Mark Haddon: The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime

[Stevecombiman]

Unfortunately its not my book and I want to repair it thanks for the suggestion though

 

[Stewart]

But you said in your initial post that it was your copy. Forget the pages anyway; you're not missing anything.

 

[Yobmod]

I thought this book was very good. Narrative was a bit simple, but it was from a child's perspctive, so made sense to me.

Speed of Dark, by Elizabeth Moon is written from the perspective of an autistic man. For me it dragged on a bit, and i was annoyed that the autistic characters were somewhat superhuman - Rain Man style savants are extremely rare i thought. but it won a Nebula award, so other people like it. Might be a good choice for fans of 'curious incident...' (Only mildy SF).

btw, Did anyone else recognise loads of autistic characteristic in themselves after reading this? Maybe i'm just weird, but i often find myself avoiding eye contact, wont eat if people are looking at me, feel ill if someone stands to near me (my boss at least) etc.
I always thought that was normal

 

[blueboatdriver]

I'm reading it just now. The narrative annoys me (although I can understand why it's the way it is) but it's fun. Should pass a few train journeys.

The narrative is "the way it is" because it's supposed to seem as if it's written by a 15 year old with Aspergers and to me is by no means annoying.
I can't see it taking many train journeys unless you read incredibly slowly.

 

[Ashlea]

Got about 40 pages into this one, and am finding it difficult as it's hard to watch a character stumble so frequently. Must try again when I'm ready for a little distance.

 

[oldboy]

just borrowed it on saturday and read it in about 2hrs.
cleverlly put together. definitely
how did the guy empathise with the thought processes so well. the guy was like mini rainman [is that a good book btw??]

its simplicity gave the story its power

couldnt work out if it was for kids tho. maybe its for everyone

 

[Marge]

I would love to read a sequel to this book, it was just superb. I had to ration myself so I wouldn't finish it too quickly.

 

[oldboy]

i can never do that. i always just figure if i dig it that much ill read it again. and again.

 

[cajunmama]

just borrowed it on saturday and read it in about 2hrs.
cleverlly put together. definitely
how did the guy empathise with the thought processes so well. the guy was like mini rainman [is that a good book btw??]

its simplicity gave the story its power

couldnt work out if it was for kids tho. maybe its for everyone

I don't know if it's "for kids" exactly. I think you are on to it, oldboy, it's for everyone. The author used to work with autistic children, so he has a lot of insight into how they percieve things. This is one of my favorite books.

 

[Shade]

Rough

Allow me to be the avenging ghost at the party and second Mile-o-Phile's disdain for this book. In fact I think it's the most over-rated book in years - possibly since the very similar Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle. My review from Amazon (written in May 2003 when it came out, hence references to that year's Booker Prize) sums it up:

It's only just come out and already The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is being spoken of in hushed tones as the next big thing (the last next big thing, in case you have forgotten, being Life of Pi). Broadsheets wet themselves over it, booksellers "personally recommend" it, and it's odds-on at William Hill for the Man Booker Prize. Although I am not sure it will qualify, as it's being published simultaneously in a children's edition (warning bells ringing yet? That's what we call "foreshadowing").

Amazon has summed up the bones of the book nicely above so I won't bother. Partly for that, and for all the above, and because the last book I read about a dog was Dan Rhodes's staggering masterpiece Timoleon Vieta Come Home, my expectations here were high. But here's where me and my hopes part company. The narrator, 15-year-old Christopher Boone, is mildly autistic, or has Asperger's Syndrome, although this is only spelled out in the blurb and not in the book itself (Haddon said in an interview that he did not want Christopher to carry "an unfair representational weight" in the novel, which sounds to me as though he's trying to have his cake and eat it: yes I want the credit for "doing" the narrator-with-disability schtick, but please don't blame me if it's all inaccurate, after all I didn't literally say he had that disability did I?).

Arthur Golden on the back cover says: "I have never ... encountered a narrator more vivid and memorable." In which case I must direct him towards Nabokov's Humbert Humbert, Amis's John Self, McGrath's Edward Haggard, Ishiguro's Mr. Stevens, and so on and so on. I personally have previously encountered a narrator precisely as vivid and memorable (i.e. not very on either count): it was in Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, which won the Booker Prize 10 years ago (so perhaps he is in with a chance after all). I thought Christopher, the emotionally flat and detached teenager with his simple syntax and blank descriptions, was a ringer for normal 9-year-old Paddy Clarke. It is an effective act of ventriloquism, no doubt, but not interesting in itself or beyond that - a bit like Peter Carey's Ned Kelly in True History of the Kelly Gang, which was all mouth and no trousers, or more accurately, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing. (But hang on - it won the Booker too. Dammit, the man's practically a shoo-in!)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was overlong at 276 pages and I genuinely found it boring by halfway through - though there was a spark of interest just before that point as that's when the novel's major plot reversal comes, which is a good one. The trials of life as an autistic child (or adult) are doubtless worthy of study in literature, but I have to admit that after 28 pages of Christopher working out how to take a train journey, and 20 pages of him working out how to get on the London Underground, when he bought an A-Z of London and started trying to work out how to use it I felt like putting down the book, getting in the car and driving him there myself. Here I would compare it to Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn, which was only an average detective story but excelled in giving what I thought was a fair insight into suffering from Tourette's syndrome, and indeed made it clear just how close to the surface those obsessive tics lie in all of us. But I didn't get a sense of anything new or other with Christopher in Curious Incident... He just seemed like a boy younger than his years, with some fussy habits. There's nothing engaging or original about his voice.

On the bright side, it was easy to read and had some interesting mathematical asides, if you like that sort of thing (which I do). But to me, the double publication is a dead giveaway, and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a children's book through and through.

Interestingly, many people here and on Amazon single out for praise the portrayal of a person with Asperger's. However although Christopher does act like someone with Asperger's, we can't know that he thinks the same way, so we have no way of judging whether it's accurate or not. Three reviewers on Amazon do have Asperger's and two of the three feel that Christopher does not represent them:

I am nothing like the character in this book- nor have I ever met anyone like the character.

I was disappointed for one, and as an adult aspie can tell you that lots of us don't like it. It paints a dark and insulting picture of aspies as if we all couldn't manage in life. ... [M]ost of us who write on websites feel our life competence misrepresented by Curious Incident.

I tend to agree with other reviewers who say that just because it's a sympathetic portrayal of a character with a disability, that doesn't mean it's not a boring book. And I am reminded of John Carey's comment on Slaughterhouse-Five which he omitted from his Most Enjoyable Reads of the 20th Century list on the basis that just because it was a book on an important subject, it didn't make it a good book. As a Vonnegut fan who had never been able to get on with his most famous novel, this clicked with me as exactly what I had thought but had never articulated. Nonetheless Curious Incident has continued to sell well and make Mr Haddon (who is very nice and deserves it) a great big pile of money and has generally added to the gaiety of nations, so who am I to quibble?

 

[Ashlea]

I read about 50 pages of this before becoming incredibly frustrated. I think I'll try again some other time, and if it doesn't click then I'll just pass it along.

 

[Martin]

I don't agree with you, Shade (nor do I fully disagree) - but you rock!

Cheers

 

[Infinity]

I am a member of the Book Club at my high school. We are currently reading a novel about cat called Tailchaser's Song by Tad Williams. The next novel that our librarian (also the sponsor of the club) suggested for next month reading (March 2005) is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon. She told me she has heard plenty of good things about the novel. I'm not sure whether it's good or not, but it merely seems interesting to read a book about dog after finishing a book about cat. I cannot wait until Thursday the 10th to pick up a new copy of the book from our club.

 

[Geenh]

It was a cute book. Enjoy! I read it for my book club as well.

 

[starchild42]

I have this, but haven't read it yet. I bought it mainly because a friend of mine has a son with Aspergers, a little younger than the main character, and I thought it might be interesting in that respect. I'll get around to picking it up one day.

 

[sally_sausages]

Oh i do recommend you pick it up! You will devour it in one sitting, and if your reason for reading it is to get "inside" the mind of someone with Aspergers - you will NOT be disappointed!

I thoroughlly enjoyed it. It was fascinating if nothing else. Some people complain that elements of the plot were predictable , but I think this is the point - we, as readers can see the obvious, but the protagonist is oblivious and sees things all together very laterally.

I have worked with kids with aspergers and found myself nodding away whilst I was reading it - it really does capture the "essence" (if there is such a thing) of how Apsergers affects someone.

 

[starchild42]

Thanks Sally, I'll probably give it a whirl when I've finished my current read.

 

[direstraits]

Hmm... interesting comments. Like some of us here, I didn't find the book terribly good. The perspective was certainly new for me, but the plot was actually quite predictable. I was more than a little let down by the promise of it all - a whodunnit (yay!) from a point I've never experienced before (yay!). As it turned out I guessed the guilty party way before I got to the half way point, and when Christopher found *****, I immediately knew what's going to happen.

It was a pleasant read, no doubt. I'm just glad it's not longer than it is.

I smiled when he got to the Malaysia bit. I was surprised at his observation about the name of orangutan - it is accurate.

ds

 

[mehastings]

I just finished this book a couple days or so ago. I certainly don't think it is the best book I've ever read, but I also didn't have to torment myself into turning pages.

I thought the story was fun, and unique. That's right folks. I thought the story was unique. It is a "quest" and there are a lot of quest books out there, but they say there are only seven unique stories out there anyway. Everything else is a variation on them. I thought this variation was pretty different. I did find somethings to be fairly predictable. I can't speak about the murderer as I read it somewhere in this forum by accident before I got too far into the book. Spoiler: The part where he finds out his mom is alive wasn't really surprising to me, I had a funny feeling from the point where Mr. Spears was called evil. I was a little surprised by the last third or so though. In this country a kid like that would be shipped back to the custodial parent so fast he wouldn't even know what hit him. I guess it must be different in England.

I've seen a lot of criticism of the author's portrayal of a young boy with Asperger's. People state that it isn't accurate, people with Aspergers get insulted, etc. It should be noted that no two people have the exact same symptoms, nor do they think or act exactly the same. This character is a single fictional person, he isn't a representation of what every single Aspergers patient should act or feel like. Haddon is attempting to write from a view point he will never have, but in my opinion did a pretty decent job. I started reading this book, not knowing much about it. I had seen it suggested on a couple forums, so I decided to read it. I got about 10 pages in and thought to myself, this kid has Aspergers.

In all, I thought this was a fun, quick read. It was full of fun math problems that I enjoyed figuring out on my own. I suggest it for people who are looking for a short book that isn't too serious. I've already passed it along to a friend/co-worker.

 

[sanyuja]

I agree with your opinion, mehastings. I read this book last week and I enjoyed it. I liked the easy narration. I too enjoyed the math problems. I really liked the way the solution to one problem was put in appendix!