The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night Time by Mark Haddon

I decided to read this because: I've heard so much about this novel that I need to read it too. If I don't, I may miss out. 

First line: It was 7 minutes after midnight. 

Last line: And I know I can do this because I went to London on my own, and because I solved the mystery of Who Killed Wellington? and I found my mother and I was brave and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything. 

The book in one sentence: A young autistic boy's world unravels as he tries to learn who killed his neighbour's dog.
 
I'd recommend it to: Anyone interested in autism. If you've watched Rainman, this is similar, and just as touching.

I liked: The story, which is bitter-sweet. And our hero, the 15-year-old boy Christopher is such a likable guy. It starts out innocently enough, with Christopher  trying to figure out who killed Wellington, the neighbour's dog. He goes around investigating like his idol Sherlock Holmes and in the process, he discovers the disturbing truth behind his mother's "death." He deals with it somewhat detached and emotionless, compared to how a "normal" person would. Meanwhile, the people around him - his neighbours, his teacher, his father - deal with Christopher with empathy and understanding but doubtless having to deal with problems in their own "normal" way.

How Christopher deals with the harsh realities of life is an interesting insight in the thought processes of someone with autism. Christopher is a savant - brilliant and logical, and able to solve difficult math problems in his head. On the other hand, he has what we would consider as bizarre ways of making sense of the world - he categorizes the days by how many of a particular car color he is able to count (four red cars in a row mean a wonderful day, while four yellow cars mean a bad day, in which case he does not eat lunch and will not speak) - and his system fails when he is in a different routine. When he goes out of his comfortable little zone and into the "real" world  to do some more sleuthing, Christopher somehow makes his coping mechanisms and discovers that he can do anything, empowering himself.

The storyline is interspersed with interesting trivia, diagrams and drawings galore, and lots of Mensa-like problems, all told from Christopher's viewpoint. This is a very interesting diversion from the main storyline. In fact I read the Monty Hall Problem three or four times because it was such a  niggling problem that I had to make sense of. Click here for Mark Haddon's page on Monty Hall. 


I didn’t like: Sometimes the smattering of trivia and mind problems interferes with the story and it can be distracting. How Christopher tells his story can sometimes seem so literal and straightforward, that it can feel numbing at times (fact after fact). The beginning seemed slow and it takes a little work to get into the story, as its not told in the typical way.

Author factoids: In an interview at Powells.com, Haddon said that this was the very first book he had written intentionally for adults. Imagine his surprise when his publisher suggested marketing it to both adult and child audiences!

Verdict: The whole book is like a distraction. But stick to it. Don't speed read. Don't pass judgement. And just go with it and you'll no doubt enjoy it.

Random quote:
"When I am in a new place, because I see everything, it is like when a computer is doing too many things at the same time and the central processor unit is blocked up and there isn't any space left to think about other things… And sometimes when I am in a new place and there are lots of people there it is like a computer crashing and I have to close my eyes and put my hands over my ears and groan, which is like pressing CTRL + ALT + DEL and shutting down programs and turning the computer off and rebooting so that I can remember what I am doing and where I am meant to be going."

Look these up:

• Mark Haddon's blog
• Interview with Mark Haddon

{Photo credit}

Skellig by David Almond

About Skellig by David Almond (from Commonsensemedia): Michael's family has just moved to an old fixer-upper. But his baby sister is in the hospital with a heart problem, and Michael feels devastated and helpless.

When he sneaks into the crumbling garage, Michael finds a stranger named Skellig living (or apparently dying) there, a man immobilized by arthritis, subsisting on insects and spiders, and surrounded by owl pellets. While helping him, Michael discovers that the man is oddly light and has strange growths on his back that maybe wings.

As Skellig begins to inhabit Michael's dreams, he and his new friend, Mina, help Skellig into an abandoned house. There Skellig seems to have an odd relationship with the owls, who bring him food. And as Michael's mother keeps vigil by the baby's hospital bed, Michael begins to feel his sister's heart beating within his own, and Skellig appears in his mother's dreams as well.

My thoughts

I really love this book. Any initial disgust one has about Skellig's outer ugliness is erased as his true character slowly reveals itself. It reminds me of the movie City of Angels because it seemed to me that Skellig was an angel ... but definitely not fitting into the image of stereotypical cherubs, but with a darker (though not necessarily sinister, maybe realistic?) side to it. But then the book never claims that Skellig, the creature languishing in Michael's garage, is an angel.

The writing is beautiful, interwoven with snatches of Blake's poetry. The imagery is also beautiful, as if one were half-awake, with a dreamlike quality. One scene I remember vividly is the description of how, in a moonlit room, Michael, Mina and Skellig join hands, slowly twirling ... and in a haze they realize they are slowly floating - no, flying - in the air on their newfound wings. It sounds corny when I write it like this, but Almond's imagery has a sense of grandeur and mystery.

The book takes us alternately through Michael's worry for his sick baby sister, his relationship to the smart-alecky home schooled Mina, and their deepening friendship with Skellig.

It is a simple yet profound story of the importance of friendship and family, and of the unknown ... and accepting that life will always have its unknowns. As Mina says: "Sometimes we just have to accept there are things we can't know."

There is a lot to talk about with kids ... drawing, birds (owls in particular), evolution, arthritis, poetry (William Blake), art. There is also the occasional funny line, such as references to Chinese food as food of the gods.

I urge you to read this strange book. It is good for kids and adults alike. Did I say ... I love this book?

(This book won the Carnegie Medal in 1998 and the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year Award. In 2007 it was selected by judges of the CILIP Carnegie Medal for children's literature as one of the ten most important children's novels of the past 70 years.)