A. GENERAL INFORMATION

TITLE
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

AUTHOR
Mark Haddon

FIRST YEAR OF PUBLICATION
2003

NUMBER OF PAGES
272

MAINCHARACTERS
Christopher Boone is fifteen years old and has the Asperger’s Syndrome. He loves  the colour red but hates yellow and brown. He knows a very great deal about math and very little about human beings. He hates being touched. He loves his rat Toby and watching the stars. He hates strangers but loves the police (because of their uniforms) and he loves Sherlock Holmes.

SETTING

a. Most of the story is set in Swindon; at Christopher’s school, in his father’s house, in his mother’s house and at the train station. A part of the story is set in London, where Christopher’s mother lived, and in the train between London and Swindon.
b. The story is set in the Autumn of 1998.

SUBJECT/THEME
I think the theme is trust. When Christopher discovers he can’t trust his father he learns to trust himself.

TITLE EXPLANATION
Everything that happens in this book is a (direct) consequence of the curious incident of the dog of Christopher’s neighbour; Christopher is writing a book about it, his father hides his book, when Christopher finds his book he also finds letters from his mother (whom he thought was dead). His father confesses to the murder of the neighbour’s dog, and because of that Christopher goes to his mother and so on.

B. SUMMARY

Christopher is a 15 year old boy with Asperger’s Syndrome. One day he finds a neighbour’s dog murdered. He decides to solve this mystery and to write a book about it. With Sherlock Holmes as his idol he starts an investigation. Nobody is able to tell him who killed Wellington (the dog). Nobody has seen anything suspicious and Christopher’s father tells him to stop this investigation. When his father finds out about Christopher’s book he hides it and he makes Christopher promise not to finish the book. When his father is at work Christopher starts looking for his book and he finds it in a shirt box in his fathers bedroom. He doesn’t only find his book, he also finds letters adressed to him.
When he reads those letters he finds out that his mother didn’t die of a heart attack (he thought his mother died two years ago because of a heart attack because that is what his father told him) but she instead fell in love with the neighbour and left. Christopher is very shocked by this event and he gets sick. When his father finds him he tells Christopher the truth about his mother and about Wellington; Christopher’s father killed Wellington. Because of this confession, Christopher gets very frightened. He thinks that if his father killed Wellington, he might kill him as well.

Christopher decides to leave the house with Toby, his rat, and to go to his mother. He takes his father’s cash point card and goes to the train station. There he meets a policeman who helps him at first, but later, when Christopher is in the train, the policeman gets in the train as well with the intent to take Christopher to his father. But the train starts moving and he will have to wait for the next stop. This gives Christopher an opportunity to hide from the policeman. He hides behind some suitcases and when the train stops and doesn’t start moving again he comes out. He’s in London.
He finds out he needs use the underground to go to his mother. But when he gets there he is very frightened of all the people and the noise of the trains. When he decides to go on a train he finds out Toby is missing. Toby is looking for food near the rails and when Christopher finally gets Toby a train is coming and they are saved by a strange man. When they finally get to Christopher’s mother's house his mother is very happy to see him and very angry with his father because of the story he told Christopher about his mother. His mother says Christopher can stay as long as he wants to.
The first night in London the police come by to see if he’s okay and Christopher’s father comes by because he wants to take Christopher home. After a while in London he starts worrying about his test for Math A level he will soon take. His mother tells him he won’t be able to take the test and Christopher is very upset. After a little while, his mother and he leave London and go to Swindon. Christopher doesn’t want to live with his father again but at first they have to because his mother hasn’t got a house of herself yet.
Now he’s back in Swindon he is able to take his math test and he gets an A grade. His mother gets a house of her own and everything is going okay. After school Christopher has to be in his father’s house for a couple of hours every day, but he doesn’t like this. His father tries to talk to him sometimes but Christopher doesn’t talk back. Then, one day, his father wants to talk to him for five minutes and Christopher only wants that if his mother is there as well. Then his father gives him a dog and asks Christopher to start trusting him again.

649 woorden

C. PERSONAL COMMENT

MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTER
a. the most important character of this book is Christopher Boone.
b. The suggestion is made that this book was written by him. The book is about him and his adventures and when you read it, you know his thoughts.
c. “Siobhan said that the book should begin with something to grab people’s attention. That is why I started with the dog. I also started with the dog because it happened to me and i find it hard to imagine things which did not happen to me.” Page 5

MOST IMPORTANT EVENT

a. I think the most important event is when Christopher’s father confesses that he hasn’t told the truth about Christopher’s mother and that he killed Wellington.
b. After this Christopher decides to go to London, which is a very important event for Christopher, his father, his mother and the story. After this, everything changes.

IDENTIFICATION
a. I like Christopher most.
b. “And I know I can do this because I went to London on my own, and because I solved the mystery of Who Killed Wellington? and I found my mother and I was brave and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything.” Page 268

APPRECIATION
a. I really liked this book because it’s both funny and sad at the same time; the (authistic) logic that Christopher uses is very funny but sometimes it’s very sad (like when he’s afraid of his father). The book is very easy to read and everytime it made me very curious what was going to happen next.
b. “I had to get out of the house. Father had murdered Wellington. That meant he could murder me, because I couldn’t trust him, even though he had said, ‘Trust me,’ because he had told a lie about a big thing.” Page 153