The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

Oh, my old bookclub read it too, after I left. The person I talked to didn't like it much. <shrug>

That's cool you have a bookclub. How many people? How long have you been a member? Mine drove me crazy when I was in it for what I thought were silly book selections, but of course now that I don't have it I really miss it. Better start a new one.

2 months only. Only like 5 or 6 members right now. We read the DaVinci Code last month. I have never heard of this "dog in nighttime" book so....I don't know.

We read DaVinci Code, too. :-) That was an interesting discussion!! We read it just when the hype was starting to break out -- a lot of people hadn't heard of it yet. A big article about it appeared in Time or something the week we met. Etc. Anyway, one of the members was a very literal Christian, talking about how humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time, etc. Then there was agnostic me, a couple of Jewish members, a couple of less devout Christians -- got a bit heated! :-D

Anyway, don't mean to hijack your thread. From what I know it seems in the same vein -- bestseller, page-turner.

hijack away. I do it all the time to people.

i haven't read it, but i heard it was great. now, who did i hear it from... maybe littlek?

I read it and thought it was great - Rain Man meets Adrian Mole.

It is a written from the viewpoint of an autistic boy, with all his thought processes, lack of insight into other people's emotions and obsessive compulsive tendencies. I thought the insight was incredible. He sets out to solve who 'murdered' the neighbours dog.

It is sad and funny in turns - he can only understand happy and sad - not subtler emotions like embarassed or joking etc so his understanding of events can be hilarious or tragic. He can't bear to be touched and if upset does complex maths in his head for hours to settle himself back on an even keel or else rocks and moans to himself.

We see the other characters through his eyes - he'll describe his father as going red in the face but has no idea of the embarassment causing it. So throught the factual descriptions, we read a lot between the lines.

loved it.

It was a fast and enjoyable read.

It is a ligtning-fast read and one of the funniest books I have read in quite some time.

Just finished it, really liked it! Strangely and annoyingly, pages 117 through 148 were gone (went from page 116 to page 85, then 85 through 116 were reprinted and the next page was 149), but most of the revelations had happened and I'd already figured out who the Wellington-killer must've been. (I told Amazon, hopefully getting a replacement.)

Interesting conceit, especially for a mystery, really nicely done.

I don't do mysteries, generally, but the thread title attracted me, because it is one of the most famous lines from Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories (in that case, Silver Blaze).

There is a sharp-minded young country inspector of police who pays attention to Holmes, unlike most of the policemen portrayed in the stories. The owner of the horse Silver Blaze is unimpressed, but . . .

Colonel Ross still wore an expression which showed the poor opinion which he had formed of my companion's ability, but I saw by the inspector's face that his attention had been keenly aroused.

"You consider that to be important?" he asked.

"Exceedingly so."

"Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"

"To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."

"The dog did nothing in the night-time."

"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.

Of course, the fact that the dog did nothing in the night-time meant that he knew whomever had taken the horse. I consider that line to be important in more than just mystery fiction--it reminds us that what is not there can be as important as what is.

Knowing where your enemy is not is just as important as knowing where he is.

Yep, that's an explicit reference.

It's not a mystery per se -- the mystery is more the vehicle for an interesting character study.

I'm glad you enjoyed it - I thought you would.

There was an outcry in the local press recently about a mother who jumped off a bridge with her autistic son; she couldn't cope, she had been pleading for more help from Social Services in vain, eventually she snapped and killed both herself and her son.

This book seems to give quite a good insight into why something like that would happen.

I felt so sorry for the father at the end as he apologises to his autistic son and promises to work at regaining his "trust". It should have been the other way around. I found it hard to feel sympathy with somebody whose condition makes them that selfish! Everybody has a right to some kind of a life but at the end of the novel it seemed like the father was facing a life with no real emotional prospects [as his neighbour's terminating their affair because she couldn't cope with the child's condition would seem to bear out] and at the beck and call of the demands of his son's condition.

That doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy the book. I did. It just found it all a little depressing.

It's asking alot of anyone to cope with an autistic child without any significant support.

Yes the book was great. I run a program for adults with autism and the boy's characterization does ring true on many levels. I'm not going to get up on a soap box here, but one very important thing to remember about autism is that every person who has it is different. They may share various traits or behaviors, but ultimately they are totally unique. That's what makes working in this field so exciting. (and demanding) Trust is a big issue when you are involved with someone who has autism, truth and trust. You have to follow through on everything you put out to that person. Otherwise, forget it. They have to feel safe. I think that when the boy found out his dad had lied to him, his safety net fell apart. Dad was not safe anymore. It's very hard for ordinary people to understand the black and white of autism. We live our lives in degrees of complex emotions and shades of gray. We have very different coping mechanisms. The author understood this and did a great job.