KY review – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Exerpt:

2. It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs. Shears’s house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its side, the way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog was not running or asleep. The dog was dead. There was a garden fork sticking out of the dog. The points of the fork must have gone all the way through the dog and into the ground because the fork had not fallen over. I decided that the dog was probably killed with the fork because I could not see any other wounds in the dog and I do not think you would stick a garden fork into a dog after it had died for some other reason, like cancer, for example, or a road accident. But I could not be certain about this.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a pretty interesting book if just for the fact that the chapters numbers are in prime (hence started with 2) and it comes with cute little graphics to go with the story. Like this picture of aliens:

The story is written as the first person account of a 15 year old boy, Christopher who suffers from Asperger Syndrome trying to investigate the killing or the neighbour’s dog, Wellington. The investigation of Wellington’s death led him to a bigger secret about his family and eventually an adventure of his own.

The book puts us in the mind of Christopher that works on pure logic and very little understanding of human emotions. He is some sort of a mathematic savant and has an excellent memory.

My memory is like a film. That is why I am really good at remembering things, like the conversations I have written down in this book, and what people were wearing, and what they smelled like, because my memory has a smelltrack which is like a soundtrack.

There are many pages that are funny, and there are parts that details the cruelty of human nature. This is one of the more fascinating books I’ve read as of late, you can certainly go through the 240 pages in a couple sittings. If you are too cheap to buy, click on the link above for the electronic version, have fun!

Author: Mark Haddon
ISBN: 0385512104

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