The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

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.