Book Review: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
This is a great novel which is narrated directly through Christopher Boone, the main character and a kid with autism. Christopher is falsely accused of killing their neighbour’s dog, in which he decides to find out the real victim to prove his innocence. However, Mark Haddon, the author of the book argues that despite Christopher’s disability, he was still able to acquire cues, which led to unbelievable discoveries.
Q1. The only two emotions that Christopher was able to identify
Christopher was only able to identify the sad and happy faces. The identification of these two emotions is evident when Christopher gives out a detailed explanation that he has a serious problem in determining emotions of people from their facial expressions. For example, Christopher flashbacks eight years ago when he first met Siobhan, and she managed to draw several faces on a piece of paper, in which she asked him the type of emotions expression on each face.
However, Christopher could not be able to identify the emotions expressed by all faces, but instead, he was only capable of determining two faces that show sadness and happiness. Additionally, he was able to recognize the sad emotion, which shows how he deeply felt when he first found Wellington, their neighbour’s, Mrs. Shears’ dog dead. Unfortunately, Mrs. Shears the dog’s owner never investigated the matter but instead accused Christopher of killing the dog, in which she appeared on her porch and loudly shouted at him continuously that he could not block out the sound.
Inclusion, Christopher was able to identify the happy emotion, which represented the how he felt during the times he strolled in the neighbourhood. Also, the happy moments only came in the morning hours, at three or four when he enjoyed his neighbourhood environment, the chilly mornings. Thus, he was only able to determine the sad and happy emotions but not other emotions.
Q2. What was unusual about the page numbers in the book?
Numbering the chapters of the book is made uniquely, in that the chapters are numbered using the prime numbers, rather than applying the use of the conventional successive numbers. Therefore, the page numbering of the book takes a format of 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, which it only utilizes the use of prime numbers. The use of the prime numbers illustrates much of the main character’s trait of the full memory of prime numbers applications.
For example, the author explains that Christopher was well conversant with the prime numbers that he could outline them up to the 7,057th one. Further, he explains that prime numbers are what remain when you eliminate all the patterns. Also, he had a capability of giving names of all country in the world as well as their capital cities. Hence, the prime numbering brings out a clear structural understanding of the uniqueness of the book and main character’s traits. Thus, use of prime numbers in numbering pages and chapters is the unusual activity in the book in comparison to other novels. For, instance, the novel begins with the second chapter instead of the first chapter and rapidly proceeds over the prime numbers until the last chapter, the 41 chapter.
In chapter 29 Christopher provides two strong reasons why he finds people confusing: first, he says people are confusing because they communicate using the facial expressions and words. However, he finds it difficult to cope with the facial expression communication method as he only in a place of identifying two types of emotions expressed by the face; the sad and happy face. Also, for this facial expression and word communication makes Christopher develop the high dislike to hugging as he will never be able to determine whether the person is happy or sad.
Secondly, he explains that people are confusing because they mostly communicate by the use of metaphors, which are generally confusing as they entirely involve trial and imaginations. Additionally, Christopher gives an illustrating example with a metaphor of an Apple, in which he says an apple in person’s eye may end up distracting you from getting actual meaning or concept of what the individual is talking about. Also, he describes that the nature of the metaphors is hugely confusing that he considers his name as a metaphor that means carrying Christ.
However, Christopher shows a lot of dislike to people communicating using the metaphor that he regards his name to mean him, but not the story of St Christopher, which Jesus was carried across the river. Hence, Christopher found people confusing due to the use of facial expressions and word, as well as the use of metaphors as a means of communications, in which he totally hate and never want to be associated with and also has a serious difficulty in identifying.
Q4. Situations during Christopher’s trip to London when Intuition would have served him better
There were several situations when Christopher could have used intuition during his trip to London. For example, when the police officer who was in front him begun looking for him after helping him to buy a train ticket using his pin card. Eventually, he decides to hide in the shelves with cases, instead of going to him to explain why he was leaving his countryside and never happy going back to his father.
Also, when Christopher moved to the metro station where he sits on the bench for five hours, after which he realizes that his rat, Toby, was not in his pocket. Eventually, he decides to look for him where he was almost killed while trying to get on the tracks to catch his rat and fortunately, he was rescued by a good man. Therefore, in all these situations Christopher could have applied intuition to help him make the correct decisions, for instance, he could have left the rat instead of putting his life at risk.
Choice between logic and intuition
If I have the opportunity to choose between logic and intuition, I will highly go for the intuition. The main reason I prefer intuition is that of the ability it accords human beings to have an immediate understanding of a situation or something, with no greater involvement of the conscious reasoning.
Q5. Did the book give you a better understanding of children with autism?
The book gave me a better understanding of children with autism, for instance, I learned that persons with autism are not weird as I usually thought, but they act in unusual ways due to the a unique type logic being the cause of their actions. In addition to this argument, several actions of people with autism are usually taken to act in such a way because of their strange impulses, which is totally incorrect. For example, the author explains Christopher’s ways of action as very logical reasoning, in which in some cases he sits on the groans and floors that he only practice when he get confused and want to close off from the worldly life for a while. Therefore, I personally find this explanation very logic even though some individuals get it disturbing.
Work Cited
Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. New York: Doubleday, 2003. Print.
