The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time tells the story of 15-year-old Christopher Boone, a child with Asperger’s Syndrome, a kind of autism. Because the story is told from Christopher’s first-person perspective as an account he is writing with the encouragement of one of his teachers, the story has hallmarks of his perspective, including chapters numbered using prime numbers, accurate sketches that indicate a photographic memory, and the math problems Christopher uses to calm himself. The narration also uses his own stilted phraseology, some that seems to come word-for-word from the science books and videos he enjoys, and some that seems to come from adults having explained things to him, like definitions.

What fascinates me most about this novel is the perspective. It provides a fictional window into alternative perceptions of the world, which aids me in considering the different ways people may need to be treated. For example, not everyone finds touch reassuring, so it might be good to ask or get a sense of whether an individual might like to be touched before doing so. Same goes for eye contact, which also has cultural variations where eye contact can seem insolent or invasive rather than trustworthy. The book also demonstrates that disability may have nothing to do with intelligence, as Christopher is highly intelligent with an exceptional memory and merely puts information together in his own unique way.

Perhaps even more profound is the idea of fiction itself, which Christopher indicates he cannot engage in. He writes, “A lie is when you say something happened which didn’t happen” (24). This seems pretty straightforward: he has difficulty processing lies. But, lying is so much broader and more wound into our daily lives than simple untruths. Christopher goes on to say, “But there is only ever one thing which happened at a particular time and a particular place. And there are an infinite number of things which didn’t happen at that time and that place. And if I think about something which didn’t happen I start thinking about all the other things which didn’t happen” (24). The category of “things which didn’t happen” includes untruths and speculations about the past, ponderings and fantasies regarding the present, and hopes for the future, not to mention aesthetic fictions. For Christopher, admitting any of these into his consciousness opens the door to all of them, which is more than he can stand. His difficulty illustrates the complexity of the average human’s ability to juggle the mix of realities that comprise daily life.

While Christopher’s reality might seem alien, his struggles are also struggles of average people, just a little more exaggerated. We all have cognitive activities we do well, and we prefer those activities when we are surprised or challenged by others. We all can get overwhelmed by too many stimuli and employ coping mechanisms under such circumstances. We all live by a set of social rules that tell us how to behave in a variety of social situations. While we may not have Christopher’s limits in dealing with “strangers,” we do have similar kinds of limits that help us balance social interaction with safety. Seeing Christopher wrestle with his challenges reminds us that we are not alone in our own struggles.

Aside from the depiction of Christopher’s perspective, the plot of the novel operates traditionally, hooking the reader by establishing one mystery: who killed the neighbor’s dog with a garden fork? It then intensifies the conflict by revealing a second: that, despite the claims of his father, Christopher’s mother is not dead. Christopher treats himself as a detective seeking clues, and the reader is eager to unravel the adult problems revealed partly through the dramatic irony inherent in Christopher’s youthful perspective. When eventually Christopher embarks on a journey to London in order to find his mother, the reader reads on, hoping Christopher can conquer the anxieties associated with his disability in order to arrive safely at his mother’s apartment. Yet, even after successfully eluding the police and saving his rat Toby from the train tracks, Christopher does not find comfort at the journey’s end, as adult problems again surface to confuse him.

Christopher’s difficulties speak to the challenges of our social system where individual families are often left responsible for family members who cannot care for themselves. Without assistance or training, not to mention adequate funding, these families attempt to rise to the occasion, but the challenges of such care can end relationships, absorb money that would otherwise go to necessities, and, as frustrations escalate, result in violence. Christopher acknowledges that his mother has hit him and retells a scene where his father, frustrated with the questions he asks neighbors as part of his detective work, grabs him, causing Christopher to hit him, and likely resulting in his father’s hitting back, although Christopher’s memory shuts down from the overstimulation (103-04). That loving parents could get so frustrated with their disabled son that they would strike him speaks to the difficulty of these situations and to the need for society to provide more support, such as caregivers to spell family members from the care that saps their energy and humanity and education to assist them in providing better care for their loved ones.

Work Cited

Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. London: Vintage, 2003. Print.

Image Source

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time." [Book Cover] amazon.com 26 Feb. 2012. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=The+Curious+Incident+of+the+Dog&x=0&y=0

When the Emperor Was Divine

Julie Otsuka’s When the Emperor Was Divine is a novel treating the experiences of one Japanese-American family during the internment of World War II. Most of the novel is told in the third person without names, perhaps to emphasize that internment happened to thousands of Japanese-Americans, all turned into numbers, all considered to be exactly the same treason risk, no matter the age.

The novel begins with the mother and two children packing to leave Berkeley, California by train. The mother gives away the cat, kills the old White Dog, frees the macaw, buries the silver, and locks up all the family’s precious possessions in one room of the house.

The mother and children spend three years and five months at the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah. Although they are not subjected to physical torture--except wrongful imprisonment, loss of their home and possessions, separation from the father, and the heat and cold in the alkali desert--all three seem to disappear into the despair associated with oppression, inactivity, and waiting. At one point, the boy grows a tulip he names Gloria, but the potential beauty associated with this new life is immediately undercut by his sister’s failure to find the shell of the tortoise they expected to be reborn in the spring. She says, “’He left without us’” (100), which suggests the emptiness of their lives, the loss of the world, passing by without them, and maybe even the failure of a savior to redeem them from this hell.

When the mother and children return to their home, the narrative shifts into the first-person plural from the children’s perspective as they attempt to readjust to life in Berkeley. Because their home has been trashed and all their possessions stolen, because they have no income until their mother takes menial jobs, and because racism in the community still causes a barrier between them and their community, the children have difficult re-acclimating. This sense of alienation is exacerbated when their father returns home an old man, unrecognizable and incapable of providing for his family. The children go seeking their mother’s red rosebush but never find it, as if the promise of life, liberty, and happiness has been utterly denied them.

The end of the novel is told in the first-person singular from the father’s perspective. It reads partly as a transcript of a tortured man admitting to anything that would get his captors to stop and a kind of unified voice of all Japanese-American men who lost their manhood during internment, reacting to the racism with utter bitterness, with irony admitting to all of the crimes believed of them: “And I’ve been living here, quietly, beside you, for years, just waiting for Tojo to flash me the high sign” (143). The deep anger lacing this false admission of guilt is ultimately justified and painfully difficult to read.

I think this is an important book. It’s not long, a quick read, but it’s weighty and disturbing. It’s difficult to imagine Americans putting up with such treatment of other human beings, but we’re surprisingly passive today with the continued existence of Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp. Maybe each generation has its horrible secret, like the child locked away in Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” whose mistreatment makes happiness possible for the rest of the townspeople. And, then, there are all the poor and disenfranchised who live in our towns, on the edge of our awareness. Sadly, we don’t really see them either and would rather blame them for their condition.

Works Cited

Otsuka, Julie. When the Emperor Was Divine. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002. Print.

Image Source

"When the Emperor Was Divine." Book Cover. amazon.com. 16 Feb. 2012. http://www.amazon.com/When-Emperor-Divine-Julie-Otsuka/dp/B005EOZ7VO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1329450260&sr=8-4

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

I read William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer’s The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind in preparation for selecting the Common Read book at Eastern Oregon University for 2012-13. Essentially, we look for a book that is first of all engaging and is also accessible for first-year students, relates to a variety of disciplines, and provides a springboard for discussing issues of difference and discrimination. Once selected, the book will be assigned in all first-year experience courses, which serve incoming students with fewer than 30 college credits, and may be used in a variety of other courses serving first-year students.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind certainly fulfills expectations for a Common Read book. Kamkwamba’s story is engaging. While I found some of the discussion of the famine depressing, I really enjoyed reading of William’s cleverness in building and revamping his windmill, supported by photos and diagrams. I especially liked the pride with which William’s father responded to his efforts. When William pretends to be a radio reporter asking his father about the electric lights in his home, William’s father says that he enjoys the lights “’more than a city person.’” When William asks whether this pleasure comes from the fact that there are “’no blackouts,’” Williams father says, “’Well, yes’ [. . .] But also, because my own son made it’” (203). Such a strong father-son bond makes up for all of the difficulty the family experienced and reminds me of the heart-warming moment in the recent film Hugo where filmmaker Georges Melies claims Hugo as belonging to him.

I think Kamkwamba and Mealer’s book would be good for first-year students because it acquaints them with part of the world, Malawi, about which they may not before have learned. I think the drama of the famine followed by the success of the windmill would keep students reading, and the language is not difficult. Moreover, reading about William’s life puts the reader into his experiences, almost as if the reader had traveled there to meet him. Kamkwamba’s voice is inviting in its enthusiasm and the way it is not quite as polished as one might find in other creative non-fiction. For example, when William first goes away to school, he shares a bed with a student who doesn’t wash his feet. When he attends the African Leadership Academy, he jokes about his Kenyan roommate. “But Githiora isn’t forced to share my bed, and anyway, I’m pretty sure he washes his feet more frequently than my previous roommate” (270). That gentle joke represents Kamkwamba’s charming voice throughout, as if he is smiling while he writes, even through his difficult times. Finally, rural Oregon students may connect easily with rural Malawi’s dependence on harvest and distance from urban centers of political power.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind represents a good choice in terms of disciplinary breadth. It addresses anthropology, sociology, physics, political science, education, economics, business, agriculture, history, and global culture. The exploration of difference and discrimination would also be attractive, as William’s experiences might be examined in terms of nationality and ethnicity, of class within Malawian culture, and of masculinity and gender roles.

I can think of only a few potential weaknesses for the EOU first-year student population:

1) Malawi might be too distant for students to feel the story to be relevant. Moreover, the truth of the famine and lack of modern conveniences might simply reinforce the stereotype of Africa as underdeveloped and suffering.

2) The other potential weakness for the EOU student population is the focus on windmills, which represent a strenuously debated local topic. Because I’m from California and have grown up with wind farms on the horizon, I think they’re kind of pretty, and I’m interested in the potential for wind to provide more environmentally sustainable renewable energy than dams. However, students sensitive to the arguments against windmills published repeatedly in the local newspaper by their own neighbors may feel the assignment of a book on windmills represents a liberal plot to advocate for windmills and, worse, convert good conservatives to the liberal agenda.

On the other hand, the dialogue about windmills might prove energetic and provide an opportunity for all to get further educated on the topic.

Work Cited

Kamkwamba, William and Bryan Mealer. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. New York: William Morrow, 2009. Print.

Image Source

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. Book Cover Image. amazon.com. 14 Feb. 2012. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=The+Boy+Who+Harnessed+the+Wind&x=0&y=0