"The Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time"

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Has anyone read This book by Mark Haddon?

If so what are your thoughts about it?

I have just finished readig it today and thought it was a very interesting book.

Is this truely the thought patterns of 15 year old Aspie/Autie?

Can anyone relate to Christopher?

Just wondering what your intake might be...

I was less severly affected, as a 15 year old.

I know nothing about it. What part stood out to you?

Steve

Yes, I've read it, shortly before joining here, actually. I found it to be a very interesting book, and could relate to Chris in many ways. However, I've found that if I try to read it again, I just can't because I know what's going to happen later. It's kinda annoying.

As the book was written by an NT (shocking, isn't it?), there probably are a few things that go off what is true for an Autie/Aspie. However, he did do a lot of research into what the character is like, so it's a fairly accurate representation. However, only an Aspie/Autie truly knows how they think, right?

Nearly the whole book. It's writen thru the eyes of an Aspie/Autie and it's kind of like a diery about what has happend to his next door neighbors dog that was murdered and he brings it upon himself to find out who killed him.

This is a work of fiction.

I guess you had to have read the book.

It's very hard to discribe the style of writing.

I believe the part that stood out the most to me was his inability to understand the people around him and what his actions were makeing people feel.

And when he was scared and what he was doing to calm himself down, I.E. counting the square Root of the numbers up to 50 and such mathimatical thinking. I admire that.

And also his viewed detachtment of his emotions. Reading the book it is like your watching a movie. In a book they tell you, atleast, what the person is feeling and his emotions and thoughts leading up to his dicision or action yet in the book it is very linier view.

"I could tell he was angry because he was shouting and I didn't want to make him angry so I didn't say anything else until we got home."

I tried to find a better example.

Hmm....

Oddly enought I couldn't really relate to chris that much. And I know that it being writen by and NT I couldn't really take it at full face value so i wanted to know what everyone else on the site thought about it.

th onley part that I related to were the traveling around and that scared feeling you get when your doing it by yourself because of the people and the uncertenty of everything around and the unpredictability, unfermilierality of being in a new place. The limited feeling of emotions. Those picture faces things. But in generale I don't think many NT would know what those picture faces in the beginnig of the book means if you asked them.

But his view of his parents seems a bit odd to me.

But I guess you don't have to use math equations to calm yourself down. I Repete song bits and random words in my head and try to think of something else.

At least I think know I wasn't that literel. If so most of it I guess grew out of me. At least I hope.

After reading the book, I knew I just HAD to put an Aspie character in my own story. I also decided to 'borrow' a few things, such as the counting. However, instead of figuring out Prime numbers, she does something different, as she's not as good at Maths as Chris is. Instead, she counts like this:

1
1-2-1
1-2-3-2-1
1-2-3-4-3-2-1
1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1

And so on and so forth. I actually got the idea from a friend of mine! If you would like to know more about this character, feel free to ask me!

The thing I could relate to the most was Chris's lack of knowing what an important situation really is.

I really liked the book. I can't say how accurate it was, but I thought it was generally well-written...

I liked reading it, but wondered if the author might have thrown in too many autistic/AS traits to make the point that here was an Aspie teenager?

Well apparently in an interview the author said he was trying to be careful not to make it too obvious he never mentions exactly what is different about Christopher but yeah I think he might have laid on it a little too heavily.

But then again its hard not to when your writing the book from the viewpoint of a worldview which you cant really relate to.

In short you can tell it was written by an NT but its not bad.

No, I haven't... but there's a line like that in the Sherlock Holmes story Silver Blaze. lol :p

Christopher sounds much more HFA than Aspie--he has too many problems with language, and his special interests aren't extremely prominent as they are in most Aspies. But he's on the borderline between the two; and anyway, people (including Spectrum people) are different.

It's a commendable effort for an NT author. To completely understand what it's like to be an Aspie, you pretty much have to be one yourself; but it's possible to understand it intellectually--and then there's that NT capacity for empathy, which works well for them if they aren't closed-minded about it.

read it,made me smile.

the world is a sh*tty place at times and 15 is a tricky age, everyone copes in a different way. i agree with fraya, he did lay it on a bit heavily but at the end of the day it is fiction and for an NT to pick it up and relate to christopher (they may not relate to more subtle traits!) it may have needed to be over emphasised?

I have a funny story about my experience with this book.

Unbeknownst to me, when I wasn't there, the ladies in my Book Review group chose this book in an effort to better understand my son. It was a very nice thing to do, actually. So we all read this book, and meet for our Review. Unfortunately, one lady is new and doesn't know that I have a son with the same syndrome as the background character. One of the questions asked in the review was "How did you feel about the main character?" to which she answered "ooh, I didn't like him at all. He really bugged me. . ." and she went on and on about how annoyed she was, blah, blah, blah. I actually felt kind of bad for her, because everybody else was feeling really uncomfortable with what she was saying. I had been quiet up until this point, but then I started to talk about the accuracies and inaccuracies of this book from personal experience (my son's), and she finally understood there was someone in the group who actually HAS a kid like the main character. Boy, she felt bad. The next day she called and apologized profusely. I just think she was in an unusually bad position.

As for the book, as in any book, there were parts that seemed very accurate, and others that were over the top. I found the part about the train ride the most accurate, the one part where I could see my son feeling that level of anxiety. There were other parts as well that really spoke to me in ways that reminded me of how my son would act or think. I think it was a good book, well written, and I had heard that the author actually was a therapist for kids on the spectrum, so I'm pretty sure he has years of experience behind him with ASD kids and therefore has a fairly good knowledge of what someone might feel or how they would react.

every night, my family sits down together while my dad read a book aloud to my mother and i, at one point, we were reading this book at one point, though we never realised this kid had autism, too, but we guessed it, i actually had trouble beleiving he was 15... we actually didn't finish the book, my parents decided this kid's position would leave a negative impact on me and we stopped reading it around the part where the kid discovered the letters from his mom that he *thought* was dead. the reason we thought that it would leave a negative impression was because when things happen in books and in my life, and i don't tottally understand what they are, i can't take the subject off my mind until i know the whole story, and if i am in suspense, and i find out the answer, and it is a negative one... that bothers me more, i actually am still recovering from an incident that effected the life of the main character in the end of the new artemis fowl book, artemis fowl: the lost colony... crazy time travelling demons!

What! There's a new Artemis Fowl book?