Lead Review
- Book: The Dog Who Dared To Dream
- Location: South Korea
- Author: Sun-mi Hwang
Such a short little book! Short chapters, each opening with a delicate drawing. This is the story of Scraggly, a little scruffy, black-coated underdog (no pun intended), who lives with Grandpa Screecher, for much of the time in a cage in a yard. There’s a Grandma too, a sage but cutting cat and a persimmon tree. In an anthropomorphic fashion, all the animals are sentient little beings who have their own feelings, thoughts and responses.
It is the gentle depiction of everyday life in their world that is charming, even the horrors of poisoned meat and trips to town all feel like life’s downs. Her human family cannot afford to keep the puppies, her siblings and her own puppies, and although she longs for family, she soon finds herself once more bereft. There are some ups, and some warmth in their short and rather sad lives. The humans are sometimes the perpetrators of harm to the family of dogs, sometimes they are their rescuers.
It is beautifully translated and makes for a nice little tome. It is short and thought-provoking, and made an interesting diversion from some of the other books on my TBR pile. It gives a little voice to the animals in the novella.
In terms of TripFiction location there is nothing that really anchors the book in South Korea (apart from the Persimmon tree, but that could in any warmish country).
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