Emily's Musings

YA12: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

I finally got around to reading Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time -- yes, yes, many of you have been recommending it for months now. For any of you who have missed it completely, its a really interesting book told from the point of view of a 15-year-old with Asperger's syndrome in Swindon, England.

There's a nice review here, an interesting interview with the author here (where he compares the book to Pride and Prejudice) and its certainly been talked about a lot this past year. I really enjoyed it -- the character is really wonderful and it is really amazing to view the world through his eyes.

From Chapter 71 (the chapters are numbered in prime, rather than cardinal, numbers):

All the other children at my school are stupid. Except I'm not meant to call them stupid, even though this is what they are. I'm meant to say that they have learning difficulties or that they have special needs. But this is stupid because everyone has learning difficulties because learning to speak French or understanding relativity is difficult and also everyone has special needs, like Father, who has to carry a little packet of artificial sweetening tablets with him to put in his coffee to keep him from getting fat, or Mrs. Peters, who wears a beige-colored hearning aid, or Siobhan, who has glasses so thick that they give you a headache if you borrow them, and none of these people are Special Needs, even if they have special needs. (p. 43-44)