The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Hey there!

So, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon is actually not quite new. It was first published in 2003, and I only knew about this book a few months ago, heheh. This is a mystery novel that deals with a 15-year-old boy named as Christopher Boone, who has Asperger syndrome, although throughout the book, he never explicitly states his medical condition.

Christopher is very much unlike other people. He knows very little about dealing with other human socially and emotionally, but try give him an A-level Math test and he will surely answer it for you. This novel is a recount of Christopher’s life-changing journey that begins when he acts as a detective trying to uncover the mystery behind the killing of his neighbour’s dog. Eventually, he learns the truth that goes beyond that seemingly little incident that shakes his entire existence with his father and mother.

One thing that I like about this novel is how it tries to convince us that this is really written by Christopher. You won’t find ‘Chapter 1’ in this novel because there is simply no ‘Chapter 1’ in it. Christopher likes prime number [open your form one’s Math textbook] that he begins the story by naming ‘Chapter 1’ as ‘Chapter 2’. The book also intersperse the main plot of the story with some other things about Chris’ day-to-day life, you know things like A Graph about Time and Space, Patterns on the Wall, an Ad about Malaysia [yes~], Marilyn vos Savant, and Occam’s Razor, these are just some of them, and I thoroughly enjoy all these academic things. What interests me is that the sentences in last half of the novel begin with ‘And’, but I only notice that on my second read. I guess Christopher suddenly likes ‘and’ a whole lot too much?

Anyway, this is an interesting novel, with lots of humour and twists and unknown things that will make you flip the pages faster than answering a question involving right-angled triangle.

Enjoy!