Review: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

[livingdeb]

First let me say that there is no chapter one. So if you get the book and notice that it starts with chapter 2, then even if the previous page is torn out, I can assure you that that is really the beginning of the book. (As the previous page is merely a third title page, at least in my edition, it wouldn't be missed.)

As I said yesterday I quite liked the first few pages. They were interesting and well-written.

Before long, it looked like one of those books where you can learn things from a character who doesn't actually know them himself. He knows enough for you to figure it out, but there's some reason that he doesn't. I think that's fun.

And it became clear that the protagonist has one of those serious mental conditions where it is very difficult to imagine what it must be like, but since the story is told in the first person, you get to have a clue. I also think that's fun.

Then one-quarter of the way through the book, I figured out something that made me dislike the main character, the same way I suddenly disliked the main character in "Memento" in the scene near the end where he deliberately lies to himself, knowing that it will quite likely lead to the murder of a man he doesn't like.

Ten pages later, a new fact was revealed which confirmed my horrible guess.

I began to get uncomfortable with some ways that the main character is like me, only even more extreme. For example, I am overly rational, which I like, but Christopher goes too far in the same way my old friend M did. Whenever I was around M too much, I would become even more extreme than I normally am, and this would make it quite difficult to tolerate people of even average intelligence, let alone those of below-average intelligence. And since the world is full of people like that, this is a recipe for unhappiness.

For another example, I have very little common sense and thus use rationality as a crutch. Christopher has no common sense at all and has only rationality to get him through.

Then halfway through the book I learned that I was wrong about the thing I thought I had figured out. Wrong in every way except for the hint I'd read later. Or was that "hint" a red herring? I still didn't like Christopher, though, because I was still afraid of him.

Then we got to the character development part, the kind where necessity is the mother of invention. I always wish people could improve even when they don't absolutely have to in order to survive. And they can, of course; it's just not as likely. I'm a fan of character development, so I decided that would be fun.

But by the end of the book, it made me tired just knowing that there are people like him in the world. I am supposed to sympathize with Christopher, but I identify with his parents more. To me this book is one more answer to the question of why I don't want kids. I could never be as good a parent as Christopher needs. Or at least I wouldn't want to.

In conclusion, this is a well-written interesting book that's a quick read, but I don't like it because I don't like the main character and because it makes me feel uncomfortable about some of my own traits.

Reading this book I also learned a bit more about metaphors. For some reason I had always thought they were just like similes except that you use the word "is" instead of the phrase "is like." But really, Christopher describes it as a whole different animal. I still prefer similes, just like Christopher does. Ugh.

Comments

[raaga123.livejournal.com]

I listened to the audiobook of this a few years ago. The "Chapter 2" thing threw me, too, until the narrator explained that he was numbering his chapters using (if I remember correctly) only prime numbers.

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Yep, first I noticed that I missed a page, no it really starts at 2. Then he said he liked prime numbers and I figured it out. And then he said he used that for his numbering system. So, yup.

[sallini.livejournal.com]

I read this book a few years ago and enjoyed it a lot. You have to admit that the mathy parts were fun, right?

In what sense are you "overly rational" such that the consequence is being unable to tolerate people of average or below average intelligence?

I wish I remembered better what the character had to say about similes and metaphors. I am also having a failure of the imagination to understand how or why a person would (or could) prefer one over the other. Could you elaborate? But the phrase "Christopher describes it as a whole different animal" is funny in this context. I suppose that "as" saves the whole thing.

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

I did like the mathy parts. When I first thumbed through the book, I figured some of the parts would go over my head, but they didn't, except for part of the explanation in the appendix which I didn't feel like spending more time on, and it was still fun.

**

Mostly I realize that people have lots of interesting traits, rationality being only one of them, and that each person has ways of dealing with their combination of traits, and thus they are unique and interesting. If I'm highly focussed on the rational sides of things, then when other people are being irrational, it's annoying. I'm more likely to judge them on one trait. And less intelligent people are not as good at being rational, even if they are in the mood. At least this one girl I was stuck partnering in a canoe class one time just couldn't get it. It's a long story, most of which I've forgotten, and some of which probably doesn't make sense. But at the time I felt that I would have been better equipped to deal with her if I had not just left a bunch of gifted junior high kids.

**

Here's what Chrisopher says about metaphors:

These are exampmles of metaphors
I laughed my socks off.
He was the apple of her eye.
They had a skeleton in the cupboard.
We had a real pig of a day.
The dog was stone dead.

The word metaphor means carrying something from one place to another, and it comes from the Greek words ... [I don't know how to type Greek] (which means from one place to another) and ... (which means to carry), and it is when you describe something by using a word for something that it isn't. This means that the word metaphor is a metaphor.

I think it should be called a lie because a pig is not like a day and people do not have skeletons in their cupboards. And when I try and make a picture of the phrase in my head it just confuses me because imagining an apple in someone's eye doesn't have anything to do with liking someone a lot and it makes you forget what the person was talking about.

I especially notice that I don't like metaphors in dance class. Most dance teachers explain quite a lot of things with metaphors. I'd rather hear a simile, like "stand up straight, as if you are being pulled up by a string from the top of your head," than I'd like to hear a metaphor like "Move from your center." (I'm moving with my legs.) So, when I don't already know what's going on, similes are more helpful.

I did notice the "whole different animal" thing after I'd written it, but you just have to keep a think like that in!

[sallini.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the additional comments. Interesting stuff.

[(Anonymous)]

Tam here. The metaphor thing is strange to me because so much of language is made up of metaphors anyway. Like how I just said "made up of," as though language is a building or an object. It is not possible to communicate without metaphors.

"Move from your center" doesn't really sound like a metaphor to me, though. Like I wouldn't consider "lead with your head" (dunno if that's a valid dance type of instruction or not) a metaphor even though your head can't literally move the rest of your body.

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Yep. "Move from your center" means "lead with your center" which means start going and then move your feet to catch up with yourself as opposed to gingerly tapping your foot around in front of you, looking for a clear spot, and then moving forward to put your weight on it. (This way the follower can tell what you're planning to do in time to move her foot in the right direction, without looking down to see what your foot's doing.)

So maybe it's not a metaphor; it's just imprecise. I'm moving from my feet. And it's my leg muscles that let me move like they want, not some mysterious "center."