Finished reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night by Mark Haddon this afternoon. It’s a strange book that grips you while annoying you; that’s funny even in the dark moments; and that gets you sufficiently inside the head of someone with Asperger’s to make you appreciate just how difficult their life can be. Haddon says in an interview with Dave Weich of Powells.com, that a woman from a publishing office who’d read the book said, "Oh, I didn't realize there was actually anything wrong with Christopher." This seems almost too naïve for words. What on earth did she think was going on? Yet, the book never explains anything except through the main character’s voice - because he only sees things through his own filter - and so you have to deduce a great deal about him from the clues that appear. Perhaps she isn’t the deducing kind of reader.
I enjoyed it, but don’t know that I’d recommend it readily to other people, mostly because I don’t know how they’d react to it. You can be enthusiastic about what you feel is a great book only to find other people snubbing it. (As happened to me with Freakonomics, which I thoroughly enjoyed.)
Anyway, I’m glad I picked the book up at a Car Boot Sale recently - I’d already been tempted to buy it at Sainsbury’s supermarket, but kept putting it back. So instead of paying £4 for it, I got it for one.
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