before i add my views of our october book read to my blog, let me begin by thanking the whole book club team for the first fridays of every month. if it weren't for each of you, i would never have read the books suggested. i remain eternally grateful to you.
after our september discussion on the old man and the sea, dr roy suggested, the curious incident of a dog in the night time by mark haddon.
i agree. a title of a book can't get more weird than that. in fact, i had neither heard of the author nor the title so when a friend asked me over the phone, so what's on for this month, i answered, some stupid curious dog at night. :-)
mark haddon is an honourable man to write about an autistic child. i believe he writes from years spent working with autistic children. some say that those with asperger's disorder thought his depiction was inaccurate. however, i personally think that it is his experience and his novel, even though it is fiction, he managed to bring out the portrayal of an emotionally dissociated mind in this literary debut to fantastic heights. a sensitive and bleakly funny writer, he made the novel a puzzle in itself, pieces falling into place as the story moved along.
in 2003, he won the commonwealth writers' prize overall best first book and the whitbread book of the year award, now known as the costa book awards, which is one of the most prestigious awards in the united kingdom.
the award, listed in 1971 was based on a popular list enjoyed by readers. the winners are chosen by five different judging panels from different shortlists of five different categories, best novel, best first novel, children's, poetry and biography.
presently haddon teaches creative writing for the arvon foundation and oxford university.
for our book club, we have been told to choose the best book for the year from all the books we have read. when someone asks me a question like that, i see it as most unfair because i think of all the books as great within their own realm. however, since i had to make a choice, i chose the life of pi but if i was told to choose the most remarkable book of the year, it would have been about this 15-year old very special young man. it gave me insight into the workings of a gifted autistic brain. i have had experience with autism firsthand and i regret to say that not only was i indifferent to it but was also unable to respond to it the way i should have. therefore the remarkability really lies, not in my understanding of the autistic mind, but in the understanding of myself in regards to autism.
there is also a true sense of there being some weakness with the people around christopher. rather than with him. it’s a very effective book that shows a little of what it might be like to see the world in a completely different way, as well as how difficult it is to be a parent to a child like that. from a parent's point of view, the story is heartbreaking. when you want to love your child and hold him and have him love you back, you are not able to do so because touching your child may make him more fearful of you. and then as a parent, you do not plan for this but it presents itself to you and you don't know how to handle it. it was definitely an eye-opening book for me. amazing in a very special way because it put me in touch with a part of me i did not know existed.
oliver, rose, susan, dave, shirley, jade, brian, penny, dr roy and i were present. arpita and a few others came later.
rose spoke of detachment.
christopher seems emotionally detached. but is this what invariably accompanies autistic people? but then, i also see this book as an emotional roller-coaster. christopher is entirely incapable of understanding the various grades of human emotion and he is someone who needs to present himself logic in every situation. he does not recognise them but emotions lurk behind virtually every clue he uncovers. amazingly still, his pitch never varies. he remains on course...
the book's primary charm i think is in the first person narration where like i said earlier, one is able to gain insight into the mind of people with autism. undoubtedly it can get as frustrating as it can be interesting and haddon's intention of constructing each character and personality through the eyes of christopher, makes him literally the only person to focus on. however, there are interesting perplexing perspectives throughout the book and haddon himself says that in this simple book there are many layers of irony and paradox all the way.
brian brings up the topic everyone wants to talk about. christopher is always explaining everything except people.
the strange details, the frequent diversions into mathematical problems and diagrams evoke and form a certain type of mental landscape we may not be able to relate to. are we empathetic? can we be? is this a mediocre story with an impairment to catch our attention? but aren't all stories made that way?
do we feel compassion for christopher? can we dislike him? is it right to do so? is he a lesser being? is he innocent?
i think maybe most readers will believe the total innocence of a character if he or she is mentally impaired. forest gump being an example. so even if christopher is an atheist, and he hits people and threatens to stab a woman who is helping him, he is still the innocent one. do we excuse him because he is autistic, even if he is selfish? or are all autistic children supposed to be selfish because they don't understand selflessness? or are we only making excuses for their behaviours?
oliver says that the boy talks to himself often and dave says he keeps repeating certain things. shirley adds to that saying he is very logical and penny further adds saying everything for him is a mathematical equation.
the entire story is interspersed with mathematical puzzles that christopher works out, some for his schoolwork but most, for him to calm down, it is mainly used as a method for him to understand the world. everything he does is precise and honest. everything has to be logical otherwise he is unable to digest it. and everything has to have an answer, a logical one.
we don't notice the everyday things of life, we don't remember everything. is it good to remember everything?
jade says thank god that we forget because if one has to remember every small detail then we would most probably be depressed as we impose on ourselves a very heavy burden that way.
oliver then points out that christopher doesn't prioritise, he doesn't filter and he can't discard the useless information but dr roy says the fact that he chooses the good days from the bad is his way of filtering. and rose adds that it in fact makes life more manageable for him.
i am sure this book will be different things to different people. some will think of christopher's father as a psychopath, i see him as a good man who was struggling to live a situation like this.
the author forms the character for us but it is the readers who bring to those characters what they want. different people paint different things. to some, it is a sad book. to me it was about lessons and almost the whole book had me smiling. i thought haddon sprinkled beautiful humour in it. was it a happy ending or a sad one? i thought it ended beautifully.
i liked the fact that haddon never once mentioned autism in his book. how do we really know this guy is autistic? isn't it beautiful that an author can write this way? he never cited a specific disability or diagnosis to describe christopher's condition. and i was truly blown away by its subtlety, intelligence and depth.
i wanted my 13-year old niece to read it straight after i was done with it. i thoroughly recommend it to all teenagers. i think perhaps, this book would have changed my life as a teenager if i had read it then. there are lessons to be learnt and beautiful ones too. this book is an absolutely easy and compelling read and also thoroughly engaging with experiences of life, family, fear, fun and adventure through the eyes of an emotionally detached teenager.
the curious incident of the dog in the night-time and the curiously irresistible literary debut of mark haddon has been one of the most fascinating journeys of my book life. if the old man and the sea touched my soul, this one grasped it completely.
