The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Ratings853
Average rating3.8
Christopher Boone is 15 years old, a mathematical genius, and autistic. He can???'t tolerate the colours yellow and brown. He groans to calm himself down and does maths puzzles to relax. He doesn't understand emotions, cannot tolerate being touched and is unable to take too much new information in at a time.
His precisely planned world goes into turmoil when he discovers Wellington, the neighbour???'s poodle, dead with a garden fork through him. The neighbour in question catches him cradling the dog and had him arrested.
While in the slammer, Christopher resolved to discover who killed Wellington. His father and neighbours objected to this, but he gets encouragement from Siobhan, a social worker at his school, to write a book about his investigations.
What began as a murder mystery gradually turned into something bigger and more personal than he could imagine. A revelation sent him running off to London, which is nothing to most 15-year olds, but was terrifying for someone who can mentally cave in from information overload.
If it were any other teenager, this book would have been an angst fest. From an autistic savant's perspective, you'll be drawn to look at the world through his eyes.
Despite the fact that Christopher keeps insisting that this is not a going to be a funny book, his literal observations are often side-splitting.
I arrived at this book years late, but it is still worth it. Now here's an award winner I heartily approve of.
(2006)
This book is about a special 15-year-old young man named Christopher Boone. He sees the world differently than others and has a preference for math, patterns and order. What is immediately striking is the writing style of this book, because it is written through his own eyes which makes it seem like you are actually reading a story written someone who is 15 years old. This is a plus for me at the beginning of the book, but after a while the simple writing style became annoying.
So Christopher Boone is a boy with autism. This means that he has difficulty imagining what other people feel or think or when they speak with sarcasm or use proverbs. Somehow it also seems that he misses a filter in his head because when it gets too noisy he feels like he is going crazy.
I found it interesting to follow him and his line of thought. However, the story in which he finds himself was not that fascinating. Because of this I found the beginning to be better than the end of the book.
If you are interested in the mindset of someone with autism then this would be a suitable book.
This story is well written from the perspective of a highly functioning autistic boy. However, people are so mean in the story that it made me sad.
Why would anyone write a book like this? It was a jumble of run-on sentences and stupid grammar. None of the characters were in any way people I gave a fuck about. I literally got multiple headaches from trying to finish reading it.
The story was boring the writing was like the opposite of immersive. I feel it literally made me think in jagged edges with a monotone voice in my fucking head. Even the letters from his mom were like that. Even though I normal adult person wrote them and should thus be able to write in a normal way. It broke my brain, no thank you.
An interesting tale and an interesting narrative. A different look into a different life.
It's a weird feeling, to be disappointed by a success. Like a much-beloved athletic record being broken, or being the runner-up in a beauty pageant: Yes, great for the person to whom the good thing happened, but it's not met, and I might personally have been better off/happier had it happened another way.
The book works. It might even work too well. If you're looking for a plausible (I don't say “likely” or “realistic” here because of the infinite possibilities of the human condition, and also it's fiction) view of the life of a child with autistic tendencies, Mark Haddon's provided an excellent sample. And it seems like that's what he set out to do, so congratulations and yay for him.
And at the same time, y'know. I wish he wouldn't have.
Maybe it hits too close to home. Maybe I look at how Christopher's parents fail in dealing with certain situations, and don't see how I could have done any better (and likely could have done worse). Maybe it's because Christopher's worldview ultimately seems to boil down to everyone having exactly one opportunity to screw something up and then being cut out for a considerable length of time, if not forever, and that reminds me too much of myself.
Regardless, I can't say I liked the book. Stories don't necessarily need happy endings for you to have a positive reaction to having heard them, but there should be some redeeming quality. I'm almost certain there's something here, I'm just having trouble seeing it right now.
But I don't hold that against the book. It's probably more about me as a than it. I just don't know who it's for.
In the end, it might be a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy conundrum. The book solved the problem. I just don't know what it's an answer to.
Thoroughly engaging, funny, touching, and enlightening. The view from inside Christopher's mind is fascinating, and I often laughed out loud in agreement with one of his judgments (often they're reactions that I have myself but cover or morph with emotional intelligence or at least diplomacy).
I think what makes this novel rise above similar stories is the consistent linkage of external behaviors that would be deemed problematic, anti-social, and inexplicable with understandable, logical, and sympathetic internal reactions and reasoning. This book about a kid who struggles to imagine the internal lives of others actually enables readers to have a much richer and kinder idea of what's happening in other people's heads.
This wasn't quite what I was expecting based on the book summary, but it was a worthwhile read.
What compelled me in the narration was seeing all of this through Christopher's eyes, and making all kinds of interpretations and projections about the emotions and behavior of his parents and the neighbor couple and everyone else Christopher interacts with. Christopher can reliably state the facts of what was done and said but the reader fills in a lot of the blanks about what those characters were feeling and about what Christopher is feeling, and any underlying issues and backstory. Haddon leaves the reader to do the work and that's a good thing.
The other thing I noted was the structure. Christopher tells the reader what happened but after a particularly intense moment he'll shift to a different section where he talks about a math puzzle or game or some other bit of science. The reader experiences his shift away from whatever it is he's trying not to have to feel.
The narrator is a unique individual and however readers diagnose him, it is specific to him, even if others find it relatable (and hopefully they do).
Un ami m'avait conseillé Le bizarre incident du chien pendant la nuit il y a quelques mois, je l'ai acheté la semaine dernière et je l'ai dévoré en quelques jours. Publié en 2003, il s'agissait du premier roman pour adultes du romancier britannique Mark Haddon, également auteur de plusieurs livres pour enfants.
Qui a tué Wellington, le grand caniche noir de Mme Shears, la voisine ?
Christopher Boone, « quinze ans, trois mois et deux jours », décide de mener l'enquête. Christopher aime les listes, les plans, la vérité. Il comprend les mathématiques et la théorie de la relativité. Mais Christopher ne s'est jamais aventuré plus loin que le bout de la rue. Il ne supporte pas qu'on le touche, et trouve les autres êtres humains ... déconcertants.
Quand son père lui demande d'arrêter ses investigations, Christopher refuse d'obéir. Au risque de bouleverser le délicat équilibre de l'univers qu'il s'est construit ...
Je trouve que les nombres premiers sont comme la vie. Ils sont tout à fait logiques, mais il est impossible d'en trouver les règles, même si on en consacre tout son temps à y réfléchir.
how’d my mum read this and recommend it to me as a child and not realise i needed a diagnosis. cmon
This novel is the story of Christopher, a British teen working to make sense of the world around him through the lens of Asperger's Syndrome. What starts as an attempt to solve the mystery of a neighborhood dog killed by a garden pitchfork culminates in Christopher's terrifying, solo journey on the train to London to reunite with his estranged mother. Christopher's is a fantastically consistent and unique voice, and the structure of the book complements it perfectly: instead of chapters arranged in traditional cardinal numbers (1, 2, 3,), each chapter is a different prime number. We also get math problems, logic puzzles, lists, maps, diagrams, and other visuals that help to illustrate Christopher's often-brilliant thought processes. What I appreciated most about Haddon's writing is that he is able to poignantly portray the emotions of Christopher's struggling family even as Christopher himself lacks the capacity to do so. While this book is classified as YA, I might reserve it for older teens–there is quite a bit of profanity, and many of the issues are heavy–and adults.
A friend of mine read this a couple of years ago and hated it. Now I had to read it for class and had very low expectations. To my surprise I fell in love with this book and couldn't put it down. It had some twists and turns, but also kept it simple enough for younger readers. Loved it!
A really fun book. One of my pet grievances is when serious psychopathology is misrepresented in literature, but perhaps because of Haddon's experience working with autistic youth, or maybe just because he is a caring person and careful researcher, the portrait he paints of high-functioning autism is spot-on...nuanced, and without condescension. I was totally attached to the imperfect but still well-intentioned characters by the end, and had been thoroughly amused by Haddon's light, easy writing and quirky creation.
Interesting, well written book from the perspective of a (seemingly) autistic boy. Interesting style, a sort of murder-mystery-memoir that ends up in a very interesting place. Worth the short amount of time it takes to read.
Al principio me pareció original la forma de escribir el libro, pero a medida que seguía leyendo se me hizo realmente pesado
Plot twists bastante evidentes
I just read this for the second time, this time the audiobook version. I've revised my rating from four to five stars. When first I read it, I didn't have an autistic son. In fact, even my autistic son's big sister wasn't born. So my frame of reference is somewhat different this time around.
First of all, the audiobook. The narration is absolutely superb. It uses the voice of a child for the narration and there are also other voice actors for mum, dad, Mr and Mrs Shears and Mrs Alexander, and some sound effects and policemen and shopkeepers. All in all, it was perfectly done. The music playing over the ending made it all the more poignant.
Now to the content. So MUCH of Christopher's behaviour is recognisable in my own son, and in my own behaviour to some extent. And I can so relate to the stress that his parents experience. I and my wife have BOTH felt like Christopher's mum at times, when it all just gets too much and you don't know where to turn. It's difficult to put ourselves into our son's head, and this book helps with that. The seemingly nonchalant way in which he describes how he hides himself away in times of stress is really eye opening. Although he never does stab anyone with his pen knife, he probably would if the threat got too much. I mean he hit the policeman, didn't he?
The book has given me encouragement.
It's a very unique story telling and the plot is laid in front of you in indirect way. Very fresh and thought provoking.
This is an engaging story about an autistic boy who is trying to solve a murder. Who killed Wellington (The neighbors dog)?
I really enjoyed the way this story is written. I'm not sure what it is like being autistic but it was very interesting imagining it from this boy perspective.
This book is charming. The characters are real, Christopher is a wonderful character and really captures someone with Asperger syndrome. It's very clear that the author understands his characters thought process, his reasoning and treats it all with respect. The book also casts a light onto societies view of those differently a led amount us.
I must say I was a but stunned to see negative reviews for this book. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
It was a really interesting point of view and did not follow as I had expected.