and other people’s, from every angle. She doesn’t want her anger to destroy the other person, but to live. So she turns it into something else: “to turn my anger into creative compost. It’s very eco-friendly.” (ch. 1). And humour helps her take the drama out of things, not attack the other person: “Which turns my anger into perspective.” (ch. 10).

The rear-view mirror is the metaphor for an old unconscious pattern that replays itself, even though it has nothing to do with the present situation any more. In chapter 4, the Viking argues with a stranger over a broken rear-view mirror, and Coraline is the one who takes the hit: “the rear-view mirror became the murder weapon… of our entire relationship” (ch. 4). The Viking replays what he supposedly lived through as a child with his parents: “The father held it against his son for high treason! The son held it against his mother, for the same reason.” (ch. 10). He’s stayed stuck with his child’s emotions. With an adult’s eyes, he’d see something else, but he can’t. Whenever he’s in conflict with someone, it falls back on her: “Stuck between two hotheads, one abusive, the other controlling, I was replaying the rear-view mirror remake, extended cut.” (ch. 15). Coraline, for her part, replays what she did as a child when her parents raised their voices: “I kept quiet, gritted my teeth, played for time.” (ch. 15). Each feels let down by the other, and that’s what weighs their relationship down. At the time, she doesn’t understand her pattern, but she senses something is wrong. So she refuses to follow him: “Only to depend on you? No thanks.” (ch. 15). For him, that’s a crime: “Charming! You held me hostage! You forced me to stay with you.” (ch. 15). And the cold war turns into open war. She only understands the Viking’s pattern by writing the book.

When other people’s noise gets too loud, Coraline protects herself: “From inside my cotton-wool silence, I watch them gesticulate without really hearing them.” (ch. 4). She even makes a game of it: “I just keep the pictures and swap the soundtrack for Jingle Bells, hard-rock version.” (ch. 16). After the abuse and the burnout, she withdraws into her bubble, long enough to understand the lessons, so as not to repeat them: “shutting myself away to write had been a survival reflex. Saying no too. Useful for a while, but it wasn’t living.” (ch. 47). Then, at the end of the book: “I create to live, to get out of my bubble, to go back into life.” (ch. 47).

Coraline tells the story of their relationship in sailing terms. From their very first trip out to sea, an English lesson sets the tone: “Yes, it’s true: ‘hold on’… never ‘catch’.” (ch. 5). At first, they move forward together: “We make a team, we’re in the same boat.” (ch. 9). Then life on board becomes a chore, and she finds the name for the boat: “The galley!” (ch. 28). Right to the end: “the Viking cast off.” (ch. 38).

Read between the lines, The Axe is the metaphor made flesh of the threat the Viking represents, and above all of Coraline’s fear. When the Viking protects himself, she’s the one he puts in danger. If she writes her book, he threatens her: “Watch what you say, or I’ll sue you.” (ch. 1). He watches her from afar, and claims to protect her: “I made sure my henchman would keep her safe. The Axe is a big shot; she’s safe with him.” (ch. 1). She sees it as a prison: “I can’t create under control.” (ch. 46). Taken at face value, The Axe is a big mafia Viking, there to scare people. But he never says a word. Her mother tames him, her niece braids his hair: “Axe, you’re huge, you look like Jason Momoa! Here, Mum gave me a little present for you, she saved you a slice of osso buco.” (ch. 27). As long as you’re scared, you see a gangster. As soon as you relax, you discover a nice human being.

It’s one of the big subjects of the book: those in power blame others to clear themselves of their own faults. Coraline learns it very early: “to dodge the flak from those who give a dog a bad name and hang him, I had, at the very least, to apologise for things I wasn’t responsible for” (ch. 6). They’re afraid of losing control, so they project their fears onto others, and use them like objects. They pretend to help, then drop you at the worst moment. The Viking does it with the people who love him, to toughen them up the hard way: “You give them an umbrella when the sun shines, and take it back from them when it rains.” (ch. 10). At work, her boss, It, turns it into a system: “It decides, delegates and blames her underlings, so her own mistakes never come back to bite.” (ch. 31). Those who resist end up crushed: “It turns rebels into jam jars.” (ch. 31). And as long as Coraline can’t say NO, she remains their target: “As long as you can’t say NO, you’re the perfect target for manipulators, who are judge and jury at once.” (ch. 39).

The Viking changes face depending on the time of day and the number of beers. Instead of judging him, Coraline tries to understand, and turns it into a thesis: “Sober, he talks logically. Drunk, it’s as if his logic were watching a quiet programme while his emotions and his survival instinct watch a war film on a loop.” (ch. 19). Everyone has their own defence system: “Me, I go quiet. You, you fight or you vanish. 2 styles. Same film.” (ch. 39). And behind every defence, there’s a fear: “nobody becomes excessive for fun. Behind our behaviour, there’s always a very precise fear.” (ch. 43). To get out of it, she observes her own brain, and laughs about it: “I observe my brain and its 3 voices: reason — It’s fine. I’ll improvise. emotion — It’s a disaster. survival — Every woman for herself!” (ch. 44).

Each has their wall, and their formula to hold it up: “it’ll be fine” for her, “I don’t need anyone” for him (ch. 10). That’s what attracts them, and what blocks them: “We recognised each other through the concrete.” (ch. 10). The wall comes down when Coraline stops trying to convince: “I don’t crush anyone, I don’t impose anything, I open windows.” (ch. 25).

First, it’s the Viking who lives on red alert. He’s back from a war that haunts him: “the War of the Scorched Lands, where the Viking lost his soul. The ghosts of the innocent victims still haunt him.” (ch. 23). Coraline, for her part, picks up on everything: “I pick up on other people’s emotions without even realizing it, a bit like a long-range radar.” (ch. 1). She senses his state without understanding what’s going on: “the Viking on red alert is on the verge of imploding” (ch. 32). Hence the war words in the book: siege, blockade, bunker, landmines. But she has her own alarm too, born of a childhood bereavement, running on a loop without her knowing: “On the outside: dead calm. On the inside: red alert on a loop.” (ch. 39). Her pen gives her the key: “Your child’s brain once believed: if someone dies, it’s my fault.” (ch. 41). To get out of it, she learns to check the facts: “Notice: there’s no danger, just an old script. End of film, credits, curtain.” (ch. 43).

The Viking sells everything, advice included: “I am directly descended from the Gods of trade!” (ch. 4). But his advice traps her: “each piece of his advice creates a new problem that the next piece of advice claims to solve.” (ch. 13). To save her, he decides for her: “Instead of leaving to protect yourself, what’s wrong with you?” (ch. 15). Coraline, for her part, wanted to save him: “I’m going to love him very hard and save him. BEEEP! Spoiler: huge mistake!” (ch. 40). But she resists too, to save her own skin: “Thanks, but I’ve got enemies for that.” (ch. 15).

The Viking shines, takes over, gives orders. The book gives the cause, a father who demanded the exceptional: “you must do better, you are a demigod, you must be exceptional. But you’ll never be enough, because you are not Me” (ch. 23). Everything else follows: the luxury, the 20-metre antenna, the XXL drak-car. In chapter 40, he becomes the sun itself: “the sun is the only star in the solar system. So, seeing as everything revolves around Him, he’s a megalomaniac, it’s only normal.” (ch. 40).

Coraline tells her life as a legend: “I like mixing genres, I really love that friction between worlds that should never have met, like the Viking and me” (ch. 20 bis). A row becomes a battle of the gods: “All the Viking gods have seized my body and are howling through me.” (ch. 32). Her inner voices become cartoon characters: “I’ve got the whole Muppets orchestra singing, a real symphony!” (ch. 27).

At her parents’ as at the Viking’s, TeleKata plays on a loop, and plants fear: “But you watch war like a football match! Two sides, a setting, suspense. Kick-off at 8 pm. Anxiety compulsory.” (ch. 10). Coraline chooses what she watches: “I refuse this media violence, to keep my head clear! I consciously choose what I want to watch” (ch. 20 bis). Her antidote is laughter: “there are other ways to cry than in front of TeleKata! You can cry with laughter, it makes up for it!” (ch. 6 bis). Then the film moves inside: “we project our unconscious fears onto others, like a horror film in IMAX. We make them guilty of everything. But blaming the screen has never changed the film.” (ch. 43).

Coraline doesn’t take revenge through humour: she uses it to let the air out of the balloon, to take the drama out of things. It’s: “humour. A non-violent weapon against single-track thinking.” (ch. 10). She walks away from fights that aren’t hers: “My arena is the text, humour, storytelling, the offbeat.” (ch. 25). She belongs to a long tradition: “Voltaire and La Fontaine already used it to expose abuses and get round censorship, I’m following their lead.” (ch. 44). Those who hurt her become characters: “I turn abuses of power into characters in a book. Not into life partners.” (ch. 46).

Coraline runs on intuition. Information hits her all at once, with no logical explanation, and it doesn’t lead her astray: “I see him. And I know. I don’t know what it is I know. But I know it.” (ch. 3). Her rhythm isn’t other people’s. In life, she’s out of step: “My comebacks often come at dessert time.” (ch. 2). Her thinking branches out: “One idea leads to another, forks, zigzags, like lightning across the sky.” (ch. 33). That’s how she built her book, never knowing where each idea would take her: “The ideas came like stars, one by one, with no plan. Only at the end did it all come together.” (ch. 47).

Coraline plays a whole film in her head, then reality lands in 4 words: “not-at-all-at-all!”. Sometimes she imagines the worst, which doesn’t happen: “Except that, at the time, it didn’t go like that, not-at-all-at-all!” (ch. 16). Sometimes she sees herself putting the other person in their place, and nothing comes out: “Except rows bring me out in hives. So obviously, I said nothing, not-at-all-at-all, I stayed very polite. I handled him with kid gloves…” (ch. 17). It’s the confession of the comeback that never came out, and the book’s reason for being: what you didn’t say, you can write.

Coraline’s parents are opposites and complements: “Mum is a locomotive, noise, steam and all.” (ch. 6). “Dad is the anchor in the storm.” (ch. 6). With them, love comes through control, and the phone always rings at the worst moment: “Your calls are killing my chances.” (ch. 3). She laughs about it: “They’ve founded a secret agency: the P.I.P.I. Prying Interfering Parents of Intimacy.” (ch. 42). But when everything collapses, they’re there: “my family closes ranks to comfort me. They’re all there, united, present, together. Their love protects me.” (ch. 39).

On her dating ad, Coraline presents herself as a collector’s item: “RARE MODEL! LIMITED EDITION! … Original bodywork.” (ch. 2). She owns it: “I’m a living gallery of unapologetic self-deprecation.” (ch. 2). It isn’t modesty, it’s a method learnt as a child: “I learnt very early on to be the first to laugh at myself, to beat the mockers to the punchline!” (ch. 3). In chapter 44, she turns it into a character: “I play my character of the day: Professor of My Own Blunders, at the Joyful Imperfect.” (ch. 44).

La Linea is Coraline’s inner voice, her inner coach: a cartoon character, a simple line that walks, falls, and gets back up. She’s introduced as early as chapter 15: “Sometimes a single little line says it all.” (ch. 15). She grumbles whenever Coraline takes herself too seriously: “Look at me! If I fall, I get back up! No need to turn everything into lead! Make him laugh, that’s what matters!” (ch. 20 bis). And she’s the one who teaches her to take the drama out of things: “If I fall, I get back up! That’s real life! Lighten up! Otherwise the joy disappears!” (ch. 41).

The novel deals with heavy subjects, and the Viking says so himself: “depressing subjects nobody’s interested in, except the suicidal…” (ch. 22). Coraline treats them lightly, without ever tipping into gloom: “No to pathos, yes to the dignity of the scapegoats.” (ch. 1). Laughter keeps her head above water: “Humour and creativity are my survival kit for stepping back and keeping a certain clear-eyed distance.” (ch. 31). At the end of the road: “I’ve been through it all: anger, fear, sadness, humour. I’ve gone from ‘I put up with it’ to ‘I play’.” (ch. 46).

The book talks about its own making. The author and her character end up on the same set: “I loved the idea of inviting the character and the author onto the same set to muddy the waters” (ch. 20 bis). The character disputes the book that tells his story: “My lawyers are looking into it.” (ch. 1). The author reminds him who’s holding the pencil: “Seeing as I created your character, if I take an eraser, I rub you out, like La Linea” (ch. 31). And the dedication muddies everything from the very first page: “You know that ‘The Viking’ never actually existed, right?” (ch. 1).

From the very first page, the author talks to the reader: “Please don’t interpret my novel. Live your own life.” (ch. 1). She invites them to play: “Children love making up stories! We’re all big kids, creators have no age…” (ch. 20 bis). She even hands them the missing scene: “I decided to ask readers who feel like it to write the scene where we meet again.” (ch. 45). In the end, the book belongs to them: “Readers can write, twist, invent, imagine: titles, scenes, images, music, films in their heads.” (ch. 47).

Coraline transposes her life into an invented Viking world, with her own words: Lower Valhalla, the drak-car, the War of the Scorched Lands, the Tribunal of Viking Warriors. These metaphors are funny, and they create distance: fiction takes the place of reality. The author reminds the Viking from the very start: “All the characters in this novel are fictional. You can rest easy… and forget about your damages and interest.” (ch. 1).