Fiction: The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time

THE BARE FACTS
Title: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Author: Mark Haddon
Publisher: Vintage
Date of Publication: 2003
Pages: 226
Grade That Means Nothing Coming From Me: A

SO BASICALLY, IT'S ABOUT
A young autistic man sets out to solve a crime, and learns more truths than he anticipated.

WHY'D YOU WANNA READ THAT?
The book was a surprise enclosure in a parcel from Mom.

AND HOW'D THAT WORK OUT FOR YOU?
People with autism often seem inexplicable. They may have extraordinary thinking abilities, but seem completely unable to deal with a world that is governed by randomness. In short, they can be most frustrating and difficult to empathize with, and this fact would seem to make an autistic boy unsuitable as the central character in a novel. Haddon not only disagrees, he goes a step further by making his book a first-person narrative: you are being told a story by someone who refuses to eat foods of certain colors and closes out the world by counting prime numbers when a situation becomes too stressful. And damn if it doesn't work.

I hope I'm not giving too much away by pointing out that the title refers to an observation made by Sherlock Holmes in solving a crime. Our hero, Christopher, also sets out to solve a mystery, and hopes to follow Holmes' example, using logic to unearth clues. The difference is that Christopher is completely unable to fathom the actions of other people in an emotional context. This leads him to make discoveries that affect his neatly-ordered world.

One of the great surprises of the book is that, though it hints at being a mystery, it is not. Well, not in the way that you might be expecting. Let's try this: it is not a crime story. In a sense, Christopher is a detective trying to make sense of a universe which consistently refuses to follow the patterns he requires. What makes this so remarkable is that you quickly join his worldview, and things that we consider commonplace take on a whole new dimension. Anytime a writer can show you the world you know in a way that you don't, he's doing pretty well. Mark Haddon is doing pretty well.

Does this make any sense? I hope not, because you're better off just reading the book and discovering the beautiful storytelling for yourself. It's an incredibly quick read, but a resonant one.

SHOULD I READ THIS?
This is really an extraordinary book. I had an immediate sympathy with the narrator and found it very difficult to put off learning his fate. It's a remarkable achievement, especially for a first-time novelist. It's the kind of book you find yourself bragging about to other people.

Incidentally, I had no idea that this novel was a selection of the Today Show Book Club. Hmm. Well, I think you should read it anyway.

Reviewed by: Shane Wilson.
Shane Wilson is a writer and contributing editor to The Green Room.
Shane's previous BookADay book reviews include Silas Marner.