一隻狗的離奇案件

Title: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Author: Haddon, Mark (1962 - )
New York : Doubleday, 2003

226 p.
Read by: 06/1/2012, borrowed from WBPL
Genre: Fiction

Christopher had a brain like a computer: He recorded every scene since he was 4 and could rewind and playback the exact details. He called it soundtrack, plus smelltrack, plus patterntrack. He had the ability to capture all information at once and associate them and arrange them and store in his brain permanently. And that’s also the reason why he did not like to be in a new place – too much information to process. He hated to be with strangers for the same reason. If he was put in a situation with the combination of a new place and new people, his brain would crash – fanatic screams. Christopher was very good at math; no teacher could teach him anymore at school so he had to take test-out tests and still got the highest score possible. He would do the same for the physics. He had his own theory about astrology, one day he was going to be an astronaut. He was good with animals. Math calculation exercises like 245 were his meditation. His concentration was exceptional that’s why he could easily win chess or play block games in the head for a long time. He needed to know the exact time things happened and would happen. He couldn’t lie about anything, that’s why he couldn’t joke, neither understood. His favorite color was red, his days were decided by the number of red cars he saw in a row, or the number of yellow cars which was bad. He refused to eat any food with yellow color, nor let food on the plate touch each other or he wouldn’t eat. He had touch phobia, so his parents invented a way to say “I love you” with fingers. He liked detective stories, and started one himself about the dog killed in the neighbor’s yard. In his spare time, Christopher watched science TV programs, played computer games and wrote his detective book. Christopher was a very special boy who was going to be a scientist.

Another version: Christopher was a math genius but socially disabled. He got into troubles with people because he simply didn’t understand human. He felt what he felt, but incapable to feel for others. He was exceptional well with facts but not with emotions or reasoning. His brain was wired in a way that he could retrieve and compare with what happened before and decided how to react at the present. In other words, he had zero capability to deal with anything new and unknown future. So his only reaction to the new unknown was shut his eyes and scream. His weird habits and behaviors alienated him from others, a policeman once thought he was doing monkey business. Christopher had no friends. He was 15 and still relied on his parents to take care of him. His goal of life was to go to university, earn a degree, be a scientist, earn a lot of money, hire someone to wash and cook for him. It is a boy with high IQ, no EQ, just like a computer. Throughout the book, there was no description (or I do not get that impression) about Christopher did any house work, nor saying thank-you or good-night, good-bye, sorry. He never said “Mom” or “Dad”. In a word, he was a self-centered little bastard. That made him more of a computer than a human. Right, he couldn’t lie, which is another feature of machines. His parents divorced but his father lied about it. That’s why this machine broke down at the discovery of the lie. He ran away and found his mother in London. It caused the crisis in both households – his father’s and his mother’s. In the middle of the turmoil, all Christopher was thinking was his math tests. He remembered his math tests after the runaway and wanted to return to school, to the city where he run away, but this time he requested his mother to go with him leaving her new man behind. Worse yet, they had no place to stay but in the house his father owned. She lost her job, her man, and shouted at a divorced husband whom Christopher refused to see or talk. Neither of them complained to him. They were partly responsible for Christopher’s incapability of dealing with human being including himself.

This book is very much like The Catcher in the Rye in style. I could love it, I could hate it. For the majority part, especially in the middle, I hated it so much because I don’t understand this disordered character. In the end, I know the author tried to say Christopher was the way he was because of us, everybody. The lies the complications the cruelties are like noises confusing young minds. Anyone to blame? Blame us. It is a smart book. But not my style, I do not like math. The math solutions, the calculations, the astrology facts, the charts, the maps, and other drawings were interesting in the beginning and annoying in the end – they are page fillers to me.