Notes: The curious incident of the dog in the night time Stefaan Steyn

Mark Haddon employs a number of narrative stratagems in his novel, all of them depending, as most novels do, on a certain suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader. The text is based on the game 'essential' to the detective genre' - that of hiding away self-evident truths clues - by misleading the reader. In many ways this addresses not only the methodology of the text, but its content and its themes as well. Ostensibly this is a text about a boy discovering the truth about himself, his life and his parents. Rather, it is about readers discovering what a strange place 'normality' is - when viewed from the outside. Rather than this text being about how different someone with Asperger's syndrome is, the text turns out to be about how weird 'normal' people are. Rather than this text being about the dysfunction of someone who is different, it turns out to be about the dysfunction of 'ordinary' people - This is the stuff that is under readers' noses all the time. It is exactly this ordinariness - the stuff that readers are programmed to miss, but which is rubbed in their faces - which is the curious incident of the reference to Conan Doyle's story: "The silver blaze." Life itself is presented as curious, as strange, as inexplicable, as a text that cannot be decoded, to which we, analogous to Christopher, remain uncomprehending, naive' participants. This is the deeper irony of the text - it is our own, apparently normal lives that remain inexplicable. Ironically, much of this more important 'deception' - the presentation of ordinary life as something to be examined anew - is hidden under superficial red herrings - games with typefaces, drawings, maps, numbers, a use of spoken language, slang and the occasional 'cool' obscenity and so on. It may be said that an interpretation of the text that foregrounds these characteristics of the text as its primary set of techniques and clues is somewhat missing the point. However, one should not fall for this shoal of red herrings. The entire text is based on a central premise: that of an unusual narrator, with a special or different view of the world, giving the reader a privileged, insiders view of a type of world otherwise ordinarily inaccessible to the reader. However, this notion of the hyper-reliable 'unreliable narrator' is actually another red herring - even sophisticated readers may forget the potency of authorial manipulation here. In many cases the supposed literalness that accompanies Asperger's syndrome may disqualify Christopher from taking up many of the central stratagems or literary games which the text plays - including the metaphorical use of numbers, maps, and symbolism. However, the suspension of disbelief does allow readers to overlook this. The meta-meaning of these stratagems lie within the authorial, rather than the narratorial domain. It is furthermore presumed, that the world we are given a new window on is the normal world; that the reader is going to be given a new and fresh, an unique perspective on the world. The reader is set up to experience that which the Russian Formalists claimed to be central to literature the sense of strange making of seeing things anew through the literary process, so that the reader encounters the world afresh, and as a result, comes to novel insights about reality. The novels relative success or failure may be measured by what degree it actually makes good on this potential play on duality. In a sense the novel depends on this double irony: the dramatic irony which inheres in what the reader knows that the characters and/or the narrator may not, as well as the cognitive or narrative irony which inheres in what the narrator knows uniquely in his special way and which the reader is otherwise unable to access.

Essentially, the deeper question of the novel is exactly this. Does the narrator have something different to say, and does he, indeed, say it in a different way? The entire politics of the piece lies exactly here. Can someone in a disadvantaged position, or someone with a disability cognitive or otherwise claim to have a special kind of knowledge of the world? Does a persons unique position or their unique identity privilege their information, so that it is in some way beyond criticism or intelligibility for someone who does not share that position? More importantly, does a person who does NOT in fact have this privileged position have the right to pretend that they do? Is knowledge, and credibility, dependent on the peculiar status of the narrator? And if so, is it appropriate for someone who does not share the position or status of such a privileged point of view to mimic such a viewpoint? Is it, indeed, possible, even credible, for someone to who does not share such a privileged viewpoint to write as if they hold that viewpoint? These are some questions which the novel poses, but certainly doesn't answer - most certainly not in explicit terms. Christopher's language is that of Occam's Razor - the straightforward explanation should do and the rest is either misdirection, game-playing or deceit. Ostensibly the language and methodology of science and the exercise of logic is utilised here as a paradigm, a technique for the creation of literature - something which is intrinsically irrational. Fundamentally however, this text can be seen as an exercise in a shift in perception, with an emphasis on soft-selling notions of social difference in order to promote the acceptance of people who appear to be different to ourselves, and in order to challenge our misconceptions of the world. The incongruent nature of human behaviour, especially moral inconsistency, becomes a focus of the text - Christopher is a lie detector, although the text is set up so that the reader, because of the 'naive'' narration, can see what he can't. This does not only allow for irony dramatic irony if one will - but more importantly also for pathos - the sense that there is much we begin to feel for the characters concerned. We are given an intimate look into the sufferings of a tormented youth and his equally tormented family. The philosophical question of truth is directly linked to the social question of justice and the personal questions of integrity and authenticity. Whether Christopher's personal 'insight' - his self-realisation is credible - given his situation - is another matter. On the surface a higher justice and purpose has been served: there is some personal growth, there is some relational resolution, and some ethical lessons have been transmitted - never mind the greater fraud possibly perpetrated on (some?) readers. Given the dual readership of the text - this is in some sense a successor to "The diary of Adrian Mole" by Sue Townsend, this text works as much with the contrast of the world of adults and the world of children/ adolescents, as with the dualism of 'normal' and 'other'. This is a text of 'emulation': simultaneously giving us a childs perspective on adults as adults perspectives on children. The novel does leverage off the teenage saga of the voyage of discovery, the tradition of 'running away' - it gives us the heros journey: the iconic adventure which is actually a return home and a discovery of the self via an exploration of the unfamiliar and the encounter with the Other. Certainly too, the text does address the whole question of inclusion and exclusion placing readers on the 'other side' of belonging. In similar terms this is a modern text - it gives us the contrast between ideal and real social worlds, and explores the other England - that urban dystopia which is real rather than imagined - we are given the phenomenological London of sensation: the world of noise, distrust, chaos and lies.

This foreign world is at the heart of the mother country - the place most mapped physically is a zone where the chaos of emotions, and meaning remains unquantifiable and undeniably, irrreducibly disturbing. The chaos of family disintegration and betrayal is the real world. If this text is - in following Christopher's journey (the patron saint of travellers) about the loss of the paradise and the world of loss and disorientation this is an apt analogy for 20th century experience - a world beyond and without maps or directions and without much sense to be made of ourselves, our world, or our lives: a road nowhere, but also a road home, to ourselves. Similarly too, this text is a discovery of the lies, a collection of heartfelt, unread, stolen letters. Readers should take in this further analogy: with the book as bildungsroman the text is in itself a metaphorical journey. Ironically, too, this real world is essentially fictional after all. It is thus suggested that the discovery of the world is self-discovery, as much as selfdiscovery is essentially the discovery of the world. This is initiation into adulthood, if not only for Christopher, then also for those who read the book more deeply- giving up false certainties, accepting that the mapped world is unquantifiable: real and fictional. Yet, as the novel essentially affirms - it is love which finally, though inexplicably makes sense of it all, for readers presumably as much as Christopher. His relationships with his father and Siobhan are what redeem Christopher, though, of course it is him who redeems those around them. As a Christ-like figure he uncovers their sins, suffers for it, and releases them from it. This is a gospel of a reluctant Messiah who has survived his journey to the cross. What finally redeems this novel is indeed this web of human relationships - we are on the familiar territory of inter-generational tension, the muck of family and relationships gone wrong, and the heroism of victims trying to rescue those who wound them. This is the reality which should be beyond Christopher's grasp, but which is comprehended only because it is comprehended unemotionally. Readers, of course must face the complete emotional horror. This is the curious incident which has been present all the time - the image of the neighbour's pet stabbed to death by a vengeful, adulterous father. This is the real world of relationships and human connection - real though flawed; real possibly exactly because it is flawed. Nonetheless, a disturbing question remains disturbingly unanswered by the text. Why and how is it claimed that people are similar and/ or different, and what importance is attributed, and for what reasons to these notions of difference? In effect, the politics of disability is glossed over. When does disability come constitute a form of identity, and on what grounds, and to what purpose may whom claim to speak for who? What significance do people attribute to special, privileged, points of view, and under what circumstances are people empowered and disempowered in being identified, or dis-identified in various ways? Is Christopher accepted because of, or despite his difference? Does the text, negate or affirm his 'difference'? Is 'he' or those he represents a victim of readers' projections? This leads to the broader question within the text, in relation to its credibility - although this may be seen as irrelevant, even unfair by many. When do positions of so-called advocacy become misrepresentation or paternalism? In the practical world of obstacles faced by many disabled people marginalisation is sometimes based on notions of different ability which sets up case-appropriate procedures for equal access. In a world where disability is case-managed the very procedures set up to allow participation in the mainstream often sideline people, or make the price of participation in the mainstream the acceptance of labelling which sets people apart socially. Whether Haddon's text has adequately addressed this question is uncertain. This is a curious incident of its own.