166. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Vintage, 2003*; 226) is a curious and fantastic book in its approach, vision, and perspectives. It is a bold indicator of the vastness of the novel landscape and how tiny the portion we have explored in this land; after all, it isn't for nothing that the world 'novel' also means 'fresh', 'new', 'refreshing' as all these three superlatives will accurately describe what Haddon has done with this book. The book is unique on several fronts: as a detective story, and like all detective stories, the protagonist is investigating a murder; however, the murdered is not a chief executive who had double-dealings, nor is it a child who had early on been molested. It is also not a woman who had divorced her husband or jilted a boyfriend. In this novel, the protagonist - Christopher John Francis Boone - is investigating the death of Wellington, a neighbour's dog. And Christopher is fif...