Awesomness book
The following is a passage from the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon. I highly reccommend it and give it a 10/10 rating. It's about a 15 year old boy called Christopher who has one of those Autism type conditions who finds his neighbours dog on the lawn with a pitchfork through it's chest. He embarks on a mission to discover who killed the dog. It's so well written and you really get the idea of what it would be like to have a condition like that. It's only 271 pages, too, so it's not a big task. It only took me four sessions to read.
I see everything.
That is why I don't like new places. If I am in a place I know, like home, or school, or the bus, or the shop, or the street, I have seen almost everything in it beforehand and all I have to do is to look at the things that have changed or moved. For example, one week, the Shakespears's Globe poster had fallen down in the classroom at school and you could tell because it had been put back slightly to the right and there were three little circles of Blu-Tack stain on the wall down the left-hand side of the poster. And the next day someone had graffitied CROW APTOK to lampost 437 in out street which is the one outside number 35.
But most people are lazy. They never look at everything. They do what is called glancing which is the same word for bumping off something and carrying on in almost the same direction, e.g. when a snooker ball glances off another snooker ball. And the information in their head is really simple. For example, if they are in the countryside, it might be
1. I am standing in a field that is full of grass.
2. There are some cows in the fields.
3. It is sunny with a few clouds.
4. There are some flowers in the grass.
5. There is a village in the distance.
6. There is a fence at the edge of the field and it has a gate in.
And then they would stop noticing anything because they would be thinking something else like, 'Oh, it is very beautiful here,' or, 'I'm worried that I might have left the gas cooker on,' or, 'I wonder if Julie has given birth yet.'
But if I am standing in a field in the countryside I notice everything. For example, I remember standing in a field on Wednesday 15th June 1994 because Father and Mother and I were driving to Dover to get a ferry to France and we did what Father called Taking the scenic route which means going by little roads and stopping for lunch in a pub garden, and I had to stop to go for a wee, and I went into a field with cows in and after I'd had a wee I stopped and looked at the field and I noticed these things
1. There are 19 cows in the field, 15 of which are black and white and 4 of which are brown and white.
2. There is a village in the distance which has 31 visible houses and a church with a square tower and not a spire.
3. There are ridges in the field which means that in medieval times it was what is called a ridge and furrow field and people who lived in the village would have a ridge each to do farming on.
4. There is an old plastic bag from Asda in the hedge, and a squashed Coca-Cola can with a snail on, and a long piece of orange string.
5. The north-east corner of the field is highest and the south-west corner is the lowest (I had a compass because we were going on holiday and I wanted to know where Swindon was when we were in France) and the field is folded downwards slightly along the line between these two corners so that the north-west and south-east corners are slightly lower than they would be if the field was a flat inclined plane.
6. I can see three different types of grass and two colours of flowers in the grass.
7. The cows are mostly facing uphill.
And there were 31 more things in the this list of things I noticed but Siobhan said I didn't need to write them all down. And it means that it is very tiring if I am in a new place because I see all these things, and if someone asked me afterwards what the cows looked like, I could ask which one, and I could do a drawing of them at home and say that a particular cow had patterns on it like this...
*insert picture of cow here*
Praise for the book on the back and inside the cover.
'Gave me that rare, greedy feeling of: this is so good I want to read it all at once but I mustn't or it will be over too soon' Observer
'Brilliantly inventive... not just simply the most original novel I've read in years... it's also one of the best' The Times
'Christopher is a wonderful fictional creation: a believable, oddly lovable character and a moving education in difference... a warm and often funny novel' Daily Telegraph
'An extraordinarily moving, often blackly funny read... it's hard to think of anyone who would not be moved and delighted by this book' Financial Times
'Exceptional by any standards... both funny and deeply moving. When we look at the world through Christopher's eyes... we see it more clearly and understand ourselves better. What more could you want from a book?' Sunday Telegraph
So, go and read it! :D
I see everything.
That is why I don't like new places. If I am in a place I know, like home, or school, or the bus, or the shop, or the street, I have seen almost everything in it beforehand and all I have to do is to look at the things that have changed or moved. For example, one week, the Shakespears's Globe poster had fallen down in the classroom at school and you could tell because it had been put back slightly to the right and there were three little circles of Blu-Tack stain on the wall down the left-hand side of the poster. And the next day someone had graffitied CROW APTOK to lampost 437 in out street which is the one outside number 35.
But most people are lazy. They never look at everything. They do what is called glancing which is the same word for bumping off something and carrying on in almost the same direction, e.g. when a snooker ball glances off another snooker ball. And the information in their head is really simple. For example, if they are in the countryside, it might be
1. I am standing in a field that is full of grass.
2. There are some cows in the fields.
3. It is sunny with a few clouds.
4. There are some flowers in the grass.
5. There is a village in the distance.
6. There is a fence at the edge of the field and it has a gate in.
And then they would stop noticing anything because they would be thinking something else like, 'Oh, it is very beautiful here,' or, 'I'm worried that I might have left the gas cooker on,' or, 'I wonder if Julie has given birth yet.'
But if I am standing in a field in the countryside I notice everything. For example, I remember standing in a field on Wednesday 15th June 1994 because Father and Mother and I were driving to Dover to get a ferry to France and we did what Father called Taking the scenic route which means going by little roads and stopping for lunch in a pub garden, and I had to stop to go for a wee, and I went into a field with cows in and after I'd had a wee I stopped and looked at the field and I noticed these things
1. There are 19 cows in the field, 15 of which are black and white and 4 of which are brown and white.
2. There is a village in the distance which has 31 visible houses and a church with a square tower and not a spire.
3. There are ridges in the field which means that in medieval times it was what is called a ridge and furrow field and people who lived in the village would have a ridge each to do farming on.
4. There is an old plastic bag from Asda in the hedge, and a squashed Coca-Cola can with a snail on, and a long piece of orange string.
5. The north-east corner of the field is highest and the south-west corner is the lowest (I had a compass because we were going on holiday and I wanted to know where Swindon was when we were in France) and the field is folded downwards slightly along the line between these two corners so that the north-west and south-east corners are slightly lower than they would be if the field was a flat inclined plane.
6. I can see three different types of grass and two colours of flowers in the grass.
7. The cows are mostly facing uphill.
And there were 31 more things in the this list of things I noticed but Siobhan said I didn't need to write them all down. And it means that it is very tiring if I am in a new place because I see all these things, and if someone asked me afterwards what the cows looked like, I could ask which one, and I could do a drawing of them at home and say that a particular cow had patterns on it like this...
*insert picture of cow here*
Praise for the book on the back and inside the cover.
'Gave me that rare, greedy feeling of: this is so good I want to read it all at once but I mustn't or it will be over too soon' Observer
'Brilliantly inventive... not just simply the most original novel I've read in years... it's also one of the best' The Times
'Christopher is a wonderful fictional creation: a believable, oddly lovable character and a moving education in difference... a warm and often funny novel' Daily Telegraph
'An extraordinarily moving, often blackly funny read... it's hard to think of anyone who would not be moved and delighted by this book' Financial Times
'Exceptional by any standards... both funny and deeply moving. When we look at the world through Christopher's eyes... we see it more clearly and understand ourselves better. What more could you want from a book?' Sunday Telegraph
So, go and read it! :D