To help keep his ideas clear, Christopher makes certain orthographic decisions - bolds, italics, capitalizations - to make a particular word or phrase stand out, thus making their importance more apparent to the reader. I have recently read Mark Haddon’s 2003 book titled the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. This is definitely one of the more original books I have ever read. Mark Haddon was born in Northampton, England in 1962 and studied English at Merton College, Oxford. He became a carer for disabled people in Scotland after university, work experience that would help his later goals.
Haddon is most famous for his novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time which won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award in 2003 and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Overall Best First Book in 2004. This novel was the first Haddon wrote specifically for an adult audience, although it was eventually marketed to both adults and children. Those who are easily offended may want to swerve away from it. Haddon’s writing style is simple; it doesn’t possess complicated words for us to ponder on. Haddon took on a challenge when he wrote the book, getting into the mind-set of an aspersers syndromes mind.
He used to work with autistic individuals. Their interests are given to them and their interactions with others limited. However Haddon had ingeniously used Boones love of Sherlock Holmes to form the crime novel. Boones idea of a crime novel is relying on the “accumulation of material facts. ” This sort of crime fiction is the only sort that seems to make sense for Christopher. The title is a reference to a Sherlock Holmes short story called silver blaze. The dog in the night time is written in the mind-set of a 15 year old boy with Asperger’s syndrome.
He has maintained a simple wording style in the book which makes it unique compared to other books. For example “The next day is Saturday and there is not much to do on a Saturday unless father takes me out somewhere... ” The sentence has the characteristics of a 9 year old child; a child with asperser’s syndrome is weak on their literacy ability but strong in their mathematics. There is a lot of swearing which explains why it is an adult’s book. The book is written in a unusual format. When I first opened the book the first chapter was number 2 , Odd. The books chapters are all headed by the prime numbers as it turns out.
A chapter would focus on the main story and then the second chapter. Boone (Haddon) would talk about a math problem or maybe his likes and dislikes, it would then go back to the main story. A funny and a light-hearted take on a murder mystery. The novel is written as if Christopher is writing it for a class assignment. Haddon delivers a twist on the usual murder-mystery. The style is chatty and his use of long sentences with multiple conjunctions impart a key aspect of Christopher's character and condition, such as the way he notices everything when he walks into a room and his obsessive, list-making nature.
To help keep his ideas clear, Christopher makes certain writing decisions - bolds, italics, capitalizations - to make a particular word or phrase stand out, which makes their importance more apparent to the reader. The novel focuses on Christopher Boone, he is a maths genius, and attends a special ability school. He has a caring, but misunderstood dad, and a mother who is dead. He has never even walked to the end of his street by himself. But when his neighbour’s dog gets murdered. He sets on an adventure to find the culprit. Unknowingly unravelling something even murkier than murder.
As he collects facts relating to the death of the dog, he inadvertently pieces together a jigsaw that reveals to the reader the lies, grief and evasions of his parents' lives. The plot is a sort of red herring Christopher Boone is a 15 year old boy who loves maths and numbers, but dreads social situations, much like an autistic child would. He is fond of mystery novels, especially Sherlock Holmes mystery novels (hence the title). He hates the colours yellow, brown and being touched (instead of hugging his father they put their fingertips together to express love). He is straight to the point and does not tell lies.
Christopher sees everything, remembers everything, but cannot prioritise - cannot sift out what most of us regard as important "This will not be a funny book," says Christopher. "I cannot tell jokes because I do not understand them. " But it is a funny book. Christopher’s compulsiveness of noting down mundane facts provides comedy the greats are made of. I enjoyed reading this book it was different and was not your normal mystery novel. Being accounted by an autistic child adds a touch to the book that makes it more unique to the reader.
I thought that Haddon really portrayed Christopher's lifestyle in a very intimate way and with so much understanding. I don’t have many cons about the book, but one problem was with the amount of swearing in it, especially from Christopher’s father, it took the attention away from the book and set you into reality. Overall I feel this book deserves 3. 9 out of 5. It’s not perfect, but nothing is. The technique that has been used makes the book special and more compelling to the reader. So I can recommend ‘The Curious Incident Of the Dog In the Night-time’ to anyone who is looking for an entertaining, funny but also thought-provoking and realistic book and who is willing to relate to an autistic boy.
