The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

author
Mark Haddon

the spiel
Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the prime numbers up to 7,057; can name every country in the world and it's capital; finds it hard to imagine things which did not happen to him; and is adamant that food colors must not be mixed on his plate. Christopher has Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism,which requires that he find ways to filter the seemingly endless amount of stimuli coming at him from directions that most of us never have to contend with.

Christopher sees the world in a grid-like, logical way, and interprets the spoken word literally. So when Wellington, his neighbor's pet dog is killed with pitchfork, Christopher sets out, Sherlock Holmes style, to find the killer. The book is ways less a detective story than it is a startling insight into a world that is made up of constructs of an entirely different order. Through Christopher's mind, Haddon calls into contrast foibles and idiosyncrasies in our society that most of us never notice at all. Christopher, for instance, can understand similes: The rain "was falling so hard that it looked like white sparks," because he can see the literal similarities in appearance between the heavy rain and white sparks. He cannot, however, understand metaphors, which omit "like" and "as" and simply make statements, which, he feels, are simply lies. When he tries to imagine "an apple in someone's eye" it doesn't remind him of liking someone--but rather muddles things, and simply gets him confused. Because he is unable to filter out the figurative, his world is a very immediate place.

Though Christopher insists, "This will not be a funny book. I cannot tell jokes because I do not understand them," the novel is laced with humor, and sweet irony. And while feelings are particularly problematic for Christopher, his story leaves the reader full of emotion and empathy. A wholly absorbing adventure into the mind of truly incomparable individual.

some of the hype
"[A] bittersweet tale....A kind of Holden Caulfield who speaks bravely and winningly from inside the sorrows of autism: wonderful, simple, easy, moving, and likely to be a smash." —Kirkus Reviews

"For Haddon to have created such a superbly realized autistic world-view is, in itself, remarkable. Brilliantly inventive, full of dazzling set-pieces, unbearably sad, yet also skillfully dodging any encounters with sentimentality, this isn't simply the most original novel I've read in years...it's also one of the best." —The Times (London)

"Stark, funny and original....It eschews most of the furnishings of high-literary enterprise as well as the conventions of genre, disorienting and reorienting the reader to devastating effect." —Jay McInerney, The New York Times Book Review

"Moving....Think of The Sound and the Fury crossed with The Catcher in the Rye and one of Oliver Sacks's real-life stories." —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

other people who loved this book (or at least, say they did)
Ian McEwan ("Mark Haddon's portrayal of an emotionally dissociated mind is a superb achievement. He is a wise and bleakly funny writer with rare gifts of empathy.")

Arthur Golden ("I have never read anything quite like Mark Haddon's funny and agonizingly honest book, or encountered a narrator more vivid and memorable. I advise you to buy two copies; you won't want to lend yours out." )

Myla Goldberg ("The Curious Incident brims with imagination, empathy, and vision — plus it's a lot of fun to read." )

Oliver Sacks ("Brilliant....Delightful....Very moving, very plausible — and very funny.")