Artemis Fowl

I have written about my journey to writing a few times, and usually I would mention the Harry Potter series, as they were the first books I had read (for entertainment, of course we have all read textbooks in school). I read them in Arabic at first, and then they helped me learn English when I moved to the UK.

The Artemis Fowl books came a little after that. I was not particularly looking to read stories when I was in school. The Harry Potter books were the only books I had read for quite a while because I had not really put much thought into actively reading anything else.

My family and I had been invited, by my father’s friend, for a short holiday. We lived in Glasgow, a city in Scotland, and my father’s friend and his family lived in South Uist, an island in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. It was an opportunity for the family to get out of the city and see something new.

It was quite an adjustment for us, as we had lived in cities all our lives; the island seemed foreign to us because it was mostly empty of houses. Homes were few and far between.

Every day we would go out and explore new things about the island, but I had brought a Harry Potter book to read whenever we were indoors. My father’s friend noticed me reading and showed me his collection of books which seemed quite extensive. He then pulled out a book and assured me I might like reading it. I had already read the Harry Potter books multiple times, so I decided to take it and try it out. That was the first book in the Artemis Fowl series.

Before we left, my father’s friend also gave me the second and third books in the series and told me to keep them all. I was grateful because the story was getting quite interesting. I read the books he gave me, and later bought the missing ones to complete the set.

The Artemis Fowl books were quite a revelation to me. What was interesting to me was how the writer had managed to balance the criminal and cold nature of the main character (Artemis Fowl: boy genius and criminal mastermind) with the gradual development of his character.

Artemis Fowl is about a boy criminal mastermind who discovers that fairies exist and is now coveting their gold. The fairy tales about leprechauns and other fantastical creatures are real, and Artemis Fowl unveils their truth for his own gain. That alone is quite a compelling story, to see how things play out, but then we start to uncover more layers to the boy genius.

He starts changing and becoming a better person as the books go on, but still manages to maintain his criminal mind. It fascinated me how the writer made me feel empathetic towards Artemis, and root for him on his exploits, while making me forget that he is technically a criminal. As I said before, Artemis Fowl was the second book I ever read for entertainment purposes, so I didn’t have much of a framework for character development, so this story truly blew my mind.

Just because I read other stories since and have seen this done elsewhere, did not mean that what Eoin Colfer (Irish spelling for Owen) did here was any less impressive. He managed to do that while maintaining my interest in a story with quite a list of interesting characters. The book had action, mystery, good, evil, humour, heartbreak. The list goes on.

Reading this book gave me a framework of what is possible when a character has contradicting qualities and how it can make the story interesting for the reader.

As a side note, a movie for this book came out relatively recently, but I strongly urge you not to watch it. I usually don’t have strong opinions about movies, but I felt that this movie was an insult to the books. We all understand that whenever a movie adaptation of a book is made, some changes maybe needed, and things are cut to make it more suitable for the movie format. However, what they did here was cannibalise the books (notice the plural). The movie was supposed to be based on the first book, however, the producers decided on adding certain aspects from further ahead in the series, which did not make sense because these things were essential for Artemis Fowl’s character development leter in the series. They also made many changes to certain characters and completely changed background essential elements which affected certain characters and their motivations. Enough with the rant, just don’t watch it, please.

Despite my hate for the movie, it did not ruin the books for me because I do not consider it an adaptation of the book in any way. I cannot recommend this book series enough for everyone. While the books are targeted at young adults, the story is marvellous, and I am sure it will resonate with readers of any age.