The Curious incident of the dog in the night-time
A self narrated detective novel with a twist, Christopher Boone is fifteen and has Asperger’s syndrome. Uniquely placing the reader in Christopher’s shoes, from the Terrifying prospects of talking to people, to the simple black and white prospect of looking at thing logically, it gives a good glimpse of what it would be like to have Asperger’s syndrome. The strange calm, reassuring feeling put across when talking abut maths or science problems compared to the stressful panic of dealing with emotions and other
people is very helpful in that it aids the reader to better understand and cope with Asperger’s children in real life.
The story starts with Christopher walking alone at night, the only
time he feels confident enough to walk outside when he
finds the neighbour’s dog had been murdered. Wrongly accused of
murder and after hitting a police officer out of panic he decides to find the real culprit.
His disdain for other people hinders his efforts but his highly mathematical and logical mind makes up for this. Through his detective work he accidentally finds out something worse. His
father has been lying to him! His mother who he was told died a long time ago is in fact alive and well and living in London with they’re old next-door neighbour. On finding his son in such a state his father cleans him up and apologises but also confesses murdering the dog!
Chris has to run away how can he possibly live with a murderer? Logically it makes sense that if he is willing to murder an innocent dog he could quite possibly murder him. He does the only thing he can think of run away. He must somehow brave the outside world and find his mother.
The book although being sympathetic towards Chris’ feelings also shows the sad truth that although he does not know it nor intend it. His condition and behaviour have made
life miserable for his parents. It is a true credit to parents of disabled children for their patience and perseverance when life becomes difficult.
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