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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Fifteen-year-old Christopher has a photographic memory, he is confident with maths and taken with science. Crushingly, what he can't understand are other human beings.
When his neighbour's dog, Wellington, is found dead, killed by a pitchfork the senseless act spurs Christopher to track down the killer and write a detective novel about his findings. Facing secrets and lies, his cool acceptance may seem remarkable but as we find out, emotions alarm him. When things get too much he feels a ‘’surge of power’’ and the need to ‘’shut down the computer and reboot’’. Something not so easy to come to terms with in the emotionally active world of today. In this over-logical brain, author Mark Haddon manages to cleverly illustrate the flaws in our own typical society.
Although never mentioned, Christopher shows all the signs of having Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism. Living with his Father and his pet rat Toby in the small town of Swindon, he has never wanted, nor felt able to give his Father a hug. His signal of caring is by spreading out the fingers of his hand like a fan, and touching his Father’s thumb and little finger with his own. Not that Christopher fully understands the concept of caring, his knowledge of emotions are aided only by that of his teacher and best friend Siobhan. He knows "all the countries of the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7,507", yet has to be drawn expressions on paper to understand facial communication. Strangely, he abhors all yellow and brown things, orders his day by how many coloured cars he has seen in a row on his way to school and believes he would make a good astronaut.
As far as conversation goes he gives correct and precise answers, nothing more, which frustrates his peers and sometimes the reader. His mind is that of a movie, he can rewind different scenes and their frames, taking note of specific detail, and repeating them perfectly years later. It is this mentality that spurs Christopher into his role of detective upon the discovery of his neighbour’s dead dog, Wellington, but also what alienates him from those around him. Comparing himself with Sherlock Holmes (the only book Christopher has ever found himself interested in apart from a maths book because Sherlock uses logic to solve his crimes), he sets out to investigate the murder despite the repeated pleas of his Father.
This is not so much a coming of age story but an insight into the mind of someone with a severe disability, content in his own world, being forced to live a life considered ‘normal’ by the rest of society. Illustrated with puzzles, diagrams, timetables, maps, pictures and mathematical formulas Haddon, the author of several children's books and a teacher who once worked with people with mental and physical disabilities, never condescends to his narrator but neither does he romanticise the boy's condition.
Christopher is never portrayed as a hero, the fact that he wets himself frequently and lashes out at other people only seeks to illustrate that he has more life in him then any other character.
Like his fellow Asperger’s sufferers, he has little time for people: they just don't think logically. In his favourite dream, he tells us a virus has killed all the people who look at one another's faces when they talk the only survivors are ''special people like me,'' who ''like being on their own'' and who are as ''shy and rare'' as the ''okapi in the jungle in the Congo.'' He doesn’t like noise or people touching him and this makes his journey even more traumatic and remarkable.
"This will not be a funny book," says Christopher. "I cannot tell jokes because I do not understand them." And although his condition makes it sad, it is funny in a heart-rending way. His compulsive noting of mundane facts provides comedy reminiscent of the best of Adrian Mole, especially in his dealings with the police and his special-need’s classmates.
Winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year and published by David Fickling Books simultaneously for adults and older children despite its simple outlook ’The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ operates on several levels. If you’re looking for a good read and a non-expensive one (£6.99 in paperback), this is it. But I would also recommend its 272 pages to anyone who has every wondered what it’s like to live with a mental disability, and challenge them to come away not feeling down and sympathetic, but having the utmost respect for Christopher and wishing that sometimes life was less grey, and more black and white. |
