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About a year ago, I read a psychology textbook about mental disorders to prepare myself for an exam. There, I found a series of autobiographical books listed that were recommended to students interested in learning more about psychological problems, such as borderline personality disorder as described in Susannah Kaysen’s “Girl Interrupted”. Even though this book, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” was not part of that list, I bought this book with the list in the back of my mind, thinking it would be a way to understand more about autism as well as learn more about my own brother, who is an autist himself.

“The Curious Incident” takes you into a boy’s detective story; 15-year-old autist Christopher pens down his thoughts of who killed the neighbour’s dog, Wellington. But, to my own surprise, the book is about much more than the ‘curious incident of the dog’. The killing of Wellington actually triggers a series of events in which Christopher’s entire life is turned upside down – which is hard to swallow for most autists and for Christopher, since routine and familiarity is what helps them go through each day.

Not only do we tag along in his search for clues and hints as well as experience the consequences of his search for the killer, but we also learn about what goes through the mind of an autistic boy. Christopher possesses the same talents we have seen in Dustin Hoffman’s portrayal of Raymond in “Rain Man”: he is a prodigy when it comes to maths and numbers.

Numbers matter to Christopher, so naturally he wanted his beloved maths to become a part of the book he is writing. So on occasion, we see a maths formula here and there, and there is even an appendix in the back of the book, showing us how to solve a maths problem.

These bits of knowledge he shares with us give the book a very personal edge and an almost interactive nature, which makes it seem like an actual autobiography. We get to know Christopher and we are introduced to examples of the routines of an autist.

For instance, we learn about Christopher’s hate for yellow and love for red, and that these colors decide for him whether the day will be a good day or a bad day. The paradox here, is that Christopher uses logics as clues to understand the world and he will not accept anything unlogical from others. To us, the occurance of yellow cars versus red cars on England’s streets is merely a coincidence and by no means logical, but Christopher – who definitely is very intelligent – fails to see this.

This is what autism is. Autists aren’t stupid; they are intelligent in their own way. What is not logical for us, is very logical and real for Christopher. We enter a different and difficult world, and to be able to understand it, we need to let go of our logics and open our minds for his. Mark Haddon did a wonderful job at showing us this.