Mark Haddon

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" By Mark Haddon
Vintage: 2003

I live in Korea and it is often hard to optain books in English. This is another book I found on the shelves in the university English library where I work and had read it when it first came out. I decided to re-read it and I am so glad I did. It stands out, in my mind, as a remarkable achievement in describing the mind of an autistic teenager. It gives the reader an unforgetable introduction to the world of autism since many of us do not have this background. It is believable and memorable.

It is a murder mystery and involves the death of a neighborhood dog with hints of Sherlock Holmes thrown in with the mysteries of the universe and mathmatical theories and a 15-year-old boy who is trying to understand a very strange and alien world the rest of us live in and think of as normal. One of the achievements this book does is to show the reader how strange this world can look to an autistic person.

Christopher discovers the dog, Wellington, speared through with a pitchfork. The owner of the dog sees this and calls the police. The police officer makes the mistake and thinks the autistic boy Christopher is to blame and grabs Christopher who can't stand to be touched and the boy hits the officer who then arrests the boy. This is the beginning of a series of misunderstandings.

Christopher decides to solve the murder and to write a book about it. Using cunning, his own brand of logic, the help of others and single-hearted bravery he does succeed and brings plenty of suspense and humor as well as warmth to this novel.

On more than one occasion, I wondered if the author was autistic because he discribes Christopher so well. Between the chapters, Christopher introduces the reader to his favorite things and to things he doesn't like. I did not understand the mathmatical puzzels and I don't think it is important to the book to do so.

This totally engaging novel is wonderful, easy to read and the logic would make Sherlock Holmes proud.

J.K Rowland

"Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" By J.K. Rowland
Bloomsbury: 1999

This book is the second out of the Harry Potter series and is a favorite of mine and another book I found on the shelves of the university's English library here in Korea. I also read it while I was waiting for my own departure from a regretable situation although not as bad as the fictional Potter's is but still bad enough because it was real. I have not gotten paid from my job and was very low on funds and had very little food.

The plot in this book is the same as the previous Harry Potter in that Harry is mistreated at home by the Dursleys who is his aunt and uncle. Rowland does a good job in discribing this family. It seems to me that the success of these books can be attributed to the way the author brings her characters to life. The stories are character-driven although the story or plot is a fantastic romp through a fantastic world in which a mistreated young man proves his worth and defeats not only evil in the guise of Lord Voltermort but the everyday evil of those who mistreat those who supposedly can't fight back. The readers care what happens to different characters who appear in these books and all who surround Harry.

As I stated in the last description of the first book, Harry does find love and acceptance in the wizarding world but like the real world there are good wizards and there are some who are not so good. Some say that muggles are people who do not see the magic in the world around them such as non-artists, those who can't see the use of poetry, literature and so on. Those who can such as poets, writers, artists can see the magic but are full of faults as all of us are and make mistakes and some can rise above this and become the heroes that we are all capable of being.

I am writing this review of a book I re-read years after I read it. It is also a time after I was able to get out of the situation I was in when I wrote this several months ago. Things are much better now. I have begun to see Korea as it really is and not from the point of a bad situation. I still don't understand what was happening then and probably will never will. I told someone that maybe it was a cultural misunderstanding. Who knows? What I do know is that I really enjoyed reading this book one more time.