2013 Book Review #106: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

[jethrien]

Title: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Author: Mark Haddon
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Thingummies: 4.5

Synopsis: An autistic teenager tries to investigate the death of his neighbor's dog.

Thoughts: I went into this knowing almost nothing, which I think is an ideal state. It didn't take long to figure out that it was from the viewpoint of an autistic child--the voice is startlingly well done. (Accurate? No idea. But the author did work with autistic people, so he's probably got as good an idea as neurotypical folks are likely to get, and it tracks well with the interactions I've had with an autistic family member.)

More importantly, this starts out about the death of a dog and ends up being very much about something else. I'm not going to spoil it, as I really enjoyed discovering the truth along with Christopher. (As much as one can enjoy trauma, that is. It's not a happy book.)

There are no real antagonists here, beyond the world and its incomprehensibility to Christopher. People do some dreadful things, but it's because they're human, not because they're evil. Everyone means well, but the black and white perspective that comes with both autism and adolescence makes many things unforgivable. And they're not all the same things that a neurotypical adult might find unforgivable.

It's a beautifully written book. A little on the stunt-ish side, but I think reasonably respectful. And the small tragedies contained are all the more touching for it.

Comments

[fairylane.livejournal.com]

I teach this book in my literature course. I think it's a great way for my students to see the world through a very distinct set of eyes. Haddon specifically set out to write this book without research, save personal experience; I think his attempt to write Christopher as a person based on several people he had known rather than a "person with Asperger's" with a laundry list of behaviours makes the character ring truer. I love how the book alternates between chapters that advance the story and chapters that comment on story and character, and I think it's a book that manages to be very funny and sad at the same time. Some of the textual/visual motifs remind me a little of Coupland's Microserfs. Anyway, I'm not going to talk your ear off with three weeks of lecture material, but it's such a fascinating book to teach.