Wednesday 14 September 2011

 

Review: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

My edition: Paperback, published in 2004 by Vintage, 272 pages.

Description: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is a murder mystery novel like no other. The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone. Christopher is fifteen and has Asperger's Syndrome.

He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow and brown and being touched. He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a neighbour's dog murdered he sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his whole world upside down.

Review:

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is a lovely little novel giving the readers a fascinating insight into the mind of a boy with Asperger's Syndrome, Christopher, as we follow him on a journey that starts out with him trying to find out who killed Wellington (the dog of one of this neighbours) but rapidly evolves into Christopher uncovering a much bigger mystery in his own life.

Author Mark Haddon has used an unique approach in his novel as it is told from the point of view of his autistic main character. This results in many breaks during the story as the boy elaborates on mathematical problems, maps out his environment and includes a wide variety of drawings and lists that allows him to distract his mind when he is faced with an unknown or challenging situation.

I do not know how accurate the descriptions of Christopher's thought process and reactions to the world surrounding him are, but I think it's fair to say that the book reads realistic and the unique concept works very well.

8/10

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