The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

[WIS]

Has anyone read this book? It's fabulous! It got me hooked after the first page.

The characters are very believeable, and the story is told in a new perspective that allows room for some great wit!

[Tharkun]

Oh yes, I loved this book. The autistic viewpoint is what saved it, really, because who wants to read about a boy who finds out his parents are cheating on each other with the married couple next door and are otherwise completely screwed-up? But yeah, the autism is so brilliant that it makes it not only a tolerable read, but a great one.

[happytin]

Interestingly enough the author says that he did absolutely no research or anything before he started writing the book. The good thing about this book is that nobody has ever done that exact lay out and view point before and so it introduced something new to literature. Someone doing it now would probably get a "oh look they're copying dog in the nighttime"...

One thing I don't really understand about books at the moment, and dog in the nighttime is an example of this, is the production of a children's cover and an adults' one

[pipsqueeek]

This is such a good book. I love how the chapters are numbered with primes. If I ever wrote a book(well, like this-ish, not if it were a fantasy or something of the like), I'd number the chapters with the fibonacci numbers

And I think, though I'm not sure, that Mark Haddon worked with autistic people before writing the book.

[happytin]

Between 1983-4 Mark returned to studying to complete an MSc in English Literature at Edinburgh University. Following this Mark held part-time positions for Mencap and several other organisations, working with children and adults with a variety of mental and physical handicaps.

There we go

The site also says it's asperger's rather than full-blown autism which is interesting. Asperger's is "high functioning autism" which means that whilst people with it do display autistic tendancies these don't interfere *too* much with their social interaction. I'm not sure how close this is to how Christopher is...

Christopher is an intelligent youth who lives in the functional hinterland of autism

However most reviews are saying Asperger's. Sorry got a bit carried away there, I've only just woken up and feel a bit fizzy

[Asthaloth]

It's Autism, I suffer from a mild version of it myself.

As you might imagine, I loved it.



edit:
Aspergers - Autism = Same thing, differant intensitys.

[WIS]

It's Autism, I suffer from a mild version of it myself.

As you might imagine, I loved it.



edit:
Aspergers - Autism = Same thing, differant intensitys.

Wow... Imagine someone with Autisim is on the forums, but we cant tell because they have all of these smiley faces to guide them. O_O

[matchbow]

Oh man, i loved this book. my sister works a lot with children with disabilities. i wrote my french speech in grade 8 on autism. really great book

[Lillie]

I liked it. The review that recommended me to it spoiled some of the charm and made it seem like a complete work of genius, which ruined a little bit of it for me, but it's still very interesting.

[Amethyst]

I read this over vacation, and I thought it was really interesting. Especially when he was talking about how he can tell what kind of day he's going to have by the cars....I do the same thing

[Igg]

It's Autism, I suffer from a mild version of it myself.

As you might imagine, I loved it.

edit:
Aspergers - Autism = Same thing, differant intensitys.

Not exactly. Aspergers is on the autistic spectrum but it has it's own status as a syndrome and there are wildly varying intensities of aspergers. Basically, if you have aspergers then you are on the autistic spectrum, but you can be on the spectrum without haveing aspergers.

I do believe that the boy in the book has aspergers (though I'd have to check) which is not the same thing as autism. Like happytin posted, it's a sort of high-functioning autism where the people with aspergers tend to have more control over themselves than people with regular autism. That said, I wouldn't really agree with the thing about social interaction- a lot of people with asperger's syndrome have trouble with social interaction because they find it difficult to realise someone's intentions unless they are explicit.

My brother has aspergers; but he's not as bad as the Christopher character. He doesn't really have the OCD type traits, such as organising food on a plate into sections that don't touch, and the like.

[Hil]

I loved it! I read it in like...a day or less I think. My 12 (almost 13) year old brother has high-functioning autism and it was funny, because it reminded me a lot of him. I have had a psychologist tell me I may have a mild form of autism or Asperger's and I actually related to parts of it too.

(Autism and Asperger's are not the same thing, but closely related.)