Sunday, April 19, 2009

Mark Haddon: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Guest Review by Kit Bradley
April 17, 2009

I found The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-Time in my shelf of books to be read. It had a Borders “Buy Two, Get One Free” sticker on it. I’m not sure if this was one of the two or the one free, but I’m glad I read it.

Christopher is a unique 15 year old who happens to be out late one evening and sees his neighbor’s dog Wellington lying in the yard, stabbed with a garden fork. He sets out to solve this murder—and write a book about it—so it turns out The Curious Incident is a murder mystery written in the first person by Christopher. Christopher really likes prime numbers, and he used them to number the chapters in this book. There are 233 chapters.

It turns out that Christopher is very, very smart (he can solve most any math problem), but he has very limited social skills and doesn’t like being around people he doesn’t know. “I find people confusing…people do a lot of talking without using any words…people often talk using metaphors.”

Christopher is very honest and very logical, and he will keep his promises—but not always as his father expects if there is any wiggle room in the literal logic of the promise. Christopher hates yellow, won’t eat any yellow food, and if he passes four yellow cars in a row on his way to school, it’s going to be a Black Day.

Christopher’s constraints (both emotional and also promises to his father) make it hard to gather information about Wellington’s death, but he proceeds with great determination and courage. Along the way he discovers a big secret, and that leads him into a long trip on public transportation (passing four yellow cars), and Christopher is forced to deal with crowds of strangers. It’s very hard, but he deals with it.

Mark Haddon does a superb job in The Curious Incident of describing the thought processes of an autistic boy. We understand exactly what is going through Christopher’s mind, and we understand why everything Christopher does makes perfect sense to Christopher, while it is driving his father and other adults crazy. It’s a real challenge for the people who love him to live with him, especially if they lie to him, even white lies. Christopher is very observant and very logical and can easily spot inconsistencies.

The Curious Incident starts off gently in describing Christopher’s cleverness and quirks, but it gets pretty intense when Christopher is challenged. But Christopher and the adults in his life muddle through everything, and life goes on.

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