The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

After thorough plot research, I chose The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time for my summer reading assignment. I felt confident that I'd enjoy the book because after describing a bit of the story line to my mother, she was so intrigued that she bought it, read it, and told me I'd love it, all before the half point of summer. After that, any inkling of desire I had to pursue further novel researching went out the window. In a matter of 24 hours, I laughed, I teared up once, and I got irritated a few times; I absorbed the book. The unique style of storytelling, from the perspective of a teenage boy with Asperger's, is the guiding factor that evokes the greatest emotional response, whether it be positive or negative.


The strength of the story, gained from such an unlikely narrator, includes the ability to express profoundly basic pieces of knowledge, so obvious that they are bypassed during the course of the 'normal' human thought process. When the protagonist and narrator, Christopher, is musing on the concept of mysteries, he explains how although many things are considered a mystery, it doesn't mean that there's no answer; all it means is that the solution is just waiting to be discovered. "Eventually scientists will discover something that explains ghosts, just like they discovered electricity, which explained lightning, and it might be something about people's brains, or something about the earth's magnetic field, or it might be some new force altogether. And then ghosts won't be mysteries. They will be like electricity and rainbows and non-stick frying pans" (Haddon 100). This method of storytelling comprised the most engaging parts of the book, simply because it told a tale that served as a means of entry straight into the mind of an otherwise confusing, generally misunderstood subject. Through these inklings of insight from Christopher's perspective, his other actions throughout the course of the story came to make more sense, and his personality developed a pattern that made him less unpredictable and more quirky but lovable.


Ironically, the same characteristics I love about Haddon's storytelling from the viewpoint of Christopher were the ones that drove me insane. The greatest weakness of choosing a narrator that's so unconventional was the fact that his thought process led him off on irritating, extended tangents in behavior and thought. While on a train to London, Christopher is being escorted by a policeman, but his idiosyncrasies lead him to abandon the only person trying to help him and recoil into his own mind:
"So I climbed onto the middle shelf and I pulled one of the cases across like a door so that I was shut in, and it was ark and there was no one in there with me and I couldn't hear people talking so I felt much calmer and it was nice.
      And I did some more quadratic equations like
      0 = 437x^2 + 103 x + 11...." (Haddon 163).
Dealing with page after page of what I considered to just be superfluous, redundant writing after a certain point caused a lapse in the storytelling; it lost its grip and intrigue during particular chunks of this nature. The first lengthy description of a similar scenario was frustrating, but necessary for a dynamic comprehension of Christopher. However, the repetition of such instances told in great detail, regardless of how real they may be for someone with Asperger's, do not make for an engaging read. Paradoxically, the greatest strengths of the storytelling in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time were also responsible for the greatest weaknesses.