Review: "The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Nightti

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I read Curious Incident ... back in January of this year.

While I could certainly relate to some of the central protagonist's things (strange obsessions, eg the colour of cars, the numbers on bus routes, number plates, not stepping on the cracks in pavements, counting certain things and so forth). I mentioned to my brother (who initially lent me the book), that in some ways I could relate to certain things, and he then taunted me about whether or not I was going to have a 'super-good day' because I had seen 3 red cars, instead of 4 yellow ones, but the unfortunate thing is that when I was much younger (not 15, more about 9 or 10), I really did think along those lines. As regards the apparently 'demanding' behaviour of the central protagonist, I could not quite understand how it was that the parents were not brutally violent and punishing, in order to try to 'break' the boy to their own demands. My parents certainly were, and in fact one of the things I remember most strongly is the brutal force with which they 'broke' me.. Perhaps one of the reasons why there are 'co-morbidities' among older people on the AS/ASD Spectrum is to do with the violent 'social aversives' that were perfectly 'legal' (if entirely unethical) for parents to apply in the 1960's and 1970's.

I didn't get 'emotional' or anything, when Christopher took his A-Level in Mathematics and passed, but I was damned well pleased that he had achieved that. I could also understand and relate to the confusion about the contradiction of Christopher apparently being 'disordered', while in fact, it seemed that many of those around him were disordered and more messed up than he was.

The 'venturing into the unkonwn' - the train journey from Swindon to Paddington, then the subsequent Tube Train ride on the Bakerloo Line were very evocative in some ways. Also, the fact that he kept his baby rat with him was something that struck a chord, too. I have so often longed for a baby, furry thing to be snuggled up in one of my pockets, a constant companion who was always with me. It seems that maybe the pet rat was one of his 'comfort' objects.

As regards the apparently 'obvious' denoument of the mystery/detective strand in the story, I have to admit that I did not 'catch on' to it, even though in retrospect, it is rather 'obvious'. It might be that I did not figure out the emotional by-play, or it might just be that I'm a lousy detective.

Six months later though and thinking about it, apart from a few obvious 'give-aways', there probably isn't that much about Christopher that seems terribly 'autistic' in the popular definition of the term. The only aspects that could be considered 'out of the mainstream range' were the Sensory issues and let's face it, if one were to 'tweak up a bit', some of the annoyances and stresses we all face when confronted with excessive and contradictory noises, too much visual over-load, etc, it is not quite so difficult to comprehend the sensory issues. After all, how far removed from a headache and a sense of nausea is physically throwing up removed anyway?

While it can be seen that maybe there were seemingly 'contradictory' autistic traits in the one individual, I think that over all, The Curious Incident ... is an important, timely and useful contribution to the literature around AS/ASD and that the uptake for the book by various schools, colleges etc, can only be a good thing. I say this for a few reasons: the central protagonist essentially creates a sense of 'identification', that is to say, most readers will at least try to understand and relate to the created character (though I did read a review on Amazon in which one person wanted to 'just slap the kid' - I hope that reviewer never gets the chance to do such a thing!), ie they can feel a certain affinity and therefore see him as human. This is some remove from the idea that somebody with popular-defined 'autism' is totally beyond meaningful communication. Also hopefully, it will be a timely reminder to others that people with AS/ASD are every bit as human as everyone else, that their feelings do matter and that howver 'odd' they may appear, they are still deserving of being treated as real people and not as easy targets for bullying, aggression and all the other things that I know many of the people on this board have experienced routinely, and many of whom unfortunately, continue to experience.

I thought it was a terrible book. The writing style annoyed me to no end, and I didn't think it was very interesting. Regardless of how realistic it may be, I don't read books for realism, I read them for quality writing.

Wow talk about major thread bump! 5 years it was dorment!

Anyway, I do like the book because I like the writing style and it had a good balance of funny and sad. I thought Christpoher's traits were way over the top but I still think they writer had pretty good understanding of what the traits are and how they make the character feel. I didn't relate to too much AS wise but I did agree with his views on various philisophical questions like god and stuff.
One thing I didn't like about it was when Christopher kept talking about maths problems and sherlock holmes books, I'm not interested in that I just want to to see how the story goes, I'm not bothered about how the monty hall problem works and how many mathematicians got it wrong, I just want to know what happens in the story!
But apart from the few criticisms I really like the book and have read it quite a few times.

I quite liked the book from what I remember when I read it five years ago.

I liked the book, identified with the character, and thought it was a useful proxy for what a lot of aspies go through even if, as many have mentioned, his autistic traits were mix-and-match at times. My brain works in a similar way to his even if my symptoms, actions and reactions are much milder and more controllable.
Monkey - I think Haddon went off on the math and logic problems to show how aspies' minds will easily get tracked onto their interests. It was a touch of realism from the standpoint of the writer. Obviously if your special interest is not math you may be irritated into skipping those tangents (no pun intended) but that is a legitimate interaction between reader and story that is meant to mimic the real-life interaction between Christopher and someone listening to his little monologues. If you like math, you'll be fascinated; if you don't, you'll be like 'whatever' and this mirrors real-life interactions between NTs and aspies.

I hated it. And that's a nice way of putting it. The main character was much too severe to be Asperger's, I didn't connect with the book at all, and I thought the actual plot was absolutely boring and idiotic. Like I care about him taking a train with his pet rat to go see his mother. Yawn...
-OddDuckNash99-