{"id":217,"date":"2020-01-17T01:21:05","date_gmt":"2020-01-17T01:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amylangston.com\/?p=217"},"modified":"2025-12-26T18:49:34","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T18:49:34","slug":"autism-in-print-the-curious-incident-of-the-dog-in-the-night-time-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/2020\/01\/17\/autism-in-print-the-curious-incident-of-the-dog-in-the-night-time-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Autism in Print: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The\nCurious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time <\/em>is a 2003 novel\nby English author Mark Haddon. The novel is common assigned reading for high\nschool students. It earned a spot on bestseller lists and has been well-received\/reviewed\nby the public at large\u2026but not autism\/disability advocates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our\nprotagonist and narrator is 15-year-old Christopher Boone, living in Swindon,\nEngland alone with his father, Ed. Christopher is never explicitly identified\nas autistic, and the author claims he wasn\u2019t written to be tied with a specific\ncondition, but he matches many of the hallmarks or stereotypes of autism and as\nsuch is often described as an autistic character. Because of this, I\u2019m going to\nwrite about it as if Christopher is autistic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of\nthe novel is a stream of consciousness about Christopher\u2019s thoughts and\nperceptions, but there is also a plot: One night, Christopher discovers his\nneighbor\u2019s dog dead in the yard, paled with a garden fork. He starts an informal\ninvestigation to find out who killed the dog. In so doing, he uncovers more\ninformation about himself and his past that sends him on new adventures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To put it simply, I don\u2019t like this book. The main reason being that the portrayal of autism is very stereotypical, and I\u2019ll flesh that out in a moment. But, to be fair to the author, this novel was released before understanding of the complexity of the condition was widely understood, so chances are he just didn\u2019t know any better. But that also means I wouldn\u2019t recommend it to anyone looking for a balanced and nuanced depiction of an autistic person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a character, Christopher fits into all the stereotypical autistic boxes. White male. Literal-minded and doesn\u2019t know figurative speech. Interested in math and science, to the point that chapters are numbered as prime numbers (like, really?). Finds abstract concepts, like God and imagination, difficult. Humorless. A pattern for life that is totally rigid down to the exact details. Christopher\u2019s thoughts read more like what a neurotypical thinks an autistic thinks, than how they really think. Besides that, Christopher is deeply disturbed. He carries around a Swiss Army Knife, and it\u2019s anyone\u2019s guess why his father allows him to do that. He occasionally makes threats and in my opinion, is shown to be not merely aloof and quirky but lacking in a lot of positive qualities like kindness and empathy and generosity. At best, plodding through his thoughts is taxing and annoying, but at worst he\u2019s not only asocial, but anti-social.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, there\u2019s\nhis parents. Autistic people in fiction always seem to have bad parents,\nwhether they\u2019re good people bad at parenting or dysfunctional all around. Either\nway, the commonality is parents who have no idea how to grapple with this\nstrange child they\u2019ve been saddled with, and these parents are no exception.\nTheir son tore them apart, the source of frustration for his parents\u2019 marriage.\nI feel like this sends the message that not only is autism a tragedy for the\nperson, but it is a tragedy for their parents who were expecting a normal,\npredictable child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I\nfound in this novel is a portrayal of autism (or whatever the author had in\nmind) as not only stereotypical, but unsympathetic. I was not compelled by the\ncharacters, though I was compelled a little by the adventure plotline, but\noverall unimpressed and dissatisfied with this novel. If you\u2019re looking for a\nforay into the mind and thought processes of an autistic, I would suggest\nlooking for books and articles written by people who actually have autism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Autism\naccuracy: 1\/5 Writing: 2.5\/5 Cringe factor: 5\/5 Overall rating: 1.5\/5<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is a 2003 novel by English author Mark Haddon. The novel is common assigned reading for high school students. It earned a spot on bestseller lists and has been well-received\/reviewed by the public at large\u2026but not autism\/disability advocates. Our protagonist and narrator is 15-year-old Christopher Boone, … Continue reading Autism in Print: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Review<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218,"href":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions\/218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}