The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night Time

I'm an avid reader. I read all the time. Its one of the greatest addictions I have and one of the finest to have. I blame Terrance Dicks. If it wasn't for him writing all those wonderful Target books when I was a kid, then I might not have pushed myself into the wonderful world of books as soon as I did. Anyway I'm getting distracted here, there's another column in that isn't there?

So what was I on about? Oh yes, reading. I spend a good couple of hours a week on trains these days. Admittedly that's not as many as some do, and it is for a far better reason than merely travelling to work, but this gives me a good opportunity to have a good hour with my minidisc player and a book. Bliss it is too!

Every so often you read something that is utterly amazing. The wonderful writer Tim Lott once told me that the best thing you can say about any book if you really want to please its author is that you couldn't put it down, or "unputdownable" as a 1000 cover blurbs might tell you. There have been several books like that I've read, "Man and Boy" by Tony Parsons was certainly one, Paul Magrs' "Could it be Magic", the aforementioned Tim Lott's "White City Blue" was another and last week I read one more, Mark Haddon's amazing "The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night Time."

It's the story of Christopher Boone, who is a 15 year old boy with Asperger's Syndrome. One night he finds a neighbour's dog has been killed with a garden fork, and his investigation into who committed this crime sets him on a terrifying journey which turns his whole life upside down.

On the face of it, that's a pretty standard kind of tale, but this was something different. Why? Well its the fact that its told from the point of view of a teenager with Asperger's syndrome that lifts it out of the ordinary. I have to admit, this wasn't something I knew a great deal about. I know that its something linked to autism and is a kind of obsessive behaviour (which Gary Gillat linked to Doctor Who fans last year in his articles about the fan gene in DWM) but otherwise, this was all new. I did know an autistic child once. His name was Tom and he was looked after by my sister. He was a wonderful kid, very intelligent in many ways, but he couldn't communicate and would throw tantrums because he couldn't get you to understand what he wanted. My sister eventually taught him to communicate using sign language which was amazing and now happily, he can speak. But that was about all I knew.

Haddon takes us inside Christopher's head, and we get a view of the world that's more than slightly skewed from the norm. Christopher has a wonderful understanding of maths, that's his gift. It's seen throughout the novel, as the chapter numbers are a sequence of prime numbers and there are many instances where he becomes unable to cope with what the world throws at him and he retreats into the reassuring world of numbers. While he has this, he cannot understand people. He can't read peoples expressions beyond happy and sad (there's a wonderful sequence where he talks about how a friend of his drew all the different expressions a person might use and he carried it around with him for days trying to understand them all), he doesn't like to be touched and he gets agitated when he's presented with new things.

Haddon presents us with all these obsessions (another great one is that depending on how many yellow or red cars he sees in a row on the way to school each day determines whether its going to be a really bad or really good day for him!) and really takes us into this world. You come out of the novel with a real sense that you know what things are like for someone with Asperger's syndrome and at certain times, like when he takes a train trip form his home in Swindon into London, you're literally willing him on to make it.

I don't want to give too much away about the plot, because I'd urge everyone to read it, yes it is that good. Its an amazing achievement and is damn entertaining as well as informative. It really deserves an "unputdownable" blurb. Go and read it! You won't regret it!