Reading Project - Curious Incident

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My university decided to use "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" as their Reading Project book this coming year. Everyone at the university will be encouraged to read it and discuss it and there will be various events promoting the book.

I got an e-mail from the man who is in charge of the Reading Project, asking if I would help make puzzles similar to the ones in the book that are " challenging but not impossible." The puzzles are "to be included in mailings to new freshman where prizes will be awarded upon successful completion." He asked other people for help, but when he asked the math club advisor, she told him specifically to ask me because I love math and logic puzzles and have given presentations on those topics to the math club.

I'm both excited and nervous about the university reading an autism book this coming year. I'm only a little bit "out of the closet" on campus when it comes to my asperger's. I don't know how easily I could stand by and keep my mouth shut if people start spreading stupid stereotypes about autistic people. But I don't know how much more out of the closet I would want to be.

I haven't read the book myself--do you know how accurately it portrays autism?

You don't have to "stand by and keep your mouth shut," but you don't have to "out" yourself either. Tell people that you've been doing supplemental research on autism and Asperger's in the course of working on the project because it interested you. That way, you can correct any "stupid stereotypes" from a position of academic authority.

Congrats, btw.

The author claims to have composited several individuals but the result is the same problematic "super-autism" that we see too often in fiction (for example, the doctor on "Grey's Anatomy"), that being: the character has every single trait and stereotype of autism and they're all on at full-blast.

So the book is interesting, but the character is more a caricature of autism than a real person who has autism. And even as a caricature of autism, it doesn't feel real to me because when you start piling on all the traits at full volume, you get a combination that is so alien from what we actually see when we interact in writing with autistic minds that it just doesn't read as real to me. It's "super-autism."



Unfortunately, when there's an entire department over in the health sciences department devoted to autism and they're always having their little Autism Speaks bake sales and stuff, no one is going to listen to what I have to say if it counters what the "autism club" has to say (and they can't possibly be that broadly educated because there are no on-campus services for adults with autism or asperger's and only one person in town treating adults on the spectrum. All they deal with in the autism department on campus is small children and mostly just in books -- there aren't any on-campus programs for autistic children, either. I don't know how the students in that department are getting their real-world training on autism or if it's all coming 100% out of books!)

The only way anyone would take what I had to say about autism seriously if it countered the "party line" of the academic department that studies autism is if people knew that I have been officially diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum myself. Because how can you refute someone's personal life experience? (Other than to say "well, that's how it is for *you* but our books say that most people with autism are not like you.")

So there's really not much point in "putting myself out there" if I'm not willing to admit that I'm autistic myself.



Thanks!

I dealt with this situation on a much smaller scale -- my book club chose to read this book, partially because my son is on the spectrum.

The main character was definitely how you described -- "full-on" aspergers with every aspect described. I was kind of annoyed by the book, and never really knew why until you explained it that way. It's very true -- not every person on the spectrum has ALL the characteristics. So it's not a very accurate representation -- too over the top.

Having said that, it was interesting to have these women read this book, and the discussion at book group was fascinating. I think that it helped people in the group to do two things:

1) have a beginning knowledge of aspergers, and the challenges some people face with it
2) have some understanding and empathy for my son

These kinds of situations are never perfect -- I doubt that there will be a fictional book to come out that everyone connected to autism will like -- but at least it gets some knowledge OUT THERE. I have been very frustrated in the past that nobody "gets" this spectrum because so few people know about it. That is changing. There are lots of books with asperger's characters, some tv shows and movies with asperger's characters. I wish a few more would be less of a "characterization" and have a more realistic, human element, but it's going to take time for that to develop.

Thank you for putting it that way; it makes me feel better. I don't want anyone to pity me, but I do wish that people would recognize how much I struggle on a daily basis and realize that I'm working really hard to be normal and suceeding amazingly instead of thinking I'm not even trying and being a lazy slacker. Maybe in a way it's good that the novel is so over the top because it will open people's eyes to how hard it can be for someone like me just to go buy some groceries.



The ones that really bother me are the ones that link asperger's and crime in people's minds. Yes, I know, some of us do commit crimes, even murder, but that's not what we need to talk about in these early days of raising awareness. One of the reasons it bothers me that I hear people so often say, "asperger's? You mean like on that show Boston Legal?" is because that character was frustrated that he didn't get made a partner in the firm and so he took a knife and threatened to kill the boss. I don't want people to think I'm the kind of person who would try to kill their boss because I didn't get a raise! If people are afraid of me, who will hire me? I think it's a very real concern.

ergh! I just finished re-reading "Curious Incident" and there aren't any puzzles in it! There are lots of things from math and science that are explained, but there aren't any puzzles for the reader to solve so now I have to figure out what the Reading Project committee expects. Or ask them to clarify. Because there aren't any puzzles for me to model on.

All I can figure is they want some puzzles to do with clever mathematical concepts, but they said "that can't be looked up on the internet" so they want all-new puzzles, not any of the classic mathematical conundrums (in which case, do they realize the magnitude of what they're asking? And do they realize that a paperback book is hardly a reward for creating a new mathematical conundrum that is a) challenging, b) solvable by some incoming freshmen to a fourth-tier state university, and c) original and not found anywhere on the internet???)