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jack"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time[1]" by Mark Haddon
This is a great book. Read it now :) It's technically children's book, told from the point of a teenage boy with Asperger's[2] Syndrome. It's not very long, but gripping all the way through, partly because of the slightly simple style.
It does a wonderful job of making the problem seem PART of him, not just something tacked on, but all the same, a part he wished he didn't have. And he's intellegent and brave despite or with it, not a victim. One part that nearly made me cry is when he's explaining how he counts cars. If he sees four red cars on his way to school, it's a bad day, and he might not speak, and not eat lunch. It he sees four yellow, it's a good day. His teacher asks him why a rational boy like him does this, and he says that office works think it's a good day when the sun shines, even though they're inside. His way is less arbitrary than that. It's *understandable* yet also *tragic*.
The other thing is that a lot of the things he does I see in a less extreme form elsewhere. I have been slightly excessive. His habit of including all the associated information even if not really useful I thought was an endearing trait in, say, Cryptonomicon, but here you can see it taken more to an extreme, and how it must be awful *having* to do that. In fact, a lot of the traits geeks share, just nowhere near as much (eg. he repeatedly doubles in his head to calm donwn - who hasn't, if not as *far* as him :)).
And the plot isn't as simple as you might think from the first few pages, and Christopher succeeds in the end with and despite his problems. Has anyone else read it?
[1] Should "time" be capitalized?
[2] Though as someone on another message-board put it: "Couldn't they have found a name, for a disease that'll get kids teased a lot *anyway*, that doesn't look like it should be pronounced 'Ass-burger's'"
PS. Discworld fic should be finished any day now. Anyone have a good generic title involving the guards or death?
This is a great book. Read it now :) It's technically children's book, told from the point of a teenage boy with Asperger's[2] Syndrome. It's not very long, but gripping all the way through, partly because of the slightly simple style.
It does a wonderful job of making the problem seem PART of him, not just something tacked on, but all the same, a part he wished he didn't have. And he's intellegent and brave despite or with it, not a victim. One part that nearly made me cry is when he's explaining how he counts cars. If he sees four red cars on his way to school, it's a bad day, and he might not speak, and not eat lunch. It he sees four yellow, it's a good day. His teacher asks him why a rational boy like him does this, and he says that office works think it's a good day when the sun shines, even though they're inside. His way is less arbitrary than that. It's *understandable* yet also *tragic*.
The other thing is that a lot of the things he does I see in a less extreme form elsewhere. I have been slightly excessive. His habit of including all the associated information even if not really useful I thought was an endearing trait in, say, Cryptonomicon, but here you can see it taken more to an extreme, and how it must be awful *having* to do that. In fact, a lot of the traits geeks share, just nowhere near as much (eg. he repeatedly doubles in his head to calm donwn - who hasn't, if not as *far* as him :)).
And the plot isn't as simple as you might think from the first few pages, and Christopher succeeds in the end with and despite his problems. Has anyone else read it?
[1] Should "time" be capitalized?
[2] Though as someone on another message-board put it: "Couldn't they have found a name, for a disease that'll get kids teased a lot *anyway*, that doesn't look like it should be pronounced 'Ass-burger's'"
PS. Discworld fic should be finished any day now. Anyone have a good generic title involving the guards or death?
no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 02:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 04:10 pm (UTC)But if it wasn't accurate, I'm disappointed, but used to that sort of thing. I just always hope the next book will be better researched. What sort of things were wrong?
no subject
Date: 2004-08-28 05:29 am (UTC)... well, imagine if someone had written a book on a Trinity Mathmo, in which the main character was young when they went up to university, fairly antisocial, spent most of their lives in their room doing maths and playing computer games, thought a wild night out was the archimadeans talks and *insert lots more Trinity Maths stereotypes here*. It wouldn't be inaccurate - there are lots of Trinity (and Queens ;-) ) mathmos who fulfil all the stereotypes, and most of us suffer from at least some of them. It might even be a good thing if you knew nothing about mathmos to have a book that had a character like this in it. But if you are a mathmo you might be disappointed that this was the type of mathmo they chose to write about - not because it's *wrong*, exactly, just because there's more to it than that.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-28 05:40 am (UTC)I guess the defining thing would be if he has other characteristics than those attached to his condition. I *felt* he did, but find it hard to list them.