The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: A Novel (Costa Novel Award)

In my lifetime I’ve had several encounters with people diagnosed with autism and other behavioral disorders, and I’ve never been able to understand the way they view the world. The few I’ve gotten to know admit that they think differently than other people, but they haven’t been able to put it into words. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time did exactly what these people struggled to do: put it into words. Although Mark Haddon didn’t write it about someone with autism or any specific diagnosis, he demonstrates to the reader the mindset of a teenage boy who views the world differently. When the neighbor’s dog Wellington is killed, Christopher sets out to find the killer and writes the book as a murder mystery novel. Although the story does have many characteristics of this genre, it changes as Christopher’s life turns upside down from things he discovers hardly related to the original incident. The entire story is written from his point of view, and early into the story he introduces himself with “My name is Christopher John Francis Boone. I know all the countries of the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7,057.” Although he is a genius in the subjects of math and science, he lacks necessary social skills for even basic communication, which is an interesting twist to a murder mystery novel. I think the character of Christopher makes this book stand out from other ones of the same genre, and was the reason I found it fascinating. The setting of the story is another exciting element, as most of the novel takes place in the town of Swindon, but Christopher also travels to London. The change from the familiar to the unknown is difficult for Christopher to handle. He feels safe in the quiet place where he grew up in, but is lost in the vast new city he finds himself in. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time follows a boy’s journey to uncover the truth that many try to discourage him from finding. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good read.

Book Review of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon When first opening The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, don’t bother trying to find chapter one; because one isn’t a prime number. Author, Mark Haddon, is setting the reader in line with fifteen-year-old Christopher Boone, an adolescent, autistic savant. Christopher knows all of the world capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He also detests the colors yellow and brown (and loves the color red.) Written in the first person, Christopher’s sensory interpretations, paint a picture of what it’s like to be him. He is a genius with math and science, however emotions are completely confusing and other-worldly to him. It’s when a neighbor’s poodle, Wellington, is found dead (killed by a garden fork) that Christopher decides to write a book about solving the mystery of who killed Wellington. This thought-provoking, coming-of-age, mystery novel, explores not just the curious incident of the dog in the night-time, but also the relationship Christopher has with his mother, father, and most importantly, himself. Christopher lives alone with his father, his mother having died of a heart-attack two years before. Functioning much like a machine, Christopher takes in details, that don’t even register with most people. For example, he describes his memory as, “to remember something I can simply press Rewind and Fast Forward and Pause like on a video recorder.” It’s because of these details, that Christopher’s eccentricities come to the surface. He cannot stand to be touched, not even by his family; and if he is, he will curl up and groan—sometimes even for hours—to calm himself down. Moreover, Christopher hates seeing new places and meeting new people; it took him five weeks to become comfortable enough to talk to a new teacher. Mark Haddon, who has worked with autistic children, creates a unique perspective through the eyes of Christopher. He is an overall relatable character, because he is very straightforward, he feels superior to everyone, yet feels left out from society. Mark Haddon creates not only a fascinating chara¬¬cter, but a complex and compelling story that draws the reader to it’s surprising conclusion.

Book Review There are many different ways to approach the protagonist of a book. The most common is to make him sympathetic. Rarely do authors have a wholly unsympathetic protagonist, and when they do, it’s often to make a point. But in The Curious Case Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Mark Haddon writes the protagonist, Christopher Boone, as wholly unsympathetic, and, as far as I can tell, the author is making no point. The book revolves around Christopher Boone, who lives in a small town, Swindon, in England. The title refers to the mystery of a dog Christopher finds dead in his neighborhood, and, like his favorite literary character Sherlock Holmes, decides to investigate this case. But the investigation is never engrossing, and only lasts for the first half of the book. Really, it’s only an interesting framing device for the real protagonist of the book, and the real plot. Christopher’s father. Christopher himself is a special needs child, and at fifteen hates to be touched, is an extremely picky eater, uncommunicative, and bases his days around the colors of the cars on the way to school. While the author says that he didn’t do any research, it is made explicitly clear over the course of the book that Chris has some form of Autism, probably Asperger’s syndrome, and is likely a mild savant, indicated by his incredible memory and high proficiency in mathematics. And so, this book is like so many other plots, especially common in tearjerker movies, books and television episodes. The troubled parents with their autistic kid and how they deal with him, how they grow, how they become a better family. The child, while the focus of such plots, is never treated as much more than an object, a plot device. This book attempts to avert that by telling the real plot, the conflict between Christopher’s family, through his eyes and his unique perspective. It attempts to humanize this object. But for whatever reason, because of Haddon’s lack of research, because of his presumptive ideas about special needs children, or just because he thought it would be interesting, Christopher is practically emotionless, with definite sociopathic tendencies and his absolute pseudo-logic that governs his every action. This plot device loses something even as Haddon tries to make it gain something. Instead of being an innocent bystander as his family fights over him while still trying to maintain his interests, we see why they fight. We see that Christopher has no redeeming features. There’s nothing to make anyone like him, to make anyone want to be inside his head for two hundred and twenty-six pages. Heck, I was tired of him by page seven after he assaults a policeman. I think I liked it better when the plot device wasn’t human and it was just that, a plot device. Maybe in the hands of a more capable author Christopher, despite his utter foreignness to a normal person, could have become a human and demonstrated that he was worthy as an actual character instead of merely a catalyst for the plot. In fact, this is one of the most common criticisms I’ve seen with the book. That Christopher, an obvious person with Asperger’s whether the author wants to admit it or not, is portrayed as absolutely emotionless when people as high functioning as he is aren’t. Like us, they feel emotions, and the popularity of A Dog in the Night-Time has contributed to a general ignorance about special needs people. But unlike Christopher, the book isn’t completely beyond redemption. As I said earlier, the real protagonist is the father and his struggles. And that’s where I found the book interesting. I found him to be the most well developed character and by far the most human. His trials and tribulations held my interest, I felt for him and sympathized with him. At least until Christopher intruded with another numbingly embarrassing conversation with anyone he meets, or some random fact with little bearing on the plot besides to establish him as different, or, my favorite, his dreams about everyone