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

I have to agree with the majority of people in this thread, that the book is brilliant. I read it in a day, just because I wanted to know what was going to happen next. It's very funny, but also upsetting at times. I felt sorry not just for the boy, but for his Mum and Dad too, who both tried very much to the 'right' things in difficult situations. Great book.
 
Very enjoyable book. I wasn't blown away by it like the person who recommended it to me said I would be. (She's usually spot on with her recommendations.)

The flow of the narrative really helped me get into it and identify with the main character.
Though both the father and mother were despicable people. Of course, it's easy for me to sit here and condemn people that have to go through things that I haven't experienced. But when I look at my young son, leaving him or telling a monstrous lie to him are the last things I would ever consider.

I look forward to Haddon's next attempt.
 
I agree I don’t think his father was a bad person. I think it must be incredibly difficult to be the parent in such circumstances.
 
Even if you ignore the lying to your kid part, anyone who kills a dog with a garden fork is a bad person, no matter how bad they are hurting.
 
Um... yeah, maybe, but he was going through a really, really challenging time, and I'm not sure I would have coped, had I been him.

I saw a dead kitten today though which completely ruined my day, so yeah, killing the dog was bad. But awww, he more than paid for it by the end.
 
Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-time

Written by Mark Haddon

I just finished this today, and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. It led me to thinking about how we take our feelings for granted and how so many things we say aren't what we really mean. Has anyone else read this? What did you think? No one else around me has read it and I want to discuss it with someone.
 
What did people think of this book?

A friend bought it for me, and I kept putting of reading it. But once i picked it up, I couldn't put it down for two days and was gutted when it was over.

It wasn't the best book in the world, but the plot makes it very difficult to put down. By the end of the book I felt very sorry for the all of the family (can't remmeber their names, it was well over a yera since I read it). Not just the son, but his mum and dad too who all had a rough time in their brining up of this child.

It also gave me an introduction to the world of a child suffering from autism (or was it aspergers?).
 
I also enjoyed this book for a few reasons. One of which was the discussions of the boy's logic and advanced reasoning capabilities. I found those intriguing. Some of the puzzles I was able to see right away(Boy I'm smart) :) but a few of them I had to really look at and read the explanations.(Maybe not so smart after all). :mad:
 
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon

The story is written in the first-person narrative of Christopher John Francis Boone, a 15-year-old autistic boy living in Swindon, Wiltshire. Although Christopher's condition within the autism spectrum is not stated explicitly within the novel, the summary on the book's inside cover describes it as Asperger syndrome. However, his personality traits suggest similarities to high-functioning autism. It's really amazing. He finds the neighbor's dog to have been violently killed and he goes around investigating who did it.

I highly recommend it. :D
 
I finished reading it yesterday. It took a little getting used to the writing style, but I thought it was very good and would also recommend it
 
I liked the fact that it was a change of pace. The writing style was so different that it was refreshing for me. Not one of my favorite books though.
 
Not being autistic, I can't judge the books accuracy, but I was very impressed the the author's ability to take me into the mind of someone who thinks very differently from most of us. Very literal, very specific. He gives an example something like this.

Most people say they see cows in a field. I say I see 38 cows in the field. Ten are black, 20 are white and eight are spotted. Thirteen are facing east, five are facing west, 10 are facing north and 10 are facing south.

And so on, a mind so immersed in detail that it has no comprehension of other people's emotions or actions. He tries to take control of this by specifying the colors of the food he can eat and what car colors bring good days and bad days.
 
silverseason said:
Not being autistic, I can't judge the books accuracy, but I was very impressed the the author's ability to take me into the mind of someone who thinks very differently from most of us. Very literal, very specific. He gives an example something like this.

Most people say they see cows in a field. I say I see 38 cows in the field. Ten are black, 20 are white and eight are spotted. Thirteen are facing east, five are facing west, 10 are facing north and 10 are facing south.

And so on, a mind so immersed in detail that it has no comprehension of other people's emotions or actions. He tries to take control of this by specifying the colors of the food he can eat and what car colors bring good days and bad days.
Click to expand...

My whole family read this book, including my grandmother, because my cousin is autistic. He's more severe than Aspbergers, but a lot of the componants are the same. He is the same as the protaganist in the sense that he memorizes what would seem to be irrelevent tidbits. He can literally recite, word for word, any Disney movie.
 
I just recently had to read that book for school. The writing style was certainly different. Very interesting, though admittedly not one of my favorite books.
 
Hi y'all

I just finished this. Although I normally read fiction by literary heavyweights, I have to say this was probably the best novel I've read in the last year. I read it in one sitting, it was so engrossing. It's like a perfectly-formed miniature sculpture. Wonderful stuff.
 
I loved this book! I read it before my son was diagnosed with Autism and I have read it again since. I don't know if my son really thinks this way but made more understanding about what he is thinking.:)
 
I just finished it and I felt very underwhelmed at the end. I felt completely disengaged every time the Author drifted off into explanatory chapters ie. when I do maths... then goes on to show the reader all the details? or this is how I make maps, or when quoting his favorite book, he just drifts off into quoting Sherlock Holmes. I can understand when an author might want to do this to add substance but I felt this was more like filler it served no purpose other than to get me completely disengaged from the story. Same with all the letters from his mom, big deal the only one that really served a purpose was the first one simply because it was a clue. The predictably of this book was a bit to simple as well, it was to easy to figure out where the story was going and where we would end up. Scale of 1 - 10 I give it a 5 because after all is said and done, it had just enough to it for me to finish it, underwhelming and all.
My 2 cents anyway
 
For me, the most astonishing moment of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime was
discovering that the author is NOT autistic
. The persona of the main character seems flawless, the narrative seamless, the writing so skillful as to put the reader into the mind and mindset of a boy with Asperger's.
 
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