The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
by Mark Haddon
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Christopher is 15 years old, and he tells us he has “Behavioral Problems.” He carries a knife with a saw-blade that (he thinks) would be good for cutting off somebody’s fingers. He wouldn’t mind if everyone else in the world just vanished one day. He likes math. However, he’s not a serial killer or anything even remotely like that.
Christopher’s brain works in a different way. He has trouble understanding feelings or interpreting facial expressions. He pays attention to everything, so crowds or some kinds of noises or lots of signs or even looking out the window while he’s on a train overwhelm him. He really hates being touched. That’s part of why he doesn’t like people.
The story is told entirely from Christopher’s point of view. It begins when he discovers that his neighbor’s dog, Wellington, has been murdered. Since Christopher loves Sherlock Holmes, and since he really liked Wellington, he decides to investigate the murder and bring the killer to justice. The murder is solved about half way through the book, but it leaves Christopher in the middle of an even bigger problem, and he spends the rest of the story dealing with it.
People seem to either love or hate this book. I think one reason some people hate it is the writing style, which I can kind of understand. Since Christopher is telling the story, he tells it his way. However, this didn’t bother me. I actually thought it was pretty easy to read. However, I’ve noticed that a lot of people feel cheated because they thought it was a very different kind off book than it really is. Let me try to clear up some of the most common myths I’ve seen about this book.
Myth 1: This is a murder mystery. Well, that’s what Christopher says, but he’s wrong. This is a novel about Christopher, his life, and his family. In fact, Christopher spends every other chapter writing about his daily life, his hopes and dreams, and his hobbies. He is very fond of mathematics and physics, and he talks about math a lot.
Myth 2: This book is for kids. Actually, the author got tired of writing books for kids, so he wrote this one for adults. His agent decided that it would be good for kids, too, so one edition was published for adults and one edition was published for children. Just so you know, there’s a lot of swearing in it, and bodily functions appear more than a few times.*
Myth 3: This is an accurate, scientific portrayal of autism. It isn’t. In fact, the author never says that Christopher is on the autism spectrum. He never claims that Christopher has Asperger syndrome. The author used to work with people who had autism, and he says he basically combined various traits of people he knew to create Christopher. He didn’t go out and do any research. You might want to check out this interesting article about the book written by a man with Asperger syndrome.
If you want to give the book a try, you can read an excerpt of it at the publisher’s website or Google Books.
*: One way to get a book marked as “Literature” is to kill an animal, talk about bodily functions, and make the main characters people you wouldn’t want to hang out with all the time. Having the main character talk about academic topics also helps.
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