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| One of the lovely quotes from the book.. |
In ‘A sense of ending’. The author says ‘To understand the history
it’s very important to understand who the historian is. Because History is
written from a historian’s perspective.’ I feel the same way for any
author/director/musician so on and so on forth. I always go back to the
originator (author, director, musician and any other creator) to understand his
or her perspective also try to
understand the origin of thought (if any). With wiki and the web it has become
very easy to do the same.
But as I
finished ‘The curious incident of the dog in the night time’ By Mark Haddon – I
did not have access to net and for once I wanted to write my feelings towards
the book as raw as it could be. Typically there are lot of incidents which
happen between the finishing of the book and writing about the same. Although
few specific thoughts always linger in your mind regarding a specific book but
the full impact can be experienced around the time you finish the book.
The curious
incident of the dog in the night time;
It takes some
time for the book to grow on you. The beginning of the book is made
The whole book
is about what the boy is thinking in his mind and how he is coping with the
external world. He has his own explanation for everything – including life. The
book is nicely illustrated with examples of puzzles or drawing of a cow or
station – how the boy sees it in his head. He is extremely intelligent and
understands Maths better than me at least and has a photographic memory. It was amazing
when he explained – how what a normal person can see vs what he saw when they
looked at the same field. The kind of detail which he can see probably none of
us can see. That’s because when we see something we also think if ‘back home
the pressure cooker is on?’ while he just sees.
He lives in
terror because he cannot let people touch him – if they do he shouts, including
his parents, they have to win his confidence before they can communicate with
him. When he goes inside a station he see too many things so that he cannot
differentiate what is important and what is not and hence prioritize his input
in some sense – so he sees all signage’s of brands and instructions in one form
and his mind goes blank, he cannot stand loud noises and whenever he is scared
he starts doing complex maths in his mind. Once he almost gets killed because
he chases his pet rat in the underground and almost gets run over by a train.
But despite all
his shortcomings, he speaks the truth most of the time unless he tells white
lies which he explains why he does that. In some sense the normal people like
his father and mother behave in a much worse way – so that they cannot stay
together and get separated with the child in father’s custody who lies that his
mother is dead.
In one of my
previous experience – when I had gone to a blind school. Before I could step
out of my car, I was blind folded and then I had to cross the road to reach the
building, have my initial interactions with people, use the toilet, eat food, experience
the walls of the buildings, try to visualise a painting ….all blind folded.
My first
reaction was of panic. It required a complete change in orientation of the way
I do things for many days that feeling of helplessness stayed with me and it
changed my perception of how a differently able person manages his daily life
(at a basic level) and then how does he go to the next level of studying,
experiencing so many things which we normal people do – books, movies. Plays,
shows etc. And how callous are we design a toilet in office or a railway
station or an airport.
I think in some way the author is gently asking us the question –
Who is normal & Who is not? A father who lies to keep custody of his son or a son who braves all his shortcomings in search of his dead mother...
Some thoughts from the author
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