How does it compare to audio works by the same author?
Not applicable
Advantages:
subject
Disadvantages:
style
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
´Sounds a good book, have put it on my must-read list´ - I never leave comments like this, I like reading book reviews and I read many, if I put all the titles of reviews that have impressed me on my must-read list and actually read the books, I´d have to hand in my resignation and read day and night. Besides, I always find something to read from other sources of information, there is no shortage of reading matter in this household.
Why then did I order The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time after reading reviews on the net? I think it was the oddity of the main character which made me curious; not many novelists choose a character with a mental, or in this case neurobiological, disorder to ´carry´ a whole story. I´m sure everyone who´s at least a bit interested in current fiction knows that the main character is the 15-year-old boy Christopher Boone suffering from Asperger Syndrome.
From the net: ´ People with AS have normal intelligence and language development, but exhibit autistic-like behaviours and marked deficiencies in social and communication skills, they have difficulties with changes and prefer sameness. They often have obsessive routines and may be preoccupied with a particular subject of interest, many individuals (although not all), exhibit exceptional skill or talent in a specific area. They have a great deal of difficulty reading nonverbal cues (body language). Often overly sensitive to sounds, tastes, smells, and sights, the person with AS may prefer soft clothing, certain foods, and be bothered by sounds or lights no one else seems to hear or see. It´s important to remember that the person with AS perceives the world very differently. Therefore, many behaviours that seem odd or unusual are due to those neurological differences and not the result of intentional rudeness or bad behaviour.´
I´m equally sure that it is also common knowledge by now that one night the boy finds his neighbour´s dog dead with a garden fork sticking out of its belly and sets out to solve the mystery. If we see the novel as a thriller, then we must say it´s not the most thrilling crime that is dealt with here, after all the victim is (only) a dog and it has been killed, not murdered, but more important, the mystery is solved already on page 150 (from 272 pages), so what else is the book about?
Is the author´s aim to inform the reading public of a hitherto quite unknown disease? The novel is told in the first person perspective, is it possible for a healthy writer to get into the mind of an ill person at all? It obviously is, the American author Jonathan Lethem has written the novel ´Motherless Brooklyn´ from the point of view of a man suffering from Tourette´s syndrome and he did it so well that he received much praise from Touretters who couldn´t believe that Lethem was not one of them.
I haven´t read anything about people suffering from Asperger Syndrome praising the author Mark Haddon, so I don´t know if his creation of the autistic protagonist is perfect, in my opinion he has succeeded quite well in showing the readers how an obsessive autistic mind works, in fact he did it so well that I had problems reading the way I normally do, i.e., very quickly. I read only three of four chapters at a time and then put the book away, the mania to describe everything up to the minutest detail really got on my nerves. Christopher sees and remembers everything and when he writes down something, he has to write down everything.
How can one live together with such a person, with a child like this? Why should parents with children like Christopher be saints? They have to learn to live with their children´s strangeness and to cope with the embarrassment it causes in public; I can relate to the difficulties Christopher´s mother has with him and admire the way his father deals with the situation. The relationship of the parents with their child and what it does to their relationship is a fascinating subject and I think Haddon has handled it well.
Then we have the topic of the journey as a means for spiritual development and maturing, but what a journey it is here! Banal for a ´normal´ person, yet so difficult and demanding for Christopher, he is rightfully proud of his achievement and knows that he can do anything now that he´s survived his adventure.
The book is funny, though not overly so. Why do we laugh? Do we laugh with Christopher? No, that´s not possible as he isn´t a funny person, he tells us himself that he can´t understand jokes, he can´t understand double meanings and innuendos, he takes everything at face value. Do we laugh at him? Enlightened as we are we wouldn´t dare or would we? Yes, we do laugh at him, in a good natured way, because the way he fights with every day life experiences is funny; although we know that someone slipping on a banana peel can break their bones, we laugh nevertheless, it´s a reflex and nothing to be ashamed of (if we don´t forget to help the person up!).
One reviewer of the novel is not content with Haddon´s handling of the subject Asperger Syndrome, he suggests people should read ´something that was written by someone who actually has Asperger Syndrome instead´, this sounds like a wise remark, but is really a silly one in my opinion. A German autistic young man has written a book about his life, do I want to read it? No, the fact that it is authentic doesn´t make it good literature, I´d only read it if I were especially interested in this neurobiological disorder from a clinical point of view.
What has the author done to make it plausible that a 15-year-old boy can write a readable novel? He´s created the character of Siobhan, one of Christopher´s teachers who he trusts and to whom he shows his book in progress. She tells him not to describe everything in order not to bore the readers and to put his mathematical task at the end into an appendix in order to give the readers the choice to read it or not as not everyone may be interested in this special field. Unfortunately the author didn´t give the fictional character Siobhan a feeling for style; the word ´and´ should not be used at the beginning of a sentence and no word should be used excessively! Especially in the second half of the book ´and´ is used so often that it disturbed my reading pleasure.
Let´s open the book at random, page 236, for example, (the average page has 27 lines), here the word ´and´ is used 15 times at the beginning of a sentence, on page 238 it is used 21 times, there isn´t a page where it isn´t used in excess. Probably it´s meant to copy colloquial speech, to convey a certain breathlessness when Christopher is excited, to create a feeling of genuineness and artlessness as Christopher is not a professional writer, but he is an intelligent boy, he would doubtlessly have been able to use different conjunctions to make his book more readable. It is bothersome, not good at all, once I had noticed it I couldn´t enjoy the reading any more properly, I was only looking out for the next ´and´. This costs the book at least one star. If you´re able to overlook this flaw, you´ll enjoy The Curious Incident of The Dog In The Night-Time.
very helpful
very helpful
