The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime

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Um, this may sound odd. There is a namecheck in this book for Conrad's Heart of Darkness. It struck me that Curious Incident... is a kind of update of Heart of Darkness. Christopher goes 'up river' (well the train from Swindon to London and then the Bakerloo Line), all the while learning about himself and gaining a greater understanding of human emotion. He's on the trail of someone who he initially believed to be dead. He emerges into; The Horror, The Horror, Willesden Green. QED.

Anyone else agree or should I stop putting LSD on my cornflakes?

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Monday, 22 March 2004 10:19 (twenty-one years ago)

If he was going *to* Swindon, then yes - definitely "Heart of Darkness".

― Bunged Out (Jake Proudlock), Monday, 22 March 2004 12:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Mikey, Mikey, really. It's not the LSD, it's the cornflakes, man.

― Michael White (Hereward), Monday, 22 March 2004 23:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Perhaps I won't mention this 'theory' at book club tonight, then. It may invite ridicule.

Still reckon I'm right, mind.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 13:59 (twenty-one years ago)

I hope by now you will have found it's about a part of the higher intellect on the planet - about which "normal" people know precious little and seemingly care even less.

― Jugo Slaver, Saturday, 27 March 2004 06:26 (twenty-one years ago)

three months pass...

Read this on a quim, figured it would be light and silly. Found myself enjoying it much more than I thought I would. Doesn't it beg to be a film?

― j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 20 July 2004 15:31 (twenty-one years ago)

I PRAAAY that's not a typo...

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 20 July 2004 15:36 (twenty-one years ago)

what's a "quim"? is that like british for "whim"?

― Vermont Girl (Vermont Girl), Tuesday, 20 July 2004 17:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Haha

― Fred (Fred), Tuesday, 20 July 2004 21:04 (twenty-one years ago)

hahaha!

― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 20 July 2004 23:27 (twenty-one years ago)

I honestly thought Archel was hoping that praying for it to be made a film was a typo.

― isadora (isadora), Wednesday, 21 July 2004 03:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Ha ha ha ha!

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Wednesday, 21 July 2004 07:29 (twenty-one years ago)

(it was a portmanteau)

― j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Wednesday, 21 July 2004 10:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Quick whim?

Chrales Dodgson walks among us.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Wednesday, 21 July 2004 11:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Typo?

― Fred (Fred), Wednesday, 21 July 2004 11:53 (twenty-one years ago)

No, portmanteau.

CHubby RAndy LESbians

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Wednesday, 21 July 2004 12:30 (twenty-one years ago)

queer whim

― j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Wednesday, 21 July 2004 12:32 (twenty-one years ago)

lol

― Fred (Fred), Wednesday, 21 July 2004 12:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I didn't like this book at all at all at all.

I dread to think what people who read books on a quim use as a bookmark.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Monday, 26 July 2004 07:49 (twenty-one years ago)

I have read the book, also.

― the bellefox, Sunday, 1 August 2004 10:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Me too. I liked it a lot (much as I hate to disagree with Mr Miller, obviously.)

― Archel (Archel), Monday, 2 August 2004 09:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I've been thinking about it over the weekend, and I don't dislike it quite so much now. It is, I think, Hornbyesque.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Monday, 2 August 2004 12:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I didn't get Hornby from it at all.. although maybe reading it with ref to Hornby's writing about his autistic child would be more instructive/illustrative, I don't know.

What I liked about it were the details of having Aspergers and the way the specific internal logic of Christopher's needs etc was described. And watching the fairly standard troubled marriage/family plot unfold through the eyes of someone who understands things totally differently kind of elevated the story, for me.

― Archel (Archel), Monday, 2 August 2004 12:58 (twenty-one years ago)

I got the book from YMOF, who invented ILB!

RING ROAD reminded me of Hornby, early on, though it is far better. Miller, you might like RING ROAD. It is by Ian "Not Kenny" Sansom.

― the pomefox, Monday, 2 August 2004 13:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I didn't know Hornby had an autistic child. It reminded me of the boy in ABOUT A BOY, I don't really know why.

I will check out RING ROAD. Yesterday I learned that Peter Barnes once played for Real Betis.

I don't particularly like Hornby, I'm just jealous of his ability to make himself socially acceptable to such vast numbers of people*. I suspect he is a total freak in real life (re: FEVER PITCH). I couldn't read HOW TO BE GOOD though.

* My theory is: gaggle of editors ironing out all signs of... erm... unconventionality**.

** I don't suppose it's true though.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Monday, 2 August 2004 13:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Ring Road is great. I even forgave it the footnotes.

― Archel (Archel), Monday, 2 August 2004 15:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I liked the footnotes, a lot. I don't see the need for forgiveness.

Did you mind the index?

I don't find Hornby (socially?) acceptable.

I am looking forward to Sister Disco reading RING ROAD.

― the ringfox, Monday, 2 August 2004 15:25 (twenty-one years ago)

(Out loud, on to a tape.)

― the pinefox, Monday, 2 August 2004 15:26 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't mind the index. Witty indexes are great. I may even become an indexer one day. Footnotes annoy me because they break up my reading and yes I know that may well be the intention when used by the likes of David Foster Wallace. But Sansom's were ok because they were well laid-out - you didn't have to turn back the page when you'd finished reading one, usually. And it sort of felt like you were reading a true chronicle and that you almost *could* go and look up the reference in the archives of the local newspaper...

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 08:10 (twenty-one years ago)

There's a piece on Curious Incident in the NY Times today. I thought this was interesting:

"It has been suggested that [Mark Haddon's] models for the novel were 'Catcher in the Rye' and 'To Kill a Mockingbird.' The three have some common ground as books about young outsiders, but, he said, the novel he had in mind when writing was actually 'Pride and Prejudice.'

"'Jane Austen writes about people with desperately restricted lives and codified by iron rules,' he said. 'The first thing she does is to choose a genre, the romantic novel, which is exactly the kind of book those women would read if they were reading books. It clicked: that's what I had to do with Christopher. I had read too many books and seen too many films where a person with a disability was seen from the outside. If I was going to treat him with complete empathy, I had to hand him the reins, make him tell the story, but make it the book he would read.'"

― nory (nory), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 17:43 (twenty-one years ago)

two months pass...

I have just finished reading this book and found it very sad, while also confirming that I have no interest in maths. But I think the thing I liked most about it was that, as Christopher says, not everyone is Special Needs, but everyone has special needs, and that the sad thing about the book is that people keep on not having those needs met by other people. No-one in the book seems to be able to make a 'normal' connection. No-one is happy. In a way, Christopher's parents seemed to me to envy him the simplicity of his life and they seemed to resent the fact that he could, if he didn't want to be touched, just lie on the floor and groan and scream without caring how he appeared and they clearly wanted to do that at times but couldn't.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Saturday, 9 October 2004 11:25 (twenty-one years ago)

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