The End

His arrival at his mother’s doorstep signals the end of the novel, and shows more closely the trials that parents of autistic children must go through. His father finds out where he has shown up and the resulting clash between the two parents and Mr. Shears clearly not wanting to have to deal with Christopher results in Mr. Shears leaving Christopher’s mom. The dream Christopher explains after he rejects his father is especially chilling after the emotionally powerful scene that came before it. Christopher’s perfect world is one in which the only people left alive are people like him, people who will never talk to him, touch him, or ask him questions.

His stay at his mothers is not as happy as he’d hoped. As a result of his trip it seems he will be unable to take his Math A-levels, which he’d wanted to do, and as a result of his mother’s split with Mr. Shears, they will have to go back to living in his home in Swindon, with his father. The book ends on somewhat of a high note. Christopher’s teachers allow him to take his A-Levels, and his father begins working to repair his relationship with his son, even buying him a dog. Christopher leaves us with a message of confidence. He will become a scientist. He knows he will he “went to London on my own, and because I solved the mystery of Who Killed Wellington? and I found my mother and I was brave and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything.”

The family isn't reunited, but this adds a sense of realism to the story. This is a novel that does not get caught up in sentimentalism, and doesn't fall into the trap of making everything right again in the end. Stuart Murray's article below on autism and contemporary sentimental fiction celebrates this fact.

http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/journals/literature_and_medicine/v025/25.1murray.html

Too often do stories with disabled characters at their heart end with melodrama. The real world is rarely so saccharine, and a bit of reality when dealing with disability shows a respect that these fairytale endings cannot.

Travel

Christopher’s decision to run away from home meant he had to decide where to go. Through the process of elimination, he decided the only place he could go was his mother’s home in London. His fear of the unknown was matched only by the fear he had of his father, and it was this fear that propelled him on his trip. His adventure in the subway serves as an excellent example of just how much all these new experiences were frightening him, and just how much information he can take in. Every sign in the station, as well as the sign that showed each stop in the Bakerloo Line, was presented to us, each of them written in a different font, or in a picture. This influx of information, combined with the sound of the trains themselves were enough to force Christopher to sit down and close his eyes for five hours.

The Inadequate Narrator

The below essay, by Stephan Freißmann goes into a little more detail as to what the “I see everything” quote and the memory as film analogy means for the novel, and fleshes out an observation that was made in an earlier post. It explains much better what I was trying to convey, when I called into question Christopher’s memory. Read the second section, titled “The Curious Incident as Narrative Thinking.”

http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/journals/partial_answers/v006/6.2.freissmann.html

Another source that can help us understand both the above article and my own thoughts is the first installment of an analysis of the book by John Mullan, a senior lecturer in English at University College London. In his piece for the UK publication The Guardian linked here http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2004/apr/24/fiction.markhaddon

he calls Christopher an “inadequate narrator,” a term he uses to replace the term “unreliable narrator” which he says doesn’t fit. Christopher is, after all, a very reliable narrator. He writes about the events that happen exactly as they happen. However much he remembers about the events, he will often misunderstand them. While the reader can piece together what these events actually mean, Christopher is left in the dark.

I See Everything

On page 140, Christopher says, “I see everything.” For this reason, he does not like new places. He explains this by saying that when he is in place he knows, all he has to do is look at the things that have changed or moved. That is, he has to look at everything, but in places he knows, most things (except those that have changed) he has seen. In new places, he is forced to look at and take in every new thing. This calls back the memory as a film analogy. His vision takes in everything, and just like a video camera it is preserved exactly as is for later use. This is different from normal people, because he says they only glance. Their vision bounces off of things without taking them in, and thus they are not overwhelmed with new information like he is.

Further Revelations

On page 120, the mystery that began the novel is solved. Christopher’s father admits to the murder of Wellington the poodle. Christopher wonder’s if it a joke at first, because, as he says, he doesn’t understand jokes, and “when people tell jokes they don’t mean what they say.” Christopher cannot believe that his father could mean what he just said. His father explains his reasoning, but the result is not as he’d hoped. Christopher is frightened by this revelation. His father had not only lied to him on such an important issue as his mother’s death, he had murdered Wellington. Christopher tells himself that he cannot trust his father, and thinks that if his father had killed Wellington; he could kill Christopher as well. He decides to run away from home.

Revelation (For Christopher)

Six days pass until Christopher is able to return to the letters. He counts forty-three of them, and begins reading them. He makes it through three. The fourth letter we are shown is left unfinished, because Christopher does not make it to the end before he realizes he has solved the mystery of the letters, and revealed an awful truth. His mother was alive. She is living in London. She had been sending him letter since she’d split up with Christopher’s father. Christopher goes catatonic with the shock of his Father’s lie, and vomits on himself. When he comes to, his father is back from work. His father tries to explain, but Christopher is still too shocked. He is aware enough to remember his father’s words, but he cannot respond. It's clear that his father did this to protect Christopher, but one wonders what would have been the better choice. Clearly Christopher's mind does not work like the neurotypical's. Would Christopher have minded at all if his mother suddenly moved out? On a moral level, his Father was wrong, but what consequences would simply letting Christopher experience the events of his parents' separation unfold naturally have had?

Revelation (For the Reader)

The event that brings about the climax of the novel is when Christopher’s notebook is taken from him by his father. On page 80, Christopher forgets his book on the kitchen table, and his father finds it and reads it. Seeing that Christopher has broken his promise, the two have a fight, and it appears that Christopher’s book is thrown away. Christopher, not wanting this to be true, looks for it around the house. When he finds it, it is hidden in his father’s closet. He also finds letters addressed to him. He reads the first, and though the reader is aware that this letter is from his mother, and that she is still alive, Christopher is woefully unaware. Tragically, Christopher’s first reaction is excitement. Not that his mother might still be alive, but that “When I started writing my book there was only one mystery I had to solve. Now there were two.” The second mystery was who this Christopher was that the letter was addressed to. It could not be him, he thought, unless the letter had been stuck in an envelope with the wrong date, because clearly, his mother had been dead for eighteen months as of the date written on the envelope.

Page 76

Christopher describes his memory as like a film, attesting to the inerrancy of such a medium. After all, what is captured on film is captured exactly as it was in the moment, without any filter. Just how accurate is Christopher’s memory, really? It’s clear that he remembers very minute details. Dialogue is presented unmoderated. No matter the subject matter, Christopher will dutifully reproduce any and all that was said in a conversation, and his inner reactions to it. Any misconceptions he has are readily obvious, owing to this detail. Instead of focusing on all the detail he is able to take in, it is important, then, to look at the information he misses. To further the film analogy, we cannot see into the minds of those who are on screen. However, while neurotypicals can’t say they know exactly what is going on in the heads of others, they can certainly make inferences based any number of clues—posture, speech, minute facial expressions. For Christopher, this isn’t the case. He is uninterested in the inner workings of the people he interacts with. If their emotion is recorded in his memory, it is only because they have made it obvious through their “on-screen” actions—nothing short of shouting “I am angry” will suffice. Christopher cannot infer, he can only record. A neurotypical actively takes part in their memory. Christopher watches it robotically.

The Horror of Autism?

Christopher’s father had made him promise to stop investigating the death of Wellington, but, due to the curious way in which Christopher’s mind works, he had found a sort of loophole in the promise. Christopher lists five parts to the promise on page 56.

1. Not to mention Mr. Shears’s name in our house.

2. Not to go asking Mrs. Shears about who killed that bloody dog.

3. Not to go asking anyone about who killed that bloody dog.

4. Not to go trespassing in other people’s gardens.

5. To stop this ridiculous bloody detective game.

Asking about Mr. Shears, he reasons, was not any of these, and so he talks to Mrs. Alexander about Mr. Shears. During the course of the conversation, Christopher learns the reason why his father doesn’t like Mr. Shears. It turns out Mr. Shears was having an affair with Christopher’s mother, and this, Mrs. Alexander says is “why your father thinks that Mr. Shears is an evil man.” It is for this reason, she goes on, that Christopher shouldn’t go around talking about him.

In Patricia Schultheis’ review of the book, below she mentions that Christopher’s world of logic can be chilling to the reader. She mention’s the “horrors” of autism.

http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/journals/missouri_review/v027/27.2schultheis.html

Her review, though it does mention the humor that can be found in the novel, suggests a very dark reading of the book. It’s in this chapter where I am tempted to agree with her. Christopher learns of his mother’s infidelity with the same lack of emotion that that he might learn a new math equation. Or, a saddening thought, it is possible that he might experience more emotion with the new math equation.

Faces, People, and Emotion

Page thirty-six begins Christopher’s investigation, and is the point in the novel where Christopher has the most interaction with the people around, at least as far as talking to them is concerned. He speaks with four of his neighbors, and tellingly, never describes their faces. We learn early on that Christopher has trouble deciphering facial expressions, and as a result, we are left to guess at their reaction to Christopher’s questioning based solely on their dialogue. The nuance that accompanies facial expression is lost on him. In fact, emotion is something that does not often appear in the novel, unless they are Christopher’s emotions. Page forty-nine gives us an example of how Christopher notices the emotional state of others. He says “I could see that Father was angry with me.” The words he uses are important, but all the words he does not use are more so. He does not describe the mouth we can imagine was twisted with anger. He doesn’t describe the tone of voice, or the furrowed brow. His description of the dialogue is similarly lifeless.

Page 19

On this page, Christopher explains that he does not tell lies. For this reason, as we find out earlier, he does not like metaphors, because “a pig is not like a day and people do not have skeletons in their cupboards,” and “imagining an apple in someone’s eye doesn’t have anything to do with liking someone a lot.” (15) The act of lying is almost painful to Christopher, as a result of how his mind works. He states that lying is “saying something happened which didn’t happen.” Only one thing ever happens at a time, and as such, there are an infinite number of things that didn’t happen. Lying, says Christopher, makes him think about all of those things that didn’t happen, and it is overwhelming. We know then, that this book’s contents are true, at least as far as Christopher is concerned.

Time Out!

We can, at this point in the novel, infer that Christopher is not a “normal” child, or what Ian Hacking in his essay, linked below calls a “neurotypical.”

http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/journals/university_of_toronto_quarterly/v079/79.2.hacking.html

The “groaning,” his answers to the police officer, and his hyper analytical reaction to the scene of Wellington the poodle’s murder all hint at a difference. We are never actually told what makes Christopher different, or atypical. To anyone with some knowledge of neurological disorders, though, and to Ian Hacking, it is clear that young Christopher is somewhere on the autistic spectrum. The idea of writing a novel with an autistic character as the protagonist, or even in a side role is a recent development. The disorder itself is a recent discovery. Its actual medical classification came only within the last sixty years, and it is only very recently that it can be diagnosed with any certainty, and with the advent of the internet, autistic people are only now really being able to express themselves. Hacking says that it’s because of this tie between the internet and a broader awareness of autism that novels like Haddon’s can come about and succeed.

Page 8

On page eight, we are again told in no uncertain terms some “fact” about the novel. Where before it was that we were reading a murder mystery, on page eight it is that this will not be a funny book. It would not be quite right to say that this novel is a murder mystery, (There is a murder, it is mysterious, but this novel isn’t really about the murder.) It is outright wrong to say that this novel is not funny. Certainly, it deals with some very serious issues, and at times is deeply emotional, but it is in the end, a lighthearted story.

The First Pages

This reading blog uses the May 2004 Vintage Contemporaries version of the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Any page numbers will refer to this version.

The novel begins on chapter two, and thus starts us off with one of the many quirks of our protagonist. The chapters are numbered by prime numbers, in sequence. It also begins with the aftermath of a murder, the description of which of is our introduction to another quirk – our protagonist is hyper analytical. This will be one of the sources of unintentional humor (Or is it intentional?) in the novel. “I decided the dog was probably killed by the fork because I could not see any other wounds in the dog and I do not think you would stick a garden fork into a dog after it had died for some other reason, like cancer, for example, or a road accident. But I could not be certain about this.” This novel, ostensibly a murder mystery (We are told on the fourth page, in no uncertain terms that this is so, and in the blurb on the back are told that this is the “improbable story of Christopher’s quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog.”) is not quite as it seems. The meat of the story will not be in the investigation itself, but in the interactions that Christopher has with the people around him, and with his environment.