The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is the latest book I have finished reading. It is marvelous.

Imagine you are in a crowd, maybe at a train station or a street in a big city, and people are rushing to and fro all around you, nonstop, bunches and bunches of them. You try to hear and look at everything that's around you - the people, signs, sounds, cars, colors. You try to get a mental picture of all of this, and everything else, but it is too much for you. You can't process all that is happening; there's too much noise, too many things to look at, too much to remember...

This probably doesn't ever happen to you, and it doesn't for most of us, at least not like it does to the book's narrator, Christopher John Francis Boone. That's because Christopher has Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism. Imagine Dustin Hoffman in Rain Main, only he's fifteen years old. That's what Christopher is like. He hates being touched, always tells the truth, and is excellent at math. He remembers every experience he ever has, keeps his promises, and sometimes has difficulty understanding what people do and say. Christopher likes to feel safe too. He has never traveled on his own farther than the store down the street, and whenever he gets upset he finds a place to hide and curls up and groans or does maths in his head and stops eating.

Haddon weaves a touching tale through this character. It revolves around Christopher's finding his neighbor's dog, Wellington, dead with a garden fork sticking in him. He decides to be a detective and investigate this incident, much like Sherlock Holmes, whom he loves to read and whom uttered the quote from which the novel's title is derived. He decides to write a book, a murder mystery, about finding Wellington's killer, which turns out to be The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. His father disapproves of this and hides the book. Christopher finds it though, but also makes a new discovery, one that takes him to London and almost destroys his relationship with his father. But along the way, Christopher finds confidence, triumphs, and realizes that anything is possible, including his dream of becoming an astronaut.

It is fascinating to get inside the head of a narrator with Asperger's syndrome, like Being John Malkovich but written words instead. By detailing Christopher's ways of thinking and how he responds to the world around him, Haddon easily gives us a new set of eyes, one where things are confusing, information is incomplete, and a lot is not what it seems. We feel helpless and sad and scared too when Christopher does, and just as joyous and anxious and victorious as well. All the while we know that this is not how we're suppose to see things, but Haddon doesn't allow us to stray too far away from Christopher so we can feel normal again. So long as you are reading, he keeps us inside Christopher's autistic mind, and that makes the book more powerful.

I could particularly relate, I think, because I taught a student this year with Asperger's syndrome. I think I could somewhat relate Christopher to this student, which made it more interesting for me.

The book is also funny. When Christopher wants to ask a stranger where the train station is, he decides it would be best to ask a lady. His reason is they told him in Stranger Danger in school (he goes to a school for students with special needs) "that if a man comes up to you and talks to you and you feel frightened you should call out and find a lady to run to because ladies are safer." There's also a classmate that eats everything, no matter what it is, and when he does a "poo" on the bathroom floor, the teachers have to stop him from eating it.

What's also compelling is how touching the story is. You find yourself empathizing with Christopher. You want him to succeed. You want him to find Wellington's killer and resolve things with his family. Haddon is remarkable, however, in putting you in Christopher's mind, for which you feel this sympathy for a narrator that has Asperger's, without the novel being overly sympathetic. Things are what they are. The only complaint is that the last few pages are too hurried, but this pales versus Haddon's not inundating you with pity, but creating a story that is emotional but also entertaining and funny and imaginative and provocative too.