Book review: The curious incident with the dog in the night-time
By Mark Haddon
Published by David Fickling books
Pages 224
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a 2003 novel written by Mark Haddon. It won the 2003 Whitbread Book of the Year and the 2004 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book.
The story is written in the first-person perspective of Christopher John Francis Boone, a 15-year-old boy who describes himself as a mathematician with some behavioral difficulties, living in Swindon. Although Christopher's condition within the autism spectrum is not stated explicitly within the novel, indeed, the words autism or Asperger's are not used by Christopher at all.
Christopher Boone knows all the countries of the world and every prime number up to 7,057, and he has photographic memory. He loves his rat that he calls Toby, but he has no understanding of humans. He cannot stand to be touched. But he is gifted with a logical brain, Christopher is autistic. Routine, order and predictability shelter him from the world. At fifteen years old, Christopher's carefully constructed world falls apart when he finds his neighbor's dog, Wellington, killed with a big garden fork, and he is blamed for the killing. Christopher decides that he will find the killer and turns to his favorite fictional character that is Sherlock Holmes for inspiration.
In the end of the book Christopher finds out that it was his own father who killed the dog.
Main characters
Christopher. is the main character in the text and has Asperger’s syndrome and doesn’t understand other people very well.
Christopher’s father. He kills the dog in the end and cares very much about his son.
Siobhan. Is Christopher’s only friend and helps him understand what other people actually mean.
Wellington. Is the dog that gets killed.
Mrs. Shears. Owns the dog that gets killed and thinks Christopher was the murderer.
Because of Christopher Boone’s condition (Asperger’s syndrome), the novel is different than what people are used to. It gives us a different perspective on how people see the world. Mark Haddon writes well, but the book obviously isn’t optimal for young people. It can be hard to understand his condition, and some may not know what Asperger’s is. The book was quite good, but some of the details were unnecessary.
By: Kristian, Christian and Benjamin
