"THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHTTIME" - BOOK REVIEW

Title: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Author: Mark Haddon
Publication: 2003
Genre: Mystery
My Rating: ★★★☆☆

Favourite Quote: "In life, you have to take lots of decisions and if you don't take decisions you would never do anything because you would spend all your time choosing between things you could do." - Christopher Boone

 "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 Aspergers 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 on a terrifying journey which will turn his whole world upside down."

This book had been staring at me in the face for a few years now, yet, despite its amazing reviews, i'd always dismiss it on the bookshelves, turning to other novels instead. I'm not sure if it is Haddon's intention to purposely mislead his readers into thinking his novel is about a dead dog because it's really not. At the very beginning of the novel, Christopher stumbles upon the murdered dog, and like a detective, he attempts to solve the case. The dog is merely a starting point to what the book is about. What does unfold, however, is something far more shocking.

The plot itself is very simple: a boy's discovery of the outside world. This is a moving story about a boy's inability to connect with people, his need to understand the world and the effect autism has on the people around him. For him, it's not about the satisfaction of finding out the murderer of his next door neighbour's dog or even a personal discovery, it's a quest for the truth- an opportunity for Christopher to break the chains that bind him and dispel some of the lies that have been told to him in order to protect him. 


"I don't like proper novels because they are lies about things which didn't happen and they make me feel shaky and scared. And this is why everything I have written here is true."

Told from the child-like point-of-view of Christopher, Haddon provides a very personal and immersive reading experience. Christopher's autism affects every aspect of his life and small details are slipped effortlessly into the story, providing the reader with a true understanding of the way Christopher's mind works.

Here are a few things about Christopher Boone:

1. He knows all the prime numbers up to 7, 057.

2. He can solve logic puzzles quicker than the average person.

3. He hates the colours yellow and brown, refusing to eat yellow and brown things.

4. He hates food touching on his plate. 

5. He does not like metaphors as they are essentially lies (which confuse and trouble him)

6. He lives a very routine-driven life and has very little experience outside of his home, school and the street that he lives on.

"Siobhan says that if you raise your eyebrow it can mean lots of different things. It can mean 'I want to do sex with you' and it can also mean 'I think that what you just said was very stupid.'"

In this novel, there are no detailed, flowery descriptions, but instead fine details as Christopher records everything around him in an attempt to understand it all. 

 Haddon does an excellent job of demonstrating Christopher's comfort in his surroundings by having him write about them in great detail and his discomfort in unfamiliar surroundings. Christopher refuses to engage with most things that are new to him if he finds them overwhelming or upsetting. This jump from comfort to discomfort is something i'm sure many of us have dealt with and we feel all sorts of ways about it, so it's easy to identify with Christopher. As the plot thickens and his life turns upside down, things get difficult for him.

"I rolled back onto the lawn and pressed my forehead to the ground again and made the noise that Father calls groaning. I make this noise when there is too much information coming into my head from the outside world."

Christopher's blunt way of approaching the world around him is completely disarming and he takes you along with his narrative, despite little happening in the plot for significant periods. Throughout the novel, it feels as if you are listening to a talkative child but with a highly logical and rational frame of mind, chattering away and going on about the negligible details, overlooked by most people.

This novel is different from most books we read due to the absence of emotion. Christopher's straight-forward, emotionless style of narration can be incredibly affecting, particularly when he tells the reader information which should be laced with emotion: 

"Father was standing in the corridor. He held up his right hand and spread his fingers out in a fan. I held up my left hand and spread my fingers out in a fan and we made our fingers and thumbs touch each other. We do this because sometimes Father wants to give me a hug, but I do not like hugging people, so we do this instead, and it means he loves me."

The lack of emotion somehow makes his statements more poignant for the reader. I think Haddon lets us see beyond Christopher's limited perspective, and we recognise a sense of feeling in the smallest of acts like the one above. What Haddon does so well is maintain the consistency of Christopher's voice and I admire how he didn't sacrifice the integrity of his character in order to make him more likeable. I mean, there were times when I wished I could snap Christopher out of his insensibility, but I suppose those moments made the book more realistic because perfection isn't always present. 

"Sticks and stones can break my bones and I have my Swiss Army Knife if they hit me and if I kill them it will be self defence and I won't go to prison."

 Autism comes in so many forms it's hard to say that any particular representation of a fictitious character is an accurate account. However, Haddon has created a believable character who offers an insight into the mind of a person with autism, in particular, Aspergers. This book truly breaks down any preconceptions people may have about Aspergers, and it taught me so much about this form of autism.

There are reasons as to why I gave this book three stars though. What I found less successful was the whole "curious incident" itself. I went into this book believing this was a murder mystery about a dog and wanted to read about this murder mystery, but this enigma was resolved within the first few chapters and it goes on to be some sort of family drama and so this annoyed me quite a bit.

The prose isn't that graceful, and I get that it's not supposed to be. Haddon intends to strike the reader with its stiltedness and makes you think about how Christopher's thought processes differ from your own. Yes, this is an effective technique but I don't think this is the best narrative choice for an entire novel. For example, Christopher tells the reader how to solve a math problem and his workings run over three pages and then he states how he came to get these results. I hate maths. If I wanted to know about formulas and algebra and all of the other mathematical references Haddon includes, I would've read a maths textbook instead. I often found myself skipping these pages due to this lack of interest. It's not only maths though, sometimes he'll talk about something and then he'd quickly digress into something else and linger on it for a few pages and I found it quite annoying, like, let's get back to what's happening in front of you Christopher, come on now. Like I said, it's quite a personal insight into what goes on in his mind.

One of the biggest issues I have with this book is the actual story. Though I was disappointed in the sudden change in genre, I think the storyline had the potential to be great. I felt like I didn't get to appreciate it enough, though, because Haddon rushed through it. The story actually comes to a rather abrupt finish in the last twenty pages or so. The hast of it seems like Haddon got tired of generating the story and wanted to put his pen down. I know this probably isn't the case but that's how it looks. The stuff Christopher discovers (which I will not spoil) would be pretty intense for him and anyone else for that matter, so it would have been nice to see how he deals with this rather than read about what makes Sherlock Holmes so great, maths problems and graphs.

This isn't to say that I didn't like it, though. I think The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is raw and honest. I think Haddon deserves all his awards for writing a book that delves deeply into the mindset of someone who doesn't quite fit into society. It's a novel about facing reality, in whatever form it takes, and breaking out of your comfort zone in order to discover the truth. 

Despite being positioned as a young adult book, I think this novel can be read by just about anyone. If you enjoy reading about complex relationships within families and you enjoy unusual narratives, this novel is worth your time!