by Mark Haddon. Doubleday, 2003, Price: $22.95 USA (hard cover)

Christopher Boone, the main character and sole narrator of Mark Haddon's novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, certainly qualifies as non-neurotypical. It appears that Christopher's condition is high-functioning autism, or Asperger syndrome (AS). Whatever it is, its name does not make a single appearance in Curious Incident, nor does that of any other condition. The decision to make no direct mention of developmental disability is a wise one on Haddon's part because it humanizes Christopher, allowing him to exist without the hindrance of labels.

Haddon maintains this humanness by closely guarding Christopher's role as narrator. Allowing other perspectives would have undermined Haddon's intention to completely immerse the reader in Christopher's mindframe (a socially conscious, omniscient narrator would have been particularly odious). Without a single exception, every thought, idea and event in the novel is filtered through Christopher's unique thinking style. Although the events of Curious Incident are set in England, the true setting of the novel is the interior of Christopher's mind. Christopher is the novel.

Haddon's qualification for writing a novel that wholly realistically, if seemingly implausibly, depicts the mental workings of a teenage boy with Asperger's is that he - according to the brief bio contained in the novel - "worked with autistic individuals as a young man" (my qualification for writing this review is that I have AS myself, although to a considerably lesser degree than Christopher). One might think that Haddon's experience goes far beyond this; perhaps, even, as a professional in the field. In actuality, Haddon achieves the effectiveness he does by vigilantly maintaining the integrity of Christopher as a 15-year-old boy with AS: not as a case of AS who is a 15-year-old boy. Haddon's approach to examining the common notions of Asperger traits is unpredictable and creative. For instance, when asked by a psychologist whether he is unusually resistant to change, Christopher gives the following, hilarious reply: "I said I wouldn't mind things changing if I became an astronaut, for example, which is one of the biggest changes you can imagine, apart from becoming a girl or dying."

Thanks to Haddon's conscious, dynamic approach, every sentence in the novel feels like it comes from a real human mind: a vibrant, intensely curious, side-splittingly (though unintentionally) funny mind, at that. Christopher's non-comprehension of commonsense matters and his utter social ineptitude are easily overlooked by the reader, who is too busy being enthralled not only by Christopher's obvious intelligence, but also by a disarming guilelessness that allows his mind total freedom from the socially ingrained thought patterns most people follow. The result of such freedom (not only for Christopher, but also for Haddon as an author) is the creation of a mind that is entirely unique, that - throughout the pages of Curious Incident - experiences events quite unlike any other mind ever could.

Christopher begins his adventure in a quasi-fetal position, groaning to tune out an excess of stimuli. This is in response to being questioned by a policeman as to why he is in the yard of a neighbor whose dog has been murdered. It is normal behavior for Christopher - perfectly logical even to the reader, thanks to the previously mentioned exclusivity of narrative voice - who had merely been concerned about the dog. For approximately the first two-thirds of the novel, as Christopher obsessively pursues the case of who killed Wellington the dog, the reader accepts such behavior as typical of him. Although Christopher - who is enrolled in "special ed"-type schooling (a detail that Haddon makes appropriately incidental) - does and says many things most people would consider highly unusual, we think nothing of it for as long as Christopher is in the day-to-day setting from which he derives his comfortable routine.

However, when Christopher's detective work leads him to discover some "interesting" facts about his mother, his efforts to find the truth take him out of this comfort zone. It is when Christopher ventures - alone, no less - outside his usual setting that the magnitude of his condition truly becomes apparent. In the fairly chaotic setting of a train station, it slowly but very surely dawns on the reader that Christopher is far from neurotypical: whether this awareness occurs when he steps onto an active train platform to look for his pet rat, or when he considers defending himself against totally non-threatening strangers with his Swiss army knife.

The overall effect here is that the sense of order covering up Christopher's raw potential for mental/emotional chaos is temporarily lifted, even if only for the reader; Christopher's penchant for keeping this order intact in his own mind seems unshakable. Without divulging any details, Christopher's venture outside his usual sphere of existence takes on two major importances. First, it shows how the traits of a condition such as Asperger syndrome can defy common expectation; in this particular case, the characteristic "obsessiveness" surrounding Christopher's quest overrides his fear of disorder and new situations. Second, it enables Curious Incident to serve as an enlightening guidepost into the question of how the non-neurotypical person relates to the world at large, and possibly of how such persons may be helped to function optimally in daily life. Placing Christopher in both settings - the familiar and the unfamiliar - allows the reader the perspective necessary to consciously explore such issues.

Aside from all that has already been mentioned, Curious Incident (which, by the way, is soon to be adapted for a major motion picture) is simply enjoyable to read. It is as well suited to pass the time on an airplane flight as to be subjected to academic dissection. Just as Christopher is a character entirely like no other, Curious Incident is a reading experience the likes of which cannot be experienced anywhere else. There is one danger in reading the novel: namely, that of being so taken with Christopher's infectious thinking style that one begins to adopt it as one's own. This, however, is a risk I would recommend taking. Curious Incident is a well spent few hours of one's life from both an entertainment and an educational standpoint - and, needless to say, I am quite anxious to see the movie!

James Willis, B.A.