标题: ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time’ Book Review [打印本页] 作者: Izzy 时间: 27-8-2020 16:48 标题: ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time’ Book Review ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time’ Book Review
If you have heard of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon, it is probably because it was assigned reading for a high school English class. Indeed, I’d seen shelves upon shelves of this novel in my school library, but it was only in the first year of university that I decided to give it a read.
The book is about fifteen year old British boy Christopher John Francis Boone who is heavily implied to be on the autism spectrum. His narrative voice is, I believe, the single biggest draw about this book. Bursting with character, refreshingly unpredictable, reading through his thoughts can be described as entering a funhouse. Or perhaps a NASA spacecraft assembly facility. The book is chock full of ‘quirks’. Christopher swings between including too many unnecessary details and not giving enough. His inability to understand metaphors is sometimes played for laughs. Taking a train to London is complicated by nervous breakdowns, inability to follow instructions, and breaking the law on accident. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time takes us for a walk in Christopher’s shoes, and what a strange and bewildering experience it is.
But, is that a good thing?
After finishing the book I learned a fact that made me almost completely change my perception of the story – the author, Mark Haddon, knows very little about autism or Asperger’s syndrome. By his own admission, he did not do research, and instead focused on writing something that he himself found real, and hope that readers will find it real as well. Now, this is not a bad strategy if the character you were writing was of your own creation. If you can write a realer-than-life robot or alien or fairy into your novel, you deserve all the praise! But the waters are a little murkier when the character is seen as a representation of real people. The way Christopher is written deliberately articulates how different he is from ‘normal’ people, on all of the things he does that we don’t do, with a focus on the extreme. It was very jarring for me to learn that the twists and turns of this narrator’s mind were not based off extensive research or first-hand experience of what it is like to have Christopher’s condition, but rather the fantastical daydreams of someone who has admitted to being ignorant. Furthermore, the ‘quirks’ that keep the story afloat are often exaggerated stereotypes of autism, which may compound on the discrimination that neurodivergent individuals already experience in real life.
Because looking at it from that perspective, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is not a book about a character, it’s a book about a caricature, that has been played with, inflated, and twisted for the entertainment of neurotypical outsiders. Why did Haddon write to make something seem real, when Asperger’s is real?
That the most influential book about this condition is cantered not on what it actually is, but rather what an uneducated individual thinks it is, makes me somewhat uncomfortable. This book is assigned reading to a significant portion of students in the Australian secondary education system every year. The fact that it is somewhat controversial is not in itself a deficit – other books like The Crucible by Arthur Miller or To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee have also been criticised for inaccurate or biased portrayal of the experiences of historically disadvantaged groups. In fact, I suspect that books with weak points like this are deliberately chosen so that students have avenues for critique. My only concern is that the message that Christopher should not be taken as a literal, reliable representation of Asperger’s may be lost if the teacher does not manage to highlight Mark Haddon’s confession, or if readers pick up the book outside a classroom context.
Final thoughts: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time may be worth a read, but I strongly encourage readers to gain an understanding of the lived experience of autism spectrum disorders beforehand, as to avoid being contaminated by negative stereotypes this book may communicate. Alternatively, read a book written by an author who is on the autism spectrum themselves.作者: Izzy 时间: 27-8-2020 17:35 本帖最后由 Izzy 于 27-8-2020 17:42 编辑
After finishing the book I learned a fact that made me almost completely change my perception of the story – the author, Mark Haddon, knows very little about autism or Asperger’s syndrome.
很好奇，对asperger一无所知，怎能写一本关于asPerger的书？
那到底是出于求知还是出于having some fun才读它呢？老师布置这个作业出于什么目的？作者: snapdragon 时间: 30-8-2020 23:26
本书主人公情商忽高忽低，也其原生家庭也有关吧。他没有一点感情，对自己母亲的事情也没有一丝波澜。
You are on a game show on television. On this game show the idea is to win a car as a prize. The game show host shows you three doors. He says that there is a car behind one of the doors and there are goats behind the other two doors. He asks you to pick a door. You pick a door but the door is not opened. Then the game show host opens one of the doors you didn't pick to show a goat (because he knows what is behind the doors). Then he says that you have one final chance to change your mind before the doors are opened and you get a car or a goat. So he asks you if you want to change your mind and pick the other unopened door instead. What should you do?作者: 行者之心 时间: 31-8-2020 15:26
你是这个论坛里第一个写英文书评的，也是观点最全面的一位楼主。加油！
