The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time - Review

This is Christopher's murder mystery story. There are no lies in this story because Christopher can't tell lies. Christopher does not like strangers or the colours yellow or brown or being touched. On the other hand, he knows all the countries in the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7507. When Christopher decides to find out who killed the neighbour's dog, his mystery story becomes more complicated than he could ever have predicted.

About the Author

Mark Haddon was born in 1962 in Northampton. He has done a variety of different jobs including working with disabled people, drawing illustrations and comic strips, writing and working as a painter. Haddon has written a whole range of different things including books for children and adults, poetry, TV screenplays and a play for the theatre. Mark Haddon wrote and illustrated his first picture book at the age of twenty-five. Since then he has written many picture books including the 'Agent Z' series and the 'Baby Dinosaur' series. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was published in 2003 and it was the first book ever to be published simultaneously in two editions – one for adults and one for children. The book was instantly a huge success and has won a whole host of prizes. Mark has won two BAFTAs for his work in writing TV screenplays for children and adults. He's also published two more books for adults.

There is a closely guarded world among all of us, rooted deep within. We look at what’s happening around us, and judge, and finally act. Our decisions are sometimes rash, other times controlled, and often plain intuitive; ‘cause we are humans, with our own set of thought processes, our own idea of good and bad, influenced by our upbringing, our society and the world.

And then there was Christopher, a teenage boy who was good with numbers, computing tables in his mind whenever he needed to be calm. Christopher counted cars to make his day good or bad. ‘Four red cars’ in a row meant Good Day for him, ‘three red cars’ denoted Quite Good Day, ‘five red cars’ implied Super Good Day, and ‘four yellow cars’ signified a Black Day. Christopher lived with his father, and his rat, and loved mystery novels. Christopher belonged to the society, but he had devised his own set of rules that he strictly followed.

Mark Haddon touches the sensitive topic of autism in his novel ‘The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time’. His protagonist Christopher is autistic, and thus his thought processes are different. Christopher is also the narrator of the book, which makes the idea of the novel all the more compelling. There had been a ‘murder’. A neighbour’s dog was killed, and Christopher took it upon himself to solve the mystery. This is what the cover of the book indicates too, but what makes it different than a normal suspense novel is the way the whole plot has been conceptualized and treated. Christopher’s fascination with Mathematics shows that he is a genius in his own way. The constant encouragement and advice from Siobhan, and the beautiful relationship they shared bring a smile on our face. Christopher wrote down his adventures (in the form of this book), and we couldn’t but admire the warm innocence and simplicity that oozes out of his words.

What genre does this novel belong to? Thriller? Suspense? Dark Humour? To be honest, this book can’t be tied to one particular genre, as it is a reflection of Christopher’s day to day life, and the tasks he undertook. We as readers fall in love with Christopher, his brilliance and shortcomings, his determination, and also the fear, and his willingness to always speak the truth. Christopher didn't like people touching him, and he hit a policeman in the process. Christopher makes us giggle, without him realizing, and that’s the best part about him.

However, this book opens a question wide to me? Did I really like it? And strangely enough, I didn’t find a conclusive answer. Did I like Christopher? Yes. Did I like the narration? Yes. Did I like the concept? Yes. Did I like the first half? Yes.

But did I like the way the story progressed? No (it dragged in second half). Did I like the mystery? No (I didn’t find the investigation exciting). Would I re-read this book? No (it was good for a one time read).

Thus, my personal opinion is that Mark Haddon has brought up an interesting idea and scripted this book, but it’s not devoid of its loopholes. I would have liked the second half being trimmed a bit. I admire the honesty in the narration, but expected more grip in the suspense element.

I would suggest giving this book a try. This is not the regular stuff, and to be fair, I haven’t read anything like this before. 

Title: The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time

Authors: Mark Haddon

Publisher: Vintage Books

Publication Year: 2003

Language: English

Binding: Paperback

Genre: Fiction, Classics, Mystery

No. of Pages: 304

Price: Rs 299

My Rating: 3/5