El curioso incidente del perro a medianoche

Our review regarding the handling of the main character's autism can be found on the Disability in Kidlit website.

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The main character has an unspecified condition that's widely interpreted as autism (although the author has stated it's not). Many in the autism community dislike the portrayal of the main character's condition, finding it exaggerated and unrealistic.

Here's an article about the novel and the author's research. It sharply distinguishes between Asperger's and autism, but is a relevant read aside from that. It's written by the non-autistic father of an autistic child, but does quote some autistic people: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-ol...

The concept is interesting: narrating the novel through the POV of an autistic boy. The chapters are cleverly numbered by prime numbers, which ties in with the novel. It has interesting illustrations and diagrams to look at. However, I would not recommend this because it disappointed me and I couldn't, in good conscience, tell anyone to read a book I was disappointed in.

I guess my disappointment lies in the fact that not only did my book club tout this as a mystery novel but also many of the literary reviews I read as well. What I was expecting was an exciting roller coaster ride mystery about an autistic boy trying to find the killer of his neighbor's dog and, as he slowly sleuths out the killer, finds himself embroiled in dangerous life threatening situations. Kind of like Tartt's The Little Friend told from an autistic POV.

However, The Curious Incident... is not a mystery in any way, shape or form and because of this, the autistic POV begins to wear thin by the second half of the novel remaining sometimes fascinating yet sometimes tedious. Instead, you get a novel that starts off as a promising murder mystery. At the first half of the novel, the mystery is solved. Or rather we're unceremoniously told who is the murderer of the dog. From that point, the second half of the novel hugely focuses on Christopher attempting to travel to London by himself. A difficult task considering Christopher is autistic, hates crowds and can't stand to be touched by people. I won't tell who the murderer is or why Christopher takes off to London, as these are the only two real surprises of the novel. I will say overall this was a huge disappointment to me. I thought I was getting an exciting murder mystery and instead I got a highly readable family melodrama. Perhaps if this was not pushed as a murder mystery I would have enjoyed it much more.

An interesting read but I wouldn't recommend it.

I'm reading many types of novels, but I find myself being most absorbed by stories where people need to overcome obstacles within themselves in order to resolve or come to terms with the obstacles surrounding their physical life. This one is exactly that.

The book is an amazing tale about a high functioning autistic savant whose parents are behaving foolishly. Christopher, the autistic, is the narrator and his problems with living are astronomically complicated, but his parents are also suffering through difficulties which while not on the same scale as their son are also complicated. All three have to struggle with their own natures to actually solve anything, but in the consequent learning to quell their inner voices for better functioning it does not mean they get what they wanted. It's an unfair compromise with Reality, and Reality imposes the final terms and boundaries of their hopes. Even though Christopher is the one diagnosed as 'special needs' it's obvious his parents are struggling with the special needs that come from living with a kid far different from ordinary children.

Christopher is high maintenance and there do not seem to be any rewards in parenting such a child. He requires abnormal behavior from everyone around him that must be in a certain regulated and regimated fashion that soothes him enough to not act out. His parents need his affection and love, but he can't tolerate their looking at him or touching him, much less any emotions.

The book is supposedly Christopher's journal so the reader soon gets a read on who Christopher is. He is charming in an odd way, and he is obviously so helpless, but he cannot comprehend the entirety of his deficits or the serious handicapping of his dream to be an astronaut. Although he cannot bear emotions from anyone he is not unemotional. Anyone with empathy feels Christopher's agonies but he cannot be consoled by empathy on any level. His favorite sleeping dream is when he walks an earth where he is the only person alive. This is not a person to love, yet his parents adore him while at the same time tearing their lives to pieces by their unrequited love for him. It is a desperate existence for all of this family, but nothing can be done except to bear it, handling each Autistic meltdown with the only response that works: waiting it out patiently sitting nearby until it's over.

I could not do this, raise a child this functionally broken without any reward or affection or gratefulness. Even dogs can like and love back, enjoy petting or want to be with you - none of which is something Christopher can give or do. However, these parents never stop loving their son.

The Special Needs Counselor is the one person who helps Christopher understand how to share his life as much as he can, which is little better than understanding how different people are from him and that he must tolerate their presence without instigating or resorting to violence. He learns phrases that are meaningless to him, such as "how are you today" simply because he has learned these things minimize his contact with people. To not be polite extends the always unwelcome interest of all persons in his vicinity.

The parents are not special people except in their love for their unloving child. They are blue collar, not particularly sophisticated or wealthy. The son baffles them. In their sorrow and disappointment, which they cannot verbalize, they attempt to soothe themselves with alcohol and sex but find themselves once the temporary diversion is over in the same depressing reality. There is no cure, only palliatives.

This book is well-written and imagined, and I could not put it down. Christopher's mind is as illuminated as one would want from a good book. Strong in tone, the novel enlightens readers about the cruel inescapable cage the handicapped child and his parents must learn to endure, finding little help except for whatever resources they can discover within themselves and if lucky, in the community.

Rating: 2* of five

I'm grateful to Mariah for commenting on this vanished review. I had no idea that it was gone.

I will attempt, through the group read, to reconstruct the earlier review.

***UPDATE***17 April 2017

I read this story 14 years ago, and the review I wrote then was testy because I was too often and too deeply reminded of Forrest Gump as I read it. I ***LOATHE*** every single frame of that film, including the titles, the union notices, and the copyright information. It is sappy. It is manipulative. It is far, far too convinced of its own cleverness. It smirks at its main character behind his back, smiles dazzlingly to his face, and expects all of us to get the joke: The dumb guy's got dumb luck! Haw haw. Like that Swedish hundred-year-old man farrago.

Yuck.

Now, on dredging this book out the dark corner where it's been blocking a draft for a good long time, I can be a little less wrathful about the story. It's not as mean-spirited as either the Swedish mess or the Gump grimness. I still don't like it, the similarity to the mean-spirited smirky stuff gets in my way far too much. But I can finally tell the difference between this story and those: This one is interested in angles of perception and fields of vision. The conceit is not the point here. The point is to experience the world in a foreign way.

While I don't particularly enjoy the story, I no longer want to hurl the book in the path of a draft so as to get some use out of it. (But back it goes because it's the perfect size to plug the space and nothing else I dislike is the same dimensions.)

Rating raised to 3 stars.

Please don't take this book to be the actual workings of an autistic mind. The author admittedly knows nothing about autism and simply wrote a work of fiction, imagining what might have been going on in the head of a character he invented. He even has expressed irritation that the word autism was used on the dust jacket by the publisher in some editions, because he is sometimes asked to give speeches on a subject of which he is totally ignorant. Enjoy this book as a work of fiction but nothing more. This book is not really about autism, even though the boy has many traits of that condition. The inner workings of his head are not what actual autistic people report the condition to be like. Please do not use this book to try to understand an autistic person in your life, or to gather any information about Asperger 's Syndrome or anything else related. Temple Grandin's books are much better for this purpose.

I wish the author would make a new edition with a disclaimer at the beginning.

I enjoyed the story, once I understood the above, but I am rating it low to try and combat the spread of misconceptions. Unfortunate, since the author didn't do this on purpose, but it is what it is.

I liked this book more than I thought I would. I was a bit worried that it would be too "clever" and gimmicky, but it turned out to be very well written and kept my attention throughout. It was interesting to read a book written from the POV of an autistic boy and Haddon did a great job of working in Christopher's everyday approach to life as well the bigger picture of his family unit revealed through the snippets of adult interaction.

What was less successful for me was the whole "curious incident" itself, but perhaps that is more of a marketing issue since it's the main hook of the story. I also tend to enjoy books more when they are more emotionally involving, which tended to be mostly an impossibility with a narrator like this one. Still, I would expect to feel more than mild curiosity and mild pity when reading a story like this. A little more tension and little more excitement to go along with the intellectual exercise would have been great.

Oh my goodness. I generally cringe when narrators are children, but in this case, it worked really well. Seeing the world through Christopher's eyes was illuminating. This poor child. The world is so very confusing to him. But I have so much confidence in this young man, and I'm sure he'll accomplish all he wants, even with all the barriers he'll have to face (the world isn't exactly designed for his accessibility needs, after all). I'm hopeful he'll make lots of friends, find people who are kind wherever he goes, and solves great scientific mysteries.

My older son is autistic spectrum, so this was a must-read. But even if you don't know any autistic people, it's a great novel. The central character is engaging and totally credible. Funny how it's suddenly become cool to be autistic... Lisbeth Salander from  Män som hatar kvinnor is the latest and most extreme example. What does that say about our society? Have we been too respectful of people whose main ability is to manipulate the emotions of others, and are we now thinking better of it?