What Do You Call A Dead Dog and An Autist?
Book review
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by Mark Haddon
Right after I finished reading this book, I felt that there was nothing special about it. It felt like a not-so-simple journal, written by a 15-year-old autistic named Cristopher. He is the main character in the book, and the only person whose point of view the reader is looking through. In it he described the world through as he sees it through his eyes, and often he describes it in pictures and drawings instead of words. Personally, I think that a novel that uses a lot of pictures as means to describe things are not such a good novel. Then again, this is a journal of an autistic boy. So, maybe I should make an exception in this case.
Christopher is a simple-minded 15-year-old. Simple, maybe because he's an autistic (and I'm not). He doesn't like the colors brown and yellow. He loves mathematics and physics, and he always tries to deconstruct life into mathematical and physical law. And Christopher loves animals. So, when on one night he found Wellington, a neighbour's dog, dead, impaled by a pitch-fork, he decided to use his logical skill to play detective and try to find out who killed it (driven by his love of puzzles and of Sherlock Holmes). Playing a detective for an autistic is not an easy task, as this book will show readers. Some of the problems Cristopher will face are facing strangers, deciphering emotions, and handling an overload of information. Things that most normal humans are adept to, but a struggle for autistics to do in their lives (at least that's what I think and what I've heard, since I'm not an autistic).
As a book, at first I find that there's nothing extraordinary in matters concerning complexity in writing technique. There's a lot of details alright, since the character Cristopher likes to put many little details into his 'journal'. And the descriptions are nothing out of the ordinary. This is okay, even though I find that many of these details and descriptions aren't necessary to the storyline. But later I think that that's not the point, since Haddon's point seems to be about trying to present a world view from an autistic's eyes and mind. And this is where he succeeded.
As I've mentioned before, Cristopher's point of view is quite simple and logical. He believes that life could be represented by mathematical and physical equations. The character is not very good at describing emotions, subtlety and nuances, matters that could not be symbolized by equations and logics. Even though Cristopher could not grasp these, the readers however, can. And this is the hidden treasure, the true power of the book (and my early frustration with the character when I started reading the book). It is not the things that are being said by Cristopher that will intrigue the readers, it is the things that are unsaid. It is the things that Cristopher fails to grasp that the readers will appreciate. The stuff where the readers have to read between the lines.
By the end of this book, readers will find that there's more to this book than just finding a dead dog in the middle of the night. And with this, I would like to correct my comment about finding this book to be nothing special. For those who would like to find out about how an autistic sees the world, read this book. You will appreciate them more. As I have.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by Mark Haddon
Right after I finished reading this book, I felt that there was nothing special about it. It felt like a not-so-simple journal, written by a 15-year-old autistic named Cristopher. He is the main character in the book, and the only person whose point of view the reader is looking through. In it he described the world through as he sees it through his eyes, and often he describes it in pictures and drawings instead of words. Personally, I think that a novel that uses a lot of pictures as means to describe things are not such a good novel. Then again, this is a journal of an autistic boy. So, maybe I should make an exception in this case.
Christopher is a simple-minded 15-year-old. Simple, maybe because he's an autistic (and I'm not). He doesn't like the colors brown and yellow. He loves mathematics and physics, and he always tries to deconstruct life into mathematical and physical law. And Christopher loves animals. So, when on one night he found Wellington, a neighbour's dog, dead, impaled by a pitch-fork, he decided to use his logical skill to play detective and try to find out who killed it (driven by his love of puzzles and of Sherlock Holmes). Playing a detective for an autistic is not an easy task, as this book will show readers. Some of the problems Cristopher will face are facing strangers, deciphering emotions, and handling an overload of information. Things that most normal humans are adept to, but a struggle for autistics to do in their lives (at least that's what I think and what I've heard, since I'm not an autistic).
As a book, at first I find that there's nothing extraordinary in matters concerning complexity in writing technique. There's a lot of details alright, since the character Cristopher likes to put many little details into his 'journal'. And the descriptions are nothing out of the ordinary. This is okay, even though I find that many of these details and descriptions aren't necessary to the storyline. But later I think that that's not the point, since Haddon's point seems to be about trying to present a world view from an autistic's eyes and mind. And this is where he succeeded.
As I've mentioned before, Cristopher's point of view is quite simple and logical. He believes that life could be represented by mathematical and physical equations. The character is not very good at describing emotions, subtlety and nuances, matters that could not be symbolized by equations and logics. Even though Cristopher could not grasp these, the readers however, can. And this is the hidden treasure, the true power of the book (and my early frustration with the character when I started reading the book). It is not the things that are being said by Cristopher that will intrigue the readers, it is the things that are unsaid. It is the things that Cristopher fails to grasp that the readers will appreciate. The stuff where the readers have to read between the lines.
By the end of this book, readers will find that there's more to this book than just finding a dead dog in the middle of the night. And with this, I would like to correct my comment about finding this book to be nothing special. For those who would like to find out about how an autistic sees the world, read this book. You will appreciate them more. As I have.
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