Thursday, October 21, 2004

BOOKS : The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night

This was a v. popular (maybe double plus popular?) book in London about 2 months ago, you would be hard pressed to catch a tube without seeing someone reading a copy. And after Jo's recommendation I gave it a read (even if she refused to read the book I recommended :)
It's not bad. Written from the perspective of an Autistic kid it is about him trying to solve a murder mystery - the murder of the dog in the title. It introduces the reader the complexities, simplicities and complete differentness that autistic peoples lives are.
I had been spoilt somewhat by having already read 'Faster than Dark,' a book Greg got me to read back in NZ which is also written from the perspective of an autistic person. That was really good, but I didn't like the end.
tCIotDitN is also really good, but didn't have as big an impact on me because of already having read a very similar book. The biggest difference between the two is that tCIotDitN is much more human, and tries to deal with family/social issues, while Faster than Dark is a 'sci-fi' book, dealing with philosophical issues. (Interesting that it is labelled sci-fi simply because it is dealing with a single scientific possibility that ultimately is just a question - 'what would you do if you could 'fix' your brain?')
I would recommend both to anyone interested, probably tCIotDitN first, then Faster than Dark.

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