‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ by Mark Haddon

Super Quick Review: I’ve read ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ in English class. My expectations were not very high since my experiences with ‘school books’ haven’t always been that great, but anyway …

by Stine

I think ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ gives a great picture of how people like Christopher can have difficulties in the everyday life but also shows that they still are people who deserve and need love like anyone else.

I didn’t find the language flowing and nice to read, but that is because Christopher who got Asperger Syndrome is the narrator of the story. But the style of writing got me quite annoyed at times because my reading flow often got stopped. The only good thing about it was that it gave me a better look into Christopher’s mind.

I will give this book 3 out of 5 dogs (because Christopher loves dogs!)

Excerpt from ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’

It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs Shears’ house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its side, the way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog was not running or asleep. The dog was dead. There was a garden fork sticking out of the dog. The points of the fork must have gone all the way through the dog and into the ground because the fork had not fallen over. I decided that the dog was probably killed with the fork because I could not see any other wounds in the dog and I do not think you would stick a garden fork into a dog after it had died for some other reason, like cancer for example, or a road accident. But I could not be certain about this.

I went through Mrs Shears’ gate, closing it behind me. I walked onto her lawn and knelt beside the dog. I put my hand on the muzzle of the dog. It was still warm.

The dog was called Wellington. It belonged to Mrs Shears who was our friend. She lived on the opposite side of the road, two houses to the left.

Wellington was a poodle. Not one of the small poodles that have hairstyles but a big poodle. It had curly black fur, but when you got close you could see that the skin underneath the fur was a very pale yellow, like chicken.

I stroked Wellington and wondered who had killed him, and why.