The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

This is a wonderfully entertaining and touching and sometimes frustrating book. What first attracted me to it was the basic premise...a mystery (the "murder" of a neighbor's dog) investigated by an autistic boy...told through the eyes of the boy himself. Christopher, our narrator, is as unlikely a hero as you're going to encounter in a piece of fiction that isn't science fiction or fantasy based. Apparently Mark Haddon worked with autistic people for awhile, and his knowledge of their traits clearly informs the book. It is a novel with a hero that is incapable of showing empathy or even sympathy for others. He is totally self-involved and pretty well insulated. Yet his unique humanity shines through. What's also terrific in Haddon's approach is that while Christopher cannot really tell us what other people are thinking or feeling...we empathize with them anyway. Whole pages of dialogue are given without any inkling from the narrator as to what tone of voice people are using, what their faces are showing (he doesn't like to even look at people's faces), etc...yet the crispness of the dialogue leaves no doubt. We see through Christopher's blindness to the "normal" people beyond. Yet we also buy into Christopher's world-view pretty easily, and we actually have a basic sense of how he needs to cope. For example, when people try to touch Christopher, he may begin screaming or banging his head on the ground. Imagine how embarrassing and frustrating this must be for his parents, how annoying or startling for those around him! We can feel, as a "normal" person, that Christopher is frustrating kid. Yet from Christopher we also know that he doesn't like to be touched, it's too much stimulus and by screaming or groaning or banging, he finds some escape. And sometimes that escape can't stop because he doesn't dare risk stopping to see if he's no longer being touched, only to discover that he IS still being touched. Hence, the screaming goes on. In Christopher's matter-of-fact manner, we see how he isn't really doing anything "wrong." The book really doesn't turn into much of a mystery about the death of a dog. It's full of amusing or inciteful digressions...as Christopher shows us how he can't understand things like facial expressions, but is brilliant at turning everyday problems into mathematical problems. I suspect he may be a "higher functioning" autistic person than most or many, but he has to be in order to write the book in the first place. Towards the later part of the book, Christopher takes an enormously brave journey, venturing into a world he knows virtually nothing about. You can feel the fear in him, the isolation and the bravery. And yes, even some pride. It's a wrenching and dramatic final act, and at this point the book is pretty much impossible to put down. The true story behind the story is the relationship of Christopher to his father, and to a few other key people in his life. And when the end of the book comes, we find that we can actually be moved to tears by the events that have taken place. It's a riveting and unique book. There are a few casual bad words or phrases in the book (mostly Christopher seeing graffiti and reporting it to us) and thus I wouldn't recommend it for anyone under, say 15 or so...but I think it's brief enough, fast-paced enough, and just well-written and entertaining enough to be for almost anyone who enjoys reading.

Christopher John Francis Boone is a fifteen year old boy who lives with his father, loves animals, and doesn't understand human emotions-including his own. With help he has learned what makes him feel :) good, like orange crush and licorice laces, and Toby his rat and starring up at the stars at night. And he knows what makes him feel :( bad, like new places, people, too much information, or anyone touching him. But he doesn't understand a lot of the faces that Siobhan from school shows him or Mr. Jeavons the school psychiatrist asks him about. Christopher is different from a lot of other teenage boys and he goes to a special kind of school with other special students. He doesn't like to be compared to them because he thinks a lot of them are stupid, but he's not allowed to use that word or call them that according to what his mother used to say or Siobhan at school, he's supposed to say they have learning difficulties or that they have special needs (but that's stupid too because everyone has learning difficulties). But it is his book so he can write what he wants in it. He's keeping this book for his investigation. He's investigating like Sherlock Holmes and he is investigating a murder. There was a murder on his street of Wellington the big poodle at Mrs. Shears house, which is right down the street from his house and Mrs. Shears is a friend of their's and so was Wellington because Christopher likes dogs. The Police and Siobhan says that killing a dog isn't the same thing as killing a human and they don't investigate or search as hard for things like that because it isn't a human, but Christopher liked Wellington and he thinks dogs are just a good as humans, in fact he likes them more. This is a book written from the first-person point of view of a fifteen year old boy with autism and a very good understanding of facts and numbers (maths). He focuses and relies on the here and now, the real things of this world, and math problems. He doesn't like idioms, similes, metaphors, slang, or imagination. Facts are much more preferred, thank you. The book starts on the night that he finds Wellington skewered with a garden fork on Mrs. Shears front lawn, an event that he is later blamed and questioned about. He determines that he has to find out who murdered Wellington and the life that he thought he knew and was comfortable with swiftly begins to unravel. For a boy who doesn't understand human emotions a lot of events puzzle him and he has a hard time coping and understanding why some people do and choose the things that they do, it's not logical, even if it is human. Mark Haddon does a remarkable job at capturing the mindset and ideas of an individual with autism and expressing it in a way readers can relate to. This book illustrates how some mindsets can be different. Where some individuals focus on feelings, others enjoy literature, and still others are focused on numbers and facts, things that are measurable and recordable, like Christopher. Sometimes different mindsets make certain things easy for individuals to understand while other topics and ideas are alien and something that makes ones' head spin. This is a tale of murder, mystery, a hidden past, and an unsure future of a boy who likes to deal in absolutes and certainties. But all it takes is one variable in the equation to change for the outcome be to a different world entirely. Overall this book is really well-written and an interesting read. Highly recommended for those working with individuals with autism or other neo-neurological learning disabilities. Also a good read for those looking for different perspectives or books that make you question the writer/reporters point of view.

nice!

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is an interesting and easy-to-read book, especially for first-time readers. The story is about a 15-year-old boy named Christopher who decides to act like a detective. Christopher finds a dog named Wellington killed in his neighbor’s garden. He starts investigating to find out who killed the dog. While searching for the truth, he discovers many important secrets about his family. The book is not only a mystery story but also helps us understand how Christopher thinks and sees the world. It is simple, emotional, and engaging.

dili b1-b2 seviyesinde akıcı bi okuma sağlanıyor çok güzel bir kitap

After long time I read a book from start to finish Thx

Habe das Buch für den Englischunterricht erworben. Eigentlich war ich wenig begeistert, dass wir dieses Buch in der Ausbildung lesen sollten. Als es dann geliefert worden war, wollte ich eigentlich nur kurz mal reinlesen... Daraus wurde nichts, ich habe es binnen 2 Tagen fast vollständig gelesen. Es ist aus der Sicht eines autistischen 15 Jahre alten Jungen geschrieben und obwohl dieser Junge selbst, die Emotionen anderer Menschen nicht erkennen und verstehen kann, ist das Buch wundervoll emotional. Zunächst geht es nur darum, dass der Junge herausfinden möchte, wer den Hund der Nachbarin umgebracht hat, doch daraus entspinnt sich in kurzer Zeit eine große Story, bei der es um die Familie des Jungen geht, vor allem um die Mutter, die doch eigentlich tot ist, oder? Und der Vater, der seitdem den Jungen alleine großzieht. Und um Briefe, die von der Mutter geschrieben wurden.. Kurzum, aus einer so einfachen Begebenheit wie der Mord an einem Hund, wird eine rasant erzählte Geschichte, mit interessanten Einblicken in das Denken und Handeln und auch Fühlen eines autistischen Jungen. Wunderbar! Einfach lesen!