Nevermore: Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Pathogenesis, Had I Known, The Winners

 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon was the first book discussed at this week’s meeting of the Nevermore Book Club.  Autistic fifteen year old Christopher is an admirer of Sherlock Holmes, so when he finds the body of a neighbor’s dog he is determined to discover who killed the poodle. The story is told from Christopher’s point of view as he struggles to both solve the mystery and to navigate the confusing world around him. Our reviewer enjoyed the book, calling it light and fun. (DC)

The next book up dealt with the way that disease has shaped human history.  Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues by Jonathan Kennedy begins in the Paleolithic era, then continues through to modern day.  Our reviewer was less interested in the prehistoric aspect so she moved ahead to the Revolutionary period to determine how military operations were affected by various diseases including malaria and dysentery. Other categories included Neolithic Plagues, Ancient Plagues, Medieval Plagues, Colonial Plagues, Industrial Plagues, and Plagues of Poverty.  She found it very interesting and insightful, noting how public health contributes to the public good. Never underestimate the power of microbiology! (KM)

Barbara Ehrenreich’s books have won praise from Nevermore readers before, so it was no surprise to hear a recommendation for Had I Known: Collected Essays. The subjects are wide ranging, and the essays gathered from a variety of sources: The New York Times, New Republic, blog posts, op-eds, and more. It was highly recommended by our reader.  (CD)

The Winners by Fredrik Backman is the third in a series set in Beartown, a small town whose identity is tied up in its hockey team.  Beartown is a blue-collar town struggling to survive.  Having a winning team would not only be a source of pride, but would bring in more resources.  Their arch-rival is a town called Hed, which is competing for the same resources.  In this third book, a violent storm has left both communities in disarray.  Our reader had read and thoroughly enjoyed the first two books, Beartown and Us Against You, but felt this third entry could have been pared down from its 800+ pages.  She is determined to finish it, however! (MA)

Other titles:

The Saints of Swallow Hill  by Donna Everhart

Lone Women by Victor LaValle

Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro

The Cuban Heiress by Chanel Cleeton

Rabbit, Run by John Updike

Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen

Brothers and Sisters of Byland Crescent  by Bill Kitson

Time Traveled:  Memory Road Trip Series by Krista Marson

Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

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

Reviewed by Jeanne

Fifteen year old Christopher likes to go out walking at night when he can look up at the stars and pretend that he’s the only person in the world, because Christopher doesn’t really like people.  Most are a mystery to him with unreadable expressions and erratic behavior.  This upsets Christopher. He likes things to be orderly, like numbers, and behave in predictable ways.  This is why he has decided to assign his chapters prime numbers instead of the more usual 1,2, 3, etc. sequence. 

 Christopher does like dogs, because you always know where you stand with a dog and they don’t shout at you.  So when Christopher finds Wellington, his neighbor’s dog, lying in the grass with a gardening fork (think small pitchfork) stuck in him and blood, he knows that Wellington has been murdered.  That is wrong.  Murderers should be caught and punished, the way they are in Sherlock Holmes stories, so Christopher sets out to discover who murdered Wellington.

The problem is that people seem to get angry when he asks them questions – very blunt, personal questions.  His father understands to some extent but there are times when he too yells at Christopher and tells him to stop his investigations. Most of the time his father is good and doesn’t try to make Christopher eat foods that are yellow.  Siobhan at Christopher’s school is good too, and she encourages Christopher to make a book about his investigation which is what we are reading.  Christopher’s mother was good too but she is dead.  

Welcome to Christopher’s world.  It’s an orderly world of black and white, of certainties, marred only by the inexplicable reactions of other people.  He’s extremely intelligent and well informed about any number of topics from history to astronomy to mathematics, but bewildered by social interactions and incapable of understanding other people’s points of view. Christopher likes facts: things one knows that are beyond dispute.  Lies and the idea of lying upset him, because if you are saying one thing isn’t true, then how do you know that anything is true? Such paradoxes can send him into a tantrum worthy of a two year old, not a teenager. He tries to calm himself down by working out quadratic equations in his head, but sometimes he just can’t help himself and starts to scream.

Thanks to BPL Book Bingo (“Read a book which has won a literary award”), I was able to fulfill my vague promise to myself and finally read this Whitbread Award winning novel.  Because the entire book is written from Christopher’s point of view, the reader has at least some sense of what it’s like to be autistic, though Christopher’s diagnosis is never explicitly stated.  While the mystery of Wellington’s murder is solved midway through the book, the ramifications lead Christopher and the reader to some startling revelations. 

The book is by turns compassionate, moving, intriguing, and funny.  It certainly lived up to its excellent reputation as far as I am concerned. 

If you are intrigued enough to read further, Temple Grandin has written several interesting books about her own autism.  In fiction, Kristin recommends  Shine Shine Shine  and How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky, both by Lydia Netzer. There is also Samuel Hoenig mystery series by Jeffrey Cohen and E.J. Copperman.