I've recently come across something that is great for me. I love to read, I love to discuss books, but my schedule is way too full to join a book club. I can't guarantee that I will be able to go out every third Friday of the month, or whatever would be involved. It's something I would like to do in the future, but I'm really enjoying Good Reads right now. It allows me to see what some of my friends are reading and read their opinion of it before I get started. Currently, there are about 10 books I want to read, just from this alone. If you haven't checked it out, I definitely recommend it.
The first book I noticed my friends reading is called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. I stepped out of my comfort zone and read it.
The main character, in the first-person, is Christopher, a 15 year old boy who is "special needs". It doesn't flat-out say that he's autistic as far as I remember, but it's either that or Asberger's Syndrome. He is extremely gifted when it comes to math and science, but he doesn't like English (too many metaphors and jokes) or being touched. The book opens with an incident where he discovers his neighbor's dog dead, and as a result of his admitted emotional shortcomings, he winds up being accused for the murder and taken to jail for assaulting a police officer. He decides, with the help and encouragement of his teacher, Siobhan, to write a story investigating the death of Wellington.
The prose is very straightforward and one-sided. The narrator tends to wander, especially when he is starting to feel agitated. I won't go into details, because there is a fairly significant plot twist about 3/4 of the way in, but when he steps out of his comfort zone, he tends to react by retreating into his own head, which makes for deeply boring passages explaining how to calculate all the prime numbers in existence or how to solve various math equations. If I want to read that, I can pull out the Calculus textbook the university wouldn't take back. The other thing that bothered me (but I suppose is a good thing overall for the author) is the character's assumption (or just lack of consideration) that his audience knows nothing at all. He explains Occam's Razor, among other theories, in the most basic and condescending way imaginable. I felt like my intelligence was being played down through some passages. That being said, Christopher is as aware of these shortcomings as we are, and it was interesting to read the tangents he applied to Wellington's murder and see in a very linear fashion how he got from point A to point B.
It was very different to have a main character who is afflicted the way Christopher is, but he is obviously good at managing issues that affect him daily (for the most part). He is burdened slightly by well-meaning if not completely inept parents. I can't imagine the stress of caring for someone who needs so much long-term and will continue to do so without understanding the need for a "break". However, I think his parents contribute to some of his problems as well.
On the whole, I'm not sorry I read it. It's not something I will read over and over though. At Good Reads, I gave it three stars for "liked it".
1 comments:
Oh My!! I forgot about this book. I read pieces of it years ago in a class. I now can't remember if I read it all or just the parts but I remember the dog part!
I am now starting Twilight. That is what my book group decided to read this month. I am waiting for it from library. I had it and it sat in my closet and then I had to return it. I wish that I had more time to read!
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