Archive for June 2006
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time – Mark Hadden
This is a story of a fifteen year old autistic boy, told from his own perpective. He has Asperger Syndrome which means that while he has amazing logic and intelligence, he lacks basic social skills and finds it difficult to have, and understand, human relationships.
The narrator (Christopher) travels from Swindon to North London to find his mother and encounters danger on his journey which he is often oblivious too. His autism makes him very advanced in terms of logical thinking, mathematics and problem solving and he loves lists and facts. He strongly dislikes strangers and has real difficulty in reading people’s facial expressions. He is also sensitive to noise which can send him into retreat, and he has colours to determine whether or not it will be a good day or not.
Siobhan is one of the main characters in the book. She is his Psychiatrist and friend and helps Chistopher to understand human social interaction. She proves to be good support for him.
Judy, Christopher’s mother, was a character that I really did not like. My dislike for her was possibly due to her neglect of her son. I felt his father tried hard and I could not help but feel sorry for him.
Another interesting element of the book is the death of Wellington, a black dog found dead at the beginning of the book, and Christopher’s determination to find out how he died.
The writing style, as written from Christopher’s persective is fascinating. The chapters are laid out as Prime Numbers-a truly interesting idea.
Reading this book made me question whether the way we do things is in fact ‘the right way’. This book illustrates how ordinary people lack logic. For example, at one point Christopher tries to understand human beings but is confused when he is told to “be quiet”. His head presents a very logical question, ‘for how long should I be quiet?’ illustrating how we can easily confuse, especially young children, with our assumptions that they know what we mean. Such excellent thinking, I loved him for it.
I was very interested in this huge challenge that put upon himself, travelling from Swindon to North London and the suspense of whether or not he would make it through this jouney, given his limitations.
It was also personally significant since I was brought up in North London (around the corner from Chapter road in fact).
Overall, this book fascinated me, each character with their remarkable lives.
