The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - January 2024 Book Club Reading

[Falselogic]

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a 2003 novel by British writer Mark Haddon. Its title refers to an observation by the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes in the short story "The Adventure of Silver Blaze."

The novel is narrated in first-person by Christopher John Francis Boone, a 15-year-old boy who is described as "a mathematician with some behavioral difficulties" living in Swindon, Wiltshire. Although Christopher's condition is not stated, the book's blurb refers to Asperger's.

The Curious Incident won the Whitbread Book Awards for Best Novel and Book of the Year, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book, and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize.

 

[Violentvixen]

Just picked this up from the library. I have a meeting for another book club on Jan 10th and will likely start this after that book is done.

 

[John]

I finished up my other book, and moved on to this one, which I requested. So... personally, I'm mostly neurotypical, with the awkward issues that come from being a nerd. When this book was written 20 years ago, there wasn't as much info about autism/autistic behaviors as there is now. I don't quite know what to think about an author who has since admitted he didn't do any research into autism/asperger's before writing a novel whose protagonist appears to be on the spectrum, even if he didn't get labeled in the text as such. I'm keeping that as a big grain of salt when reading, and would be curious if it ends up rubbing people the wrong way.

I also saw that this has been adapted into a play, and the protag has been played by an autistic actor. I didn't see any recordings of those productions, but there is one from a small theater called Le Chat Noir in Georgia. I'll check that out after reading the book.

 

[John]

I’m a notoriously slow reader, but I was able to knock through this one in three days. Waiting for the second half for spoilers though!

 

[Violentvixen]

didn't do any research into autism/asperger's

Just started this and due to being a bit surprised by the writing style came back to read this statement. I think this is statement is great, and as you noted we're 20 years from publication so things have changed, but it's a very well-done acknowledgement and I appreciate it.

Anyway, once I got used to the writing style the book worked for me. I just finished Ch 107 about Sherlock Holmes and I enjoyed it quite a lot. Very curious where this is going.

 

[Violentvixen]

Finished it. I'll need a bit of time to process what I think about it. There's a significant change in pacing and style in the second half of the book and I can't decide if it works or not just yet.

Books with neurodivergent perspectives like this always result in some introspection for me. There's a lot of stuff Christopher does that I do and when it's presented like this I can tell it's to point out that he thinks a bit differently than most people. It's always of interest to me so learn how other people approach situations like this and to see this more methodical approach to something like a train station (dunno if that's a spoiler, but it's part of the second half of the book).

The Smarties/pencil test is really sticking with me for some reason. Interesting test.

 

[John]

I just saw that the smarties/pencil thing was a real test that was used to demonstrate Theory of Mind. As far as psychological tests to run on kids it's pretty safe, and I hope they actually got some candy afterwards.

One thing that stood out for me with Christopher's telling of events was how much he left unexplained, or handwaved away as not recalling events. Occasionally he would get into a stressful situation, and would just say that I got upset and we had to leave, or that he doesn't remember what happened for hours or days afterwards. He may record a comment that someone said that puts them in a harsh light, like his mom saying something like "I can't deal with you anymore". In reality the situations could have been a mix of quite traumatic events, or even just a mundane temper tantrum, and we don't get the initial discussions that may have attempted to soothe the situation, just the breaking points.

Another interesting trait is that while he has levels of "attachment" to people, differences between Strangers and Friends, he doesn't show much actual affection to anything. He likes dogs, which triggered the horrific discovery that the title comes from, but doesn't express that same emotions towards people. Humans are categorized as "Strangers = Danger" and "Friends = Safe", but I don't remember him expressing any concepts like love towards either of his parents, either before or after the plot reveal.

I initially didn't like the writing style, which just read false to me, but it's fiction, it's part of the deal. I've warmed up to it, but the part of Christopher slowly coming to understand not just that his mother's still alive, but that his dad lied to him, felt contrived. It does line up with his playing Detective, and makes the plot move to the next steps, but it felt more like plotting that the author put in than something the established character would do.

 

[Violentvixen]

I initially didn't like the writing style, which just read false to me, but it's fiction, it's part of the deal. I've warmed up to it, but the part of Christopher slowly coming to understand not just that his mother's still alive, but that his dad lied to him, felt contrived. It does line up with his playing Detective, and makes the plot move to the next steps, but it felt more like plotting that the author put in than something the established character would do.

Yeah, I was still deciding how I felt about it last night but have decided it didn't really work for me. Also the ending just felt off. He moves back in with his father who has now shown violent tendencies, his mom lost her new relationship which seemed fine before Christopher showed up, and uh I guess he takes another test? Very odd.

Again, glad I finally read it as it's been on my list for a while, and it did challenge me and make me think. But the story arc overall just didn't quite work for me.

I just saw that the smarties/pencil thing was a real test that was used to demonstrate Theory of Mind. As far as psychological tests to run on kids it's pretty safe, and I hope they actually got some candy afterwards.

Oh interesting! Thanks for the links.

 

[Olli]

Finished. I enjoyed it! I'm glad I didn't know anything about the book beforehand, especially about Haddon's purposeful no-research-on-autism policy. I enjoyed following Christopher's thinking, the gradual revelations of the backstory, and the slow unraveling of Christopher's initial seeming confident control over events and the world. I was especially devastated to learn that Christopher's parents essentially broke up because his mother couldn't deal with the stress of being a parent of an autistic child (I guess I have some personal abandonment issues). I also found myself thinking about the themes of trust, implicit social contracts, and the worth of apologies.

I also asked a friend with an autism diagnosis (and two autistic children) to give the book a try; I'm interested in hearing her take on it.