Book Review: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

This novel (i would prefer to call it a short-story though) was written from the point-of-view of a 15 years old austic British youngsters, Christopher. He loves math, has a photographic memory, doesn't like being touched, nor eat the food if they had touched each other, despises everything brown or yellow, and ultimately, unable to decipher other's emotion. But, when the dog across the street from his house was killed, implaed by a garden-fork, he sets up a journey, which from an austic point-of-view requires a tremendous effort and facing many of his own fears.

Mark Haddon works an extra mile by presenting the book in a rather absurd way, which sometimes forcing us, reader to believe that the book was actually written by Christopher - our hero, the austic boy - not with Haddon. The chapters were numbered with prime numbers, and each chapters consistently told about Christopher's random thoughts followed by his actual investigation on the murder.

We, reader, knows about the nature of the murder way before Christopher did. It draws our sympathy, well, mine at least, to see how clueless Christopher was when the facts presented to him in a careful words by his neighbor and his teacher.

I ended up hating Christopher anyway, and only after i've read the book, learn more about the social disorder Christopher suffered, i felt that i'm not mature enough to appreciate, to learn, and to cared more about other's disability. It actually made me think about if someday my son suffers the same illness as Christopher did, would i be ended up hating him? gosh, i hope not, but, what could us, men, chose what future lies on our path?

By having this kind of emotion during and after i've read the book, proves that Mark Haddon succeeded in bringing a coming-of-age story, a different if not unique kind of story that not just entertaining, but also broaden one's prespective about the many-folds of life out there.