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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Today Show Book Club #13)
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Today Show Book Club #13)
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by Mark Haddon
Sales Rank: 16853
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List Price: $24.95
$16.47
At Amazon
on 12-29-2007.
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Features
Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: Doubleday; Today Show Book Club edition July 31, 2003
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0385512104
ISBN-13: 978-0385512107
Product Dimensions:
8.3 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
Product Review
Mark Haddon's bitterly funny debut novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, is a murder mystery of sorts--one told by an autistic version of Adrian Mole. Fifteen-year-old Christopher John Francis Boone is mathematically gifted and socially hopeless, raised in a working-class home by parents who can barely cope with their child's quirks. He takes everything that he sees (or is told) at face value, and is unable to sort out the strange behavior of his elders and peers.
Late one night, Christopher comes across his neighbor's poodle, Wellington, impaled on a garden fork. Wellington's owner finds him cradling her dead dog in his arms, and has him arrested. After spending a night in jail, Christopher resolves--against the objection of his father and neighbors--to discover just who has murdered Wellington. He is encouraged by Siobhan, a social worker at his school, to write a book about his investigations, and the result--quirkily illustrated, with each chapter given its own prime number--is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
Haddon's novel is a startling performance. This is the sort of book that could turn condescending, or exploitative, or overly sentimental, or grossly tasteless very easily, but Haddon navigates those dangers with a sureness of touch that is extremely rare among first-time novelists. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is original, clever, and genuinely moving: this one is a must-read. --Jack Illingworth, Amazon.ca
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Christopher Boone, the autistic 15-year-old narrator of this revelatory novel, relaxes by groaning and doing math problems in his head, eats red-but not yellow or brown-foods and screams when he is touched. Strange as he may seem, other people are far more of a conundrum to him, for he lacks the intuitive "theory of mind" by which most of us sense what's going on in other people's heads. When his neighbor's poodle is killed and Christopher is falsely accused of the crime, he decides that he will take a page from Sherlock Holmes (one of his favorite characters) and track down the killer. As the mystery leads him to the secrets of his parents' broken marriage and then into an odyssey to find his place in the world, he must fall back on deductive logic to navigate the emotional complexities of a social world that remains a closed book to him. In the hands of first-time novelist Haddon, Christopher is a fascinating case study and, above all, a sympathetic boy: not closed off, as the stereotype would have it, but too open-overwhelmed by sensations, bereft of the filters through which normal people screen their surroundings. Christopher can only make sense of the chaos of stimuli by imposing arbitrary patterns ("4 yellow cars in a row made it a Black Day, which is a day when I don't speak to anyone and sit on my own reading books and don't eat my lunch and Take No Risks"). His literal-minded observations make for a kind of poetic sensibility and a poignant evocation of character. Though Christopher insists, "This will not be a funny book. I cannot tell jokes because I do not understand them," the novel brims with touching, ironic humor. The result is an eye-opening work in a unique and compelling literary voice.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Owner Reviews, Ratings, Comments and Criticism
As an autistic, I have a special interest in reading works that feature autistic main characters, partly to see how neurotypical people think our brains work, but partly just for the joy I feel when somebody "gets it right." Mark Haddon absolutely "got it right" in this book. From descriptions of how overwhelming the man-made world is for us on a sensory level, to frustration with a society that expects us to learn how to recognize neurotypical facial expressions based on simple drawings -- I'm really impressed, everything really does reflect how many of us experience life. Even the way he'll be talking to an adult one minute and they'll suddenly lose their temper at him, or how his mind digresses to his perseverative interests, and his belief that animals are just as good (if not better) than humans, is exactly what my life has been like. It was like reading something written by my own brain. :-) Parents and friends of autistics can also learn a great deal about how to interact with us in a way that makes us comfortable from the book. Christopher's parents are rare in their acceptance of his needs; instead of forcing him to learn to hug or maintain painful physical contact to fulfill *their* needs, they learn to communicate their love (and to let him communicate his) by gently but firmly touching one another's fingertips. He turns out to be a wonderfully well-adjusted, happy, secure boy that does far more than anybody would expect of an "autistic" as a result. There is much more than that to the book, though. The story itself is filled with innovative twists and turns that bring it far beyond the "mystery" category -- or any other genre. Every chapter, I found myself wondering eagerly what would happen next, whether Christopher was trying to figure out how to navigate the train system to London or having a meltdown in his bedroom. In addition to that, there are many points where Christopher does what I know (from being taught) is "naughty" -- usually what neurotypicals are tempted to do but naturally refrain from -- and I was quite tickled by him actually breaking the rules! I've read thousands of books in my lifetime, as reading is *my* big perseveration, and even earned my bachelor's degree from U.C. Berkeley's English department. "Curious Incident" is, in my opinion, absolutely one of the best I've experienced, and I dearly hope the author writes a sequel. :-)
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Today Show Book Club #13)
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