Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

So let's get started, shall we?

Today, I'd like to talk about "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" by Mark Haddon... which, by the way, amazon.com tells me was published in 2004.

This means that you've probably already read it and this review is ... ahem... mildly redundant. But that's OK. We're all getting cosy and getting to know one another.

Did you like it?

I LOVED IT!

I have this penchant for Young Adult (henceforth YA) novels and happened to "borrow" this book from an expat friend who, happily, told me she never wanted to see it again because she has too many books as it is.

I love it when that happens.

As an expat, I've found that I've become more attached to books in my mother tongue. People keep telling me to read in French to improve my French and I'm all: "NO WAY! There are way too many beautiful books in my native tongue and anyway, French literature is wan and sad, bordering on tragic and anyway reading for pleasure should be escapism, not a chore. Who wants to read about perpetual tragedy?" For all their quest for being intellectuals (intellos), there are an awful lot of commuters reading French translations of English books in the métro rather than books written by their own writers.

But it appears that I am digressing. I tend to do that. It's one of my many faults.

Yes. So. The Curious Incident.

I was pleased to see that it had garnered not one, but two "children's" book awards: The Whitbread Book of the Year and the Booktrust Teenage Fiction Award and besides that, I had heard good things from friends.

Of course, this made me relatively unprepared for the word "fuck" on the second page. Or the word "cunt" later on. It appears that Britain's children's culture is a bit more "adult" than North American children culture but a few naughty words does not get in the British children's culture's way of discerning awards. Which is a good thing.

The absolute charm of the book is the literalness of the story (now I'm going to actually tell you about it rather than going off on fancies as is my want). The story is told in first person (which is very hard to pull off successfully by the way, so chapeau Mark Haddon!) by a 15 year old who discovers his neighbor's dog dead. The weapon? A garden fork. Christopher decides that he is going to track down whodunnit and write a story about it. Word by word: naughty words included and whatever else comes to mind that perfectly illustrates Christopher's world and his interests.

The story is exceedingly cunning in the fashion that it is written. We are never overtly told that Christopher is autistic. In fact, just writing that, I'm not sure if I've not made a faux pas because indeed, we are never really told that he is so who am I to write it? I have no experience with the way an autistic person thinks and so, am foolishly basing my assumption on things I've picked up along the way and that Rainman movie.

As this is a book that is destined for young adults, one can imagine the reaction of a 16 year old to it. Christopher, who is mathematically brilliant, is socially awkward but to a degree that must incite sympathy from the reader whether that reader is 16 or 70. We've all felt awkwardness but never from the perspective of someone who is considered by our society as having "special needs". It's good to keep this in mind when we interact with others and especially the people our society tends to alienate. We have it easy. Christopher's world is complex and rife with difficulties that are programmed into his being but at the same time these same difficulties are extraordinary and rich.

For example, if you are in a field, this is what you and I see:

The field is full of grass, there are some cows, some flowers, some clouds in the sky, the sky is blue... then your brain will think, "golly everything is so beautiful" or you'll go off on another tangent altogether on something that has nothing to do with where you are, like whether or not such and such had her baby or not.

For Christopher, this is what he sees:

19 cows in the field: 15 black, 4 brown and white; a village in the distance with 31 visible rooftops and a church with a square tower rather than a spire; ridges in the field which date back to medieval times when they used the ridge and furrow tradition; a coke can with a snail on it off to the side a bit with a shopping bag attached to a bush nearby; the north side of the field is highest; there are three different types of grass and two types of flowers; most of the cows are facing uphill and 31 other things that were noticed but he didn't write down because Christopher was tired.

He notices everything and his brain never goes off on flights of fancy. He is always painfully in the moment. Literally.

If this is what Christopher sees each time he goes someplace new, one can hardly blame him for not liking new situations and needing steady routines. And hating France. It is incomprehensible to him that there should be more than one language.

In the end, Christopher discovers a lot more than he bargained for. Some of it is good, some of it is bad. He even discovers a bit of himself and that he has the means to be independant and manage new situations when it really matters.

A truly excellent read.