Book Four

[erastes]

it  was "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" by Mark Haddon which has rather left me a little ambivalent.

i don't deny that the idea was good, and was spectacularly well executed but it left me rather cold.  Whether this is because I wasn't sure whether I was happy to see someone writing about Aspergers when they weren't a sufferer, or whether the character just didn't instil in me any compassion. I can understand why this is so, too - because we are in Christopher's head and he is necessarily unhooked from everyone.

 

I can see the hypocrisy of me wondering if someone should be writing about someone with such a disability, when I am often banging on about how an author should be getting into anyone's head they like.  The thing is here that I don't know what it achieves--perhaps to get other kids to treat Aspergers sufferers more respectfully. I don't know.

It had a bit too much of a "happy ending" for my liking too, which I don't know if Chris would have felt in that way--he would have just carried on. Would he really think that his life was better because of what he'd gone through or was that something the author inserted?  I think I would have felt that it would have been more honest if Chris had simply been as detached from his family at the end as he ever had been. 

I'm not sure.  However, it did unsettle me - and by doing that, it will be a book that won't easily leave me. I wouldn't smear the same hyperbole on it that the literary giants of the Observer, Guardian and Telegraph did, I can see the Emperor with my own eyes thank you, but I'm glad I read it.

If anyone can explain the paradox about the brown food and the milky way, I'd be grateful - I really don't want to be the billionth person to ask the author that particular question.

Comments

[probodie.livejournal.com]

Hi :waves: Hope you dont mind me friending you, but I just found you on LJ and wanted to say how much I loved Frost Fair and Standish. M/M regency romances are one of my favourite genre of fiction and yours are particularly enjoyable.

Ahem. Anyway, just wanted to tell you this. *g*

[erastes.livejournal.com]

How very kind of you. *grinning horribly* I do hope you'll hang around - we are all nice people here. I'm very pleased you like the books - there should be another one at some point, I need to sort Thouless out, for one thing - see the latest post.

Thank you so much for commenting!

[the-sea-to.livejournal.com]

Nice people? here??? HAHAHHAHAHAH

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Shhh, you. Don't scare the newbie.

[the-sea-to.livejournal.com]

I think kitty and I may have comprehensively managed that. Without trying.

[kittymay.livejournal.com]

Pay no attention to the strange woman with the cabbages!

[the-sea-to.livejournal.com]

oi! My cabbages are working well! If this keeps up I will be reasonably sized in no time! (not expecting it too - not insane)

[kittymay.livejournal.com]

If your cabbages make you happy, who am I to judge you for your preferences??

[the-sea-to.livejournal.com]

That is true! FIE VILE HATER OF CABBAGE!

[kittymay.livejournal.com]

I can't help it....it's...it's my childhood!

*breaks down*

[the-sea-to.livejournal.com]

But you see - cabbage is the root of all that is fantastic. It fills you up and you don't want to eat chocolate stuff! Or pie!

[kittymay.livejournal.com]

This may be true, but I have never heard of anyone saying cabbage is better than sex, so you'll have to come up with another excuse if you want to win me over to your brassica-related beliefs.

[the-sea-to.livejournal.com]

a valid point.

dammit!

[kittymay.livejournal.com]

*hits cymbal*

[the-sea-to.livejournal.com]

you realise we're not helping Erastes convince the newbie that there are sane people here...

[kittymay.livejournal.com]

Well, I felt compelled to defend my side of the cabbage-related fence, seeing as you initiated this debate by flagrant accusations of hatred.

However, I look forward to your brave tackling of the subject matter in your novel. Chocolate (though perhaps not pie) has oft been explored in fiction as an erotic device, I think we can all agree, but I have yet to see the similar use of cabbage. I believe you to be the person for this task.

[scottynola.livejournal.com]

The book left me strangely unsatisfied as well. It was clever, yes, but....

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it wasn't just me. The forced HEA - and Chris's optimism for his future life just didn't ring true for me. I could see the realism that he might be able to work gradually back with his dad, but his "I could do anything" thing? I don't know. It just felt wrong.

[the-sea-to.livejournal.com]

Agreement. It was too fluffy. It was like the editors said HEA OR DIE!

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I did want to see him succeed, but within the confines of his illness-as he had been doing throughout.

In a beautiful mind kind of way.

[dea-liberty.livejournal.com]

I really didn't like the book. I can't really pinpoint why or anything but it was just...something about it made me very uneasy too.

And I think the optimistic ending not only didn't ring true, but even if Christopher really thought that and had come a long way etc., it would really be kind of sad. Because one day, he's going to realise that he can't do anything.

[suryaofvulcan.livejournal.com]

I read this when it first came out, and I loved it ... but I don't know that I'd read it again now that I know the 'trick', if you know what I mean.

I admit part of my enjoyment was in Christopher's love of Mathematics and how he used it to order his life. That appealed to me because I've always loved Maths, and my flatmate at uni did the same kind of thing. I don't know if Kevin was on he Aspergers scale or not, but he was the definition of 'emotionally detached'.

I enjoyed the first person narration. I think Haddon pulled off the 'telling without telling' really well, in that obviously Christopher observed certain things but didn't understand their emotional significance.

I don't know so much about a happy ending - I interpreted it more as a hopeful ending.

[queeredfiction.livejournal.com]

I too enjoyed this book when I read it, which was a while back now. Like the above comment, I didn't read it as a HEA ending.

[fiona-glass.livejournal.com]

I tried to read the book a while back and admired it immensely but couldn't actually finish it - too painful.

I didn't get as far as the HEA-or-otherwise but no, an HEA wouldn't really be possible for an Aspergers sufferer - or only after *years* of very patient counselling. The whole point of Aspergers is that the person thinks they're normal and everyone else is strange, which makes learning new emotions or new responses to emotions very difficult for them.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

As far as I could see, apart from going to a special school, this little chap wasn't getting ANY counselling at all - and when he ran away from home the social services didn't even get involved. Although in light of certain high profile cases, that's not a surprise.