The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Posted by animefan on Mon, 18 Jan 2010.
Winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year Award in 2003 and also the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Overall Best First Book in 2004, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a novel superbly written by Mark Haddon from the perspective of a boy with Asperger’s Syndrome. Haddon managed to create this narrative from his experience working with people with autism as a young man, which he achieves effectively in my opinion.
Christopher Boone is a fifteen year old boy with Asperger’s Syndrome who lives with his father in Swindon, Wiltshire and is the narrator of this novel. He is very intelligent at maths and loves lists, patterns, and the truth; he even uses the prime numbers as the chapters. Christopher also likes to be very organized and he hates the colours yellow and brown, being touched and understands very little about human emotions.
However, when Christopher discovers his neighbour’s dog Wellington murdered with a garden fork through the stomach, he decides to write this novel as a murder mystery. He discovers secrets unknown to him and sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his world upside down; causing him to go further than the end of his own road!
I think that The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a superb read, effectively portraying an emotionally dissociated mind through an author’s experience from working with autistic people. It is an outstanding good read originally intended for adults, although it has been popular with children as well. If you have the time to read this novel, go for it!
