0205-Haddon-The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: Comments

Comment on "Green-Eyed Grrl and DS on CIDN"

Sat, 30 Apr 2005 17:09:51 -0500

Thank you so much for posting that. My son is on the autism/asperger's continuum - I took him to a neurologist when he was 3ish and she thought I was nuts, but he was diagnosed years later with non-verbal learning disorder and OCD. He's now almost 11. He does have a great sense of humor, which gets us through a lot. He also has a VERY difficult time reading people, and will get picked on at school, then be happy that these same boys say they want to be friends with him. We have a lot of talks about people's motivations and such. I'm sure I'm somewhere on that continuum, too - I haven't thought about it that much, but I do technical documention indexing, which is all about recognizing patterns in text. I can write a really accurate thorough index for highly technical books, books beyond my grasp. The process involves seeing the patterns of ideas and how they relate to each other. But I definitely lack social skills. lol

- Patti

Comment on "Green-Eyed Grrl and DS on CIDN"

Wed, 27 Apr 2005 15:21:11 -0500

The whole time I was reading this book, I wondered how close the author was to having created an autistic character. I really appreciate Laurie and William's discussion on the matter.

Thank you!

- Eva

Comment on "Green-Eyed Grrl and DS on CIDN"

Fri, 25 Mar 2005 00:57:11 -0500

Laurie and William, this is great. I love both of you. William gave me this book for Christmas. It has a very special meaning to me. For the first time since William was born, I have a view into the way his mind works. I told William tonight how proud I am of him. He is a wonderful role model for other autistics and willingly shares his experiences and insights with worried parents.

- Dad

Comment on "Green-Eyed Grrl and DS on CIDN"

Thu, 24 Mar 2005 08:10:08 -0500

Thank you Laurie and William! Your thoughts really added to the discussion!

- Christy

Comment on "Green-Eyed Grrl and DS on CIDN"

Wed, 23 Mar 2005 08:40:13 -0500

Thanks for sharing your questions and answers Laurie and William. Having a bit of a background with autism, I agree with William that it makes for an amazing book.

- Kathleen

Comment on "Green-Eyed Grrl and DS on CIDN"

Wed, 23 Mar 2005 00:50:02 -0500

What a great interview! Thanks for providing another perspective to the story.

- Nancy

Comment on "Green-Eyed Grrl and DS on CIDN"

Tue, 22 Mar 2005 09:19:14 -0500

Wow, thank you both for this! Y'all added a level of depth to a book that I read last year, but one that has stayed with me.

- chris

Comment on "Green-Eyed Grrl and DS on CIDN"

Mon, 21 Mar 2005 21:28:34 -0500

Excellent questions and very well written answers. You guys Rock! I especially like the connect made by Laurie between the "genetic" nature of autistic behaviors. That coupled with Williams view of the father makes me wonder if the father was easy to throw off balance as well?!

Thanks for sharing you two!

- Wendy

Comment on "Green-Eyed Grrl and DS on CIDN"

Sun, 20 Mar 2005 17:37:01 -0500

Laurie:
Are you familiar with the book "The Speed of Dark" by Elizabeth Moon? The book is set in the near future. Its protagonist is a high-functioning autistic man also. The descriptions of Christopher and Lou (the protagonist of "The Speed of Dark") are pretty congruent, even though Lou is a little higher-functioning than Christopher is. Lou lives on his own, has a job, and drives a car.
Elizabeth Moon is the mother of an autistic son also.
I've also been listening to Temple Grandin's book "Animals in Translation." Dr. Grandin sees parallels between some animal behavior and some autistic behavior. She also feels that being autistic herself gives her an edge in understanding animals.
This is fascinating subject material! And thanks for the thoughts from your son.

- Janice in GA

Comment on "Green-Eyed Grrl and DS on CIDN"

Sun, 20 Mar 2005 17:13:46 -0500

Thanks for the interview. I'm glad he shared his thoughts on the book.

- Lauren

Comment on "Green-Eyed Grrl and DS on CIDN"

Sun, 20 Mar 2005 17:06:27 -0500

Thanks for giving us this great perspective on the book and Christopher. Your son is so intelligent! I know I didn't sound that smart at 16. I especially liked his thoughts on the parents. I totally agree with him that it isn't easy to say whether they are "good" or "bad". Just like everyone else, they have faults as well as positive traits. Thanks you two!

- Vicki

Comment on "Green-Eyed Grrl and DS on CIDN"

Sun, 20 Mar 2005 16:23:26 -0500

Thank you William and Laurie! I'm so glad to get both of your perspectives on the book - and glad to learn more about you. I'm going to read it a couple of times, and come back if I have any questions.

Thanks so much for contributing to the discussion!
Best,
Cara

- Cara

Comment on "Book Discussion Begins!"

Sun, 20 Mar 2005 13:40:25 -0500

Can I just say - I'm SO HAPPY to see how this conversation has flourished! This was EXACTLY my intention for K1R2!

Thank you all!
Best,
Cara

- Cara

Comment on "Book Discussion Begins!"

Fri, 18 Mar 2005 09:09:15 -0500

I jussst finsihed reading THE HA-HA. Has anyone else read it and found similarities in the two books? Although not suffering from the same illness but living life sort of the same. I'd love to know if someone else has read it.

- Nancy

Comment on "Book Discussion Begins!"

Thu, 17 Mar 2005 11:19:01 -0500

I'm joining this discussion quite late - I just read the novel while on vacation. I enjoyed it a lot, although I can see many of your points about its failings - the limited nature of the first-person perspective, the flatness of the characters and narrative style - even the rather unbelievable revelation that the father killed Wellington (which didn't strike me at the time I was reading it, but I can see it now). I think I enjoyed it because I felt like I was being forced to imagine myself inside someone's mind that is so different from my own - in both strengths and weaknesses. I enjoyed Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn for the same reason - it's narrated by a young guy who has Tourette's. And I found myself comparing how my mind works to how Christopher's works - and as many of you have noted, I identified with him to a certain degree because I realized that in some ways we are probably all autistic. By this I mean that I noticed that I have little quirks about certain things - I don't like certain foods to touch each other, for example. And the descriptions of being in a London underground station and finding it all nightmarish - well, I've been there, especially at rush hour - I just deal with it better than Christopher could. But there's sometimes a part of me that wishes I could curl up in a ball and bang my head against the floor and groan!

I liked some of the metaphorical aspects to the novel - the use of prime numbers for the chapters and Christopher's explanation of why he likes prime numbers and how they relate to life. Some of his musings on how humans' brains are and aren't like computers were also interesting. As far as metaphors go, these weren't terribly complex or sophisticated, but I appreciated them all the same.

This book was recommended to me by my mother, who's a math teacher - and I can only imagine that she must have gotten so much more out of it than I did. I've never been good at math, and much of the math content of the novel made no sense to me. So I definitely need to talk to her about what she thought of it.

- Elizabeth

Comment on "Book Discussion Begins!"

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 23:44:04 -0500

I just finished the book tonight, and I am glad I read it. Like Amy, I didn't think the book was funny - even though I've heard it described that way. I didn't get it. I was really affected by the first description of the dad fanning out his fingers in lieu of giving his son a hug. Not being able to hug your child... At the same time, I did get a greater appreciation of how fascinating, although frustrating, caring for someone like Christopher would be.

I wasn't surprised that the mother didn't question why Christopher didn't respond to her letters. I found the (one-sided) conversation between Christopher and his dad about regaining trust to be absolutely heart-breaking. If the mom thought that she had lost his trust, she probably expected this kind of response to her betrayal.

I did not find Christopher's insight on how his brain worked to be impossible, just very improbable. In class, I watched an amazing interview with a woman named Temple Grandin. She is an extrordinary instance of a high-functioning autistic, and has written books about her experience, in addition to having a Ph.D. in animal husbandry and designing stockyards used extensively in the US. You can read more about her here: http://hcs.harvard.edu/~husn/BRAIN/vol7-spring2000/grandin.htm

- Terby

Comment on "Book Discussion Begins!"

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 22:26:20 -0500

This may be beyond the purview of this discussion, but I'll throw it out anyway.
Would you change places with Christopher? IOW, if you could gain something (e.g., increased concentration, enhanced memory for details, exceptional mathematic ability), would you ever opt to be "differently abled" as Christopher is?

- Janice in GA

Comment on "Book Discussion Begins!"

Thu, 10 Mar 2005 01:12:23 -0500

I also listened to the audio version of this book (I listen to books on my daily commute). I think that the audio version made the telling of the story more "real" to me. I felt that I was able to get a glimpse of what it would be like to see the world through the eyes of an autistic person. I do feel that the book did have some imperfections, however, I have yet to find the "perfect" book.

I have also enjoyed reading everyone's comments. It is interesting to see all of the different points of view. This has made the book even more enjoyable.

- Violet

Comment on "Book Discussion Begins!"

Tue, 08 Mar 2005 08:14:18 -0500

I went into this book wanting to understand how the point of view of an autistic narrator would enhance/limit the experience of the story. I am glad Haddon tried this. While I agree that the book has its imperfections, it was a good read for me and I have so enjoyed reading others' comments and criticism!

- Susan

Comment on "Book Discussion Begins!"

Mon, 07 Mar 2005 21:36:27 -0500

I do think the author wanted us to get swept up in Christopher's life. It seemed to me that we get to see his situation from a very different perspective. The story by itself is really kinda sad -- autistic boy's mom can't cope, runs away with neighbor. Boy's father copes a bit better with the boy, but in his anger at the mother, tells the boy she's dead. Boy finds out different, goes off to seek mother.

It's Christopher's perspective and flat emotional tone that make the story interesting. Events that could be very painful emotionally are distanced by Christopher's flat affect. Events that would be trivial to most of us (e.g., entering a subway tunnel) are fraught for Christopher.

I've been re-reading this book on my Zire, and there are a few more images than I remembered that are included in the ebook. I don't think that most of them add that much to the story. Mostly they help illustrate ways that Christopher thinks.

- Janice in Ga