One more off the reading list
Finally got around to reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Quite liked it. Amused myself by hearing Cumberbatch's voice as the narrator in honour of his playing at least two semi-autistic characters back to back within the last year. Which turned out to be especially smile-inducing in the bits where he talks about liking Sherlock Holmes. :) Also, I didn't know the title was actually taken from a Holmes story until I unexpectedly read the phrase in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes...*googles the exact story*...ah. "Silver Blaze".
Anyway, the book absolutely deserves every nice thing people have ever said about it. Christopher's voice is clear and very distinct, and Haddon's genius lies in delivering important details about the plot as filtered through Christopher's altered brain chemistry, without it seeming obvious or out of character. Christopher reports on the cold dry facts of an event without grasping their deeper significance: that's our job.
The book indirectly makes you feel how unbelievably exhausting it must be to raise an autistic child, too. I could sense Haddon's unsentimental admiration for the parents he must have witnessed in his job working with autistic kids prior to writing this book. The adults in Christopher's life are flawed, ordinary people who are doing their best to raise an extraordinarily difficult child with patience and love, and that's incredibly moving to watch. The little hand gesture Christopher's father invents to show his love for his son (since they can't hug) was probably my favourite part of the whole book.
And the final line. Dear god, the final line nearly did for me.
Go and read it. And make sure you've got plenty of time, because you'll want to finish it in one go.
Q