The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon

[goodreads]

Title: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Author: Mark Haddon
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 240
Date read: December, 2011

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, Christopher is autistic. Everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning for him. Routine, order and predictability shelter him from the messy, wider world. Then, at fifteen, Christopher's carefully constructed world falls apart when he finds his neighbor's dog, Wellington, impaled on a garden fork, and he is initially blamed for the killing.

Christopher decides that he will track down the real killer and turns to his favorite fictional character, the impeccably logical Sherlock Holmes, for inspiration. But the investigation leads him down some unexpected paths and ultimately brings him face to face with the dissolution of his parents' marriage. As he tries to deal with the crisis within his own family, we are drawn into the workings of Christopher's mind.

Thing That Amused Me #1: Christopher explains the Monty Hall Paradox which I had just seen Mythbusters investigate. Funny timing, and my gut instinct is still wrong.

Thing That Amused Me #2: When Christopher arrives to London he looks at a map over the Bakerloo line. Only the illustration Mark Haddon used in the book clearly shows that Christopher would have been at Edgware Road which is absolutely impossible, considering that he arrived with British Rail. He would have had to be at Paddington Street Station instead. And no, it doesn't take a train geek to spot this - it is very clear from the illustration if you have even the faintest idea of what a tube map looks like.

Thing That Amused Me #3: The chapters were numbered using prime numbers :D

Fascinating book about a boy with autism. I loved seeing the workings of his mind, and how his reasonings were always 100% logical and therefore often wrong as human beings aren't ever 100% logical (rarely, anyway). In many ways it reminded me of "Marcelo in the Real World" by Francisco X. Stork, only Marcelo was a lot higher functioning than Christopher.