communication breakdown

Book Review: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003)

[ 9 / 10 ] Mark Haddon's debut novel is charming, wildly inventive, and surprisingly tragic. In testament to the freshness of the material, I can honestly say that this is the only serious novel that I have ever read in a single day. I simply could not put the book down. The novel is a piercing look at the life of Christopher Boone, an autistic teenager who stumbles upon his dead neighbor's dog, which eventually leads him down a startling path of self-discovery...

Like most autistic children, Christopher has many peculiarities. He hates to be touched. He does not understand how to "chat". He harbors completely illogical behaviors, such as not talking to anyone all day if he sees four consecutive yellow cars on the way to school. However, he is stellar at math and science, has an impeccable memory, and loves animals. So when he sneaks outside late one night and finds his neighbor's dog Wellington lying dead with a garden fork sticking out of it, it throws his world for a loop. Christopher's favorite literary character is the great detective Sherlock Holmes, so he decides he's going to do some "detecting" himself and figure out who killed Wellington.

The most fascinating thing about this novel, as you might expect, is that it is told exclusively from Christopher's point of view, providing a very moving and thought-provoking look at the inner workings of an autistic mind. Now, I'm in no position to say whether or not Haddon's portrayal of autism is accurate, but given the fact that he has a history of working with autistic individuals, and based on reviews I have read about the novel, I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Throughout the novel, Christopher goes to great lengths to help us see what he sees. He expounds upon his odd behaviors, things that he doesn't understand (like emotions and metaphors), things that annoy him, and other idle thoughts which occupy his brain.

What is amazing about it all is how much sense he makes - for all the mystery that the world makes autism out to be, when we see things from his perspective, even his most bizarre habits make some sort of sense in his world. What's more, the people around him that he interacts with are the ones who seem bizarre and out-of-step with the "normal" world, due to their obsessions with emotions and relationships. There is a deep sadness hanging like a cloud over the people in his life, and it effects us more than it does Christopher, due to his inability to process such information - in fact, I wasn't sure whether to envy or pity Christopher for his emotional detachment. It makes for a poignant yet highly ironic story. The author truly succeeds at getting the reader to completely identify with the one character who otherwise they might have trouble understanding.

The novel is written very stylishly, full of diagrams, pictures, and numbers, true to Christopher's style. Rather than thinking in terms of many words and complicated emotions, he tends to express himself through images, and Haddon makes us privy to those images, further illustrating a vivid picture of Christopher's mind. He is extremely frank and brutally honest, and while he is prone to getting side-tracked from the main story to discuss some sort of tangent on his mind, never once does it become a dull read. I was enthralled from the beginning to the end, and you probably will be, too.

One word of warning, however: due to Christopher's enjoyment of Sherlock Holmes, he discusses his favorite detective novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles, at great length - so much so that he essentially gives away most of the major plot points of the story. If you are concerned about this, you might want to read Baskervilles first. But don't let that be enough to keep you away from this novel, because you would surely be missing out.