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89 of 94 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mesmirising, 8 Aug 2004
The narrator of this remarkable novel is Christopher Boone, a 15-year-old boy who has Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism, that means he is unable to understand human emotions. He is, however, highly intelligent and can rattle off all kinds of facts and figures, particularly those pertaining to his speciality - maths. The book opens with Christopher stumbling upon a dead dog lying in his neighbour's garden. The dog is pinned to the ground by a pitchfork. Immediately he decides to find out what happened to the dog and, inspired by his favourite fictional character, Sherlock Holmes, he launches a "murder investigation" that rocks both the local community and his own strangely mundane and ordered life. "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" has won many awards - and with good reason. It's one of those rare books, originally written for children but now popular with an increasing number of adults. The language is simple, but this simplicity renders Christopher's voice more powerful. You really get into his head and see the world through his emotionally dissociated mind. The charming diagrams and drawings littered throughout the book only add to this. As you plough through each short chapter, you are able to piece together the revelations of Christopher's investigation long before he is able to comprehend them. This gives the story further urgency, because you wish you could stop him from proceeding any farther, if not to shield him from the awful truth, at least to save his family from the emotional outfall. But Christopher plods on regardless in his own naive way, and there's nothing you can do. The great beauty of this lovely book is not just the narrator's unique voice, it is Haddon's careful balance between bleak comedy and great sadness. He never resorts to sentimentality, which only makes the pathos all the more real. I loved this story and read it in two sittings. It's original, witty and illuminating. No matter what your age, you'd be hard pressed to find a more interesting and page-turning novel.
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154 of 166 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Truly astonishing!, 8 Mar 2004
Many of the people who have reviewed this book have first hand experience of children with behavioural problems, or links to Aspergers and / or Autism. They have (almost entirely) commented on how this book reflects in some way their experiences or that of friends or relatives. They have almost all enjoyed the book, and having read these reviews you may feel that, if you have no such experience, the book may not appeal to you.Well, I personally have no experience in these areas, and I can honestly say that this has gone straight into my all time top 5 reads! The story is wonderfully crafted, and not a page goes by when you do not learn something new about Christopher, the central character who has, I understand, though it is not stated in the book, Aspergers Syndrome (the book is actually written entirely from Christophers perspective). This is one of those rare books that makes you want to discuss (not just talk about) the story. My wife and I both read it over the same weekend, and we kept finding ourselves going back to it to talk through some of the difficulties that Christopher faced, and how it must be to have to deal with them, either as the child or as a parent. This story really gives an insight into a mind which, in some ways, is far more developed than the mind of an "ordinary" person. It also gives you a feel for what it must be like to need complete structure and order to a life which can never absolutely have both. The lack of what you and I would call "emotion" was in itself deeply moving, and several times I found myself asking how I would cope if one of my two children had the same difficulties. This is a remarkable book. If only everyone could read it, society would become a much more understanding and accepting place for those who suffer from the effects of conditions such as Aspergers, ADHD and Autism.
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53 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A curious read, but far from incidental, 29 April 2003
Being Christopher Boone is pretty eccentric. Writing his way into Christopher’s head, Mark Haddon is a sharp, ambitious, arresting and convincing author. So how do you write an account of the life of a boy who can’t account for much that happens? Partly, by recounting the far from reachless stuff that Christopher does take in. Haddon pulls it off by getting Christopher to explain exactly what is happening, and I mean exactly. The curious incident of the dog in the night-time – the Holmes quotation of the title ricochets through the book – has a marginal character in society as narrator. So we read of what society looks like at one of its edges, and how those at its edges are treated. What we get is often what Christopher doesn’t get: he doesn’t understand the people that surround him, but we can because we can reclaim from his narrative what strikes him as peripheral. This action, restructuring the tale, is maybe what this book is for, bringing Christopher back into society. The treatment is a revelation, weirdly informative and extremely funny. This book is for sale in an edition for children; which is spot on. Christopher Boone is someone I would never have known as a child, and I begin to see maybe why. Mark Haddon performs the trick of getting inside the beautiful mind of a boy who is mostly not confused, but often confusing. I reckon A curious incident of the dog in the night-time notches up top marks.
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