The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time - first edition 2003 by David Fickling Books,UK
Mark Haddon’s Novel concerns a boy named Christopher Boone whose mind functions far outside the typical norm. He is labelled as ‘neurodivergent.’
Neurodivergence is an umbrella term used to describe people whose brains process, learn, or experience the world differently than what is considered typical.
Instead of treating these differences as flaws or illnesses to be "cured," the Neurodivergence concept views them as natural variations in human brain function – much like biodiversity in an ecosystem. This idea accords with the modern trend of accommodating everyone into society and finding a place for them. Here are some definitions from an AI app, Gemini.
Common Types of Neurodivergence
Neurodivergence isn't a medical diagnosis itself, but rather a category that includes several specific conditions and traits:
- Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC): Differences in social communication, processing sensory information, and deep, focused interests.
- ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder): Variations in executive function, impulse control, focus, and energy management.
- Dyslexia, Dyscalculia & Dysgraphia: Specific learning differences that affect reading, processing numbers, or writing.
- Dyspraxia (DCD): Differences in motor coordination, spatial awareness, and planning physical movements.
- Tourette Syndrome: Neurological conditions involving involuntary physical or vocal movements (tics).
Mark Haddon has explained that the novel was sparked by a single, vivid visual image rather than a fully formed plot:
A dog lying dead on a front lawn with a garden fork thrust through it so deeply that the fork entered the earth and remained standing upright.
At the time, Haddon was trying to write a new novel and sat down to write three entirely different opening paragraphs without knowing where any of them would lead. The image of the dead dog with the upright garden fork was one of those three experiments.
Original Cover of the Novel shows the scene that triggered the novel
As he wrote it, he began imagining who would find this dog and how that person would react to the scene. That train of thought led directly to the creation of the narrator, Christopher Boone, a teenager who sees the world with intense logic, order, and detachment. He is possessed of a different sort of mind than normal people. What began as a striking image for Haddon became the opening line and trigger incident of the entire book.
One of the creatures that provides a stand-in for the human friendship missed by Christopher is a pet rat, named Toby. Here is a picture:
Christopher and his pet rat Toby
Lastly here is a collage of Collage of Five Famous Persons who may have been Autistic by the modern definition.
Collage of Five Famous Persons who may have been Autistic
Top Left: Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830 – 1886), Poet
Top Right: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791), Composer
Center: Isaac Newton (1643 – 1727), Mathematician and Physicist
Bottom Left: Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (1902 – 1984) , Physicist
Bottom Right: Steven Paul Jobs (1955 – 2011), Computer Entrepreneur
Full Account and Record of the Reading Session
Shoba – Mark Haddon Bio
Mark Haddon, the author, born 1962
Mark Haddon (born September 26, 1962) is an English author, illustrator, and poet best known for his multiple award-winning 2003 novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. He lives and works in Oxford, England. Mark Haddon is the same age as Shoba. His father was an architect. They were not very rich, but he was sent to a very posh private boarding school, which he doesn't seem to have liked it very much. He was bullied there.
After school, he went to Oxford. When he graduated he tried to do a nine-to-five job, but that only lasted three weeks. He found he couldn't work for anybody. That realisation motivated him to try something better. Thus he became an illustrator for magazines and children's books. Meanwhile, he was also writing children's books., but was not entirely comfortable writing for children and illustrating.
Eventually he started to write for adults and that he felt could become his career. Before he wrote this book, he discarded five novels because he was not happy with the way they were shaping up.
Mark Haddon has done some work with children with special needs, and he's worked in prisons, just going there and speaking with them.
When he came to write this book, he asked himself what would be a good opening scene for a novel. He wrote three. In one of the scenes, there was a dog on a lawn with a garden fork thrust through it. He wrote that scene, and he laughed to himself. His wife asked him, “What are you laughing at?” He says that that scene implied a story that was both dark and vivid, and to him, quite funny.
He had to find someone who would describe that scene in a way that was gripping and darkly amusing. He waited, needing a voice. Then Christopher turned up as the owner of that voice. That's how this novel came to be.
The book itself is about a ‘neurodivergent’ person, which is how we refer to people who think and behave differently than ‘normal’ people. Such people like to live in very organised routine. They do not like their routine to be broken in any way.
Something forces the neurodivergent boy in the novel to break that routine – it's the death of his dog. He's forced out of his reticence. He discovers something about his family and then circumstances force him to take a trip to London. Many things happen to him in that journey, to force him out of his comfortable routine.
This book, actually reminded Shoba of a Malayalam movie, 24 North Kaadam. In that movie, Farhad Faisal plays a neurodivergent person. He's ‘on the spectrum’ and also has OCD. He's working in an IT firm. He's forced to step out of the office routine and make a trip by train for a presentation to a client. There's hartal and the train journey is blocked and he has to step off the train with two others and somehow find his way back. The whole journey he makes is hilarious. It reveals a lot about him and his growth, which resulted from this journey. Do watch it if you can on the Hotstar streaming platform.
More bout this author. He had COVID and then he had long COVID. Hence, for years he suffered from the after-effects of COVID. He's written other books for adults:
A Spot of Bother (2006)
The Red House (2012)
The Pier Falls (2016)
The Porpoise (2019)
Social Distance (graphic short story, 2020)
Dogs and Monsters (2024)
Leaving Home: A Memoir in Full Colour (2026)
Besides this novel Shoba has read The Porpoise and The Pier Falls.
One can spot neurodivergent people because they stand out. The opposite is neurotypical, I.e. ordinary folks like you and me.
What is a typical brain? We are able to pretend to be typical. That's it. If you can pretend, you're good enough to be called ‘typical.’
Neurodivergent people are just not able to do that because they're a little too genuine, so they can't really pretend. Nowadays there are more diagnoses of neurodivergent people than earlier, when they were just labelled as ‘odd’ or weird or something like that. There's more understanding now.
If you're very divergent (there are some people who are on that cusp), people will notice something just slightly off – we would have seen quite a few people like that if you think back to your school days.
Nowadays they would be labelled as ‘autistic’ or at least ‘on the spectrum.’ ‘Masking’ is when you are able to hide this strangeness. They find strategies to cope.
There inclusive education available now; it's a big thing. Most schools have these odd children in the same class and there are resource rooms for such students and acceptance of them.
That also helps. Even this guy, Christopher, when he knows what his problem is, he knows that the red colour he has to see or this yellow colour will trouble him.
Once they are aware of what it is, it helps. There's a kind of a math problem, said Shoba, about those three doors and, you pick one door and you get a gift. How on earth do you know, if you change your choice, then you stand a better chance of winning? But apparently, mathematically, it's been worked out that it's better to shift your choice.
Glenn's (who is Glen?) son had something like this, when he was very young, this guy knew everything about the solar system and he was smart in his studies, but he didn't have a single friend. He couldn't go out and they would send him to a shop or something. He couldn't do all the social mixing, but was very good in his studies. Now, he's become an engineer, graduating from the Manipal Institute of Technology.
Who's son was that? She used to manage Fab India, Archana Nandal. Neel, her son had some issues like this, but today he's an engineer from Manipal.
There is a book of John Grisham, The Rainmaker. Do you mean Rain Man? – asked KumKum. No, not Rainman. John Grisham's The Rainmaker is a classic underdog story about Rudy Baylor, a young, broke Memphis lawyer who passes the bar and stumbles onto a multibillion-dollar insurance fraud case. He takes on a ruthless corporate giant that denied life-saving medical coverage to a dying leukemia patient.
Rain Man is a good movie, right? Rain Man (1988) is an acclaimed comedy-drama directed by Barry Levinson. It stars Tom Cruise as a selfish car dealer and Dustin Hoffman as his autistic savant brother, Raymond. The cross-country road trip film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. In that movie, Dustin Hoffman's character is neurodivergent.
And there is a Shah Rukh Khan movie also, where he enacts Asperger's syndrome.
And then, of course, Aamir Khan, has done movies featuring uniquely gifted people. In Taare Zameen Par Ishaan is criticised by his parents for his poor academic performance and is sent away to a boarding school. Ram, an art teacher, however, realises Ishaan has dyslexia and helps him uncover his potential. Dyslexia is some form of neurodivergence.
And then the other thing is a movie where the hero writes everything on his hands. That was the 2008 Bollywood hit Ghajini (and its 2005 Tamil original), which was an unauthorised remake of Christopher Nolan's 2000 breakthrough film, Memento. Both feature a protagonist with anterograde amnesia (short-term memory loss) who relies on notes, photos, and tattoos to hunt for his wife’s killer.
Priya mentioned that her late father, Col. Banwari Prasad Singh, used to write on his hands exactly like Aamir Khan in the movie. The family used to write it for him. That was very easy to accommodate because he would remember the names of the generals who fought in the 1971 Bangladesh War, and the generals in the 1962 India-China War – all that the family used to write for him. That was all he required. Otherwise, he was fine.
Priya has photographs of his hands with all that written. Priya gave us one of those photographs to illustrate:
Priya's father used to write important facts on the hand to remind himself
When you talk about dyslexia, there's Tom Holland in telemarkers. Tom Holland revealed that his heavy dyslexia is why he has turned down opportunities to host Saturday Night Live (SNL), explaining that he is petrified of reading live cue cards that can change on the spot. He was diagnosed with dyslexia at age 7.
KumKum
KumKum read from Chapter 29 where Christopher is confused by body language and metaphors.
Joe noted that Christopher is analysing things down to the very etymology of names and words. Neurodivergent people don't get nuances, said Saras.
Shoba remarked that he cannot imagine – where is heaven? Is it in a black hole or is it past the black hole?
Just a small side-story here, said KumKum. She wonders whether her husband, Joe, is neurodivergent too. In their family gatherings, there will be talks going on. Joe doesn't ever get the nuances, family fights, family jealousy, nothing is apparent to him. Afterwards when KumKum mentions something, he will remark, “They didn't say that, how did you get it?”
Saras exclaimed, “My husband was exactly the same. He just could not understand. He would ask: why don't they say it if they mean that? When they say something and you're supposed to understand something else.” (Laughter)
Joe would come back, and if KumKum asked “Joe, didn't get it?” He would say, “No, they did not say it. They never said anything like that.” No implications for him, the things has to be said directly, if people mean it.
Priya
Priya read the scene where Christopher discovers from the letter, his mother was not dead as his father had told him.
The passage is almost a climax. It's a turning point because the story is about him investigating the murder of a dog and then about his mother's leaving.
He was given to understand by his father that his mother was dead. That's what he knows. He's been told that his mother was unwell and she was hospitalised and died.
But he comes upon the letters which his mother wrote to him and they're all dated after the supposed date when she died. Then he realises that she's alive; it comes as a shock to him and the story takes another turn from there.
Chapter 157, from which Priya read is of course, not the 157th chapter, but the next in the sequence of prime numbers he uses for his chapter numbering…
Christopher is writing a book.
The discovery must really have been very disturbing for him. Neurotypical people too would find it difficult. You feel sorry for the boy and for the father also. The father actually cared for him and didn't know what to do. He probably thought his son would be shattered to learn of the mother’s death – so he tried to mask the fact.
Why did he spear the dog, Priya wondered? That was such a cruel way to kill the dog.
Shoba said we don't know what happened between him and that lady next door. We don't know what happened there.
Very many people get irritated by poodles, said Shoba. It's a poodle, all right, but still very cruel.
The fact that he's written about a neurodivergent person, makes it a deep and sensitive book.
Saras has read about a family who have two sons, both = neurodivergent. They're coping: the mother lives separately, the father lives separately. Each of them looks after one child, because when both the kids are together, they are just not able to handle them. They set each other off. Imagine what some families are going through. If you think about it, OMG, what a life, for the parent and the child.
Zakia noted that here the mother really couldn't cope. Priya thought she had an anger problem. Why should she be the one to have to go through all this? Arundhaty observed that the mother felt she was not needed because Christopher always also called for his father.
She couldn't take his neglect. She probably just wasn't able to have the courage and patience to endure it all, thought Zakia.
But it's so nice in the end, that they somehow come together, not in a perfect way, perhaps noted Priya. It’s a nice story with a hopeful end and a good choice of novel by Shoba.
Joe
Joe chose from another prime numbered chapter, chapter 57, where Christopher demonstrates he likes order and proves that he's not a ‘spazzer’ (a spastic – derogatory term for an incompetent person) and starts writing this book.
Joe too likes order and that's why he chose the 15th prime numbered chapter, No. 47, because Christopher Boone is 15 years old and that's as logical as Christopher Boone would want a choice of reading passage to be, Joe guessed.
High achieving people with autism show some of the characteristics of Christopher.
They can be communicative, but not with everyone. They're mostly withdrawn and the great difficulty in making them contribute to society and exploit their talents stems from their inability to mix with others.
KumKum and Joe know a very good example of such a person whom they have observed since childhood, the son of a friend.
Now he has graduated with honours from the University of Maryland in computer science and he was able to break through his reticence by going to work in New York City. He was already facile in writing computer games and now has a company of his own in this business.
In this novel, you see that his teacher, Siobhan, has built trust with him. His active mind desires to get to the bottom of things and he employs that curiosity in tracing who killed his dog Wellington.
Toward the end of this passage, the origin of this novel is stated in the passage when Siobhan states, “Well, we're meant to be writing stories today”, and Christopher responded by starting to write this very novel.
Joe had not come across this word, ‘neurodivergent’, though he has known people with autism and autism is a very large, wide spectrum of people who have quite different characteristics at each end of the spectrum.
At one end, are the high-achieving people – an example comes from those who have studied the tics and foibles of Isaac Newton revealed in his biography. They that he was autistic, of course, at the high end.
Newton had some of these traits in the sense that he could get riled up about small things and he would engross himself in his work and forget the word around him. But, engrossing oneself in work is a sign of genius really, it's not really autism.
It marks people who can concentrate on a subject. In fact, Isaac Newton has a wonderful saying, which is the counterpart of his well-known saying that if he has seen so far and learned many things, it was because he stood on the shoulder of giants (i.e. other great men).
The counterpart of this was another statement of Newton that once he was on to something, then he could forget everything else. He used deep, single-minded focus to solve hard problems. He tuned out the world. He kept his mind fixed on one question for days or weeks. This extreme state of deep immersion helped him to see answers that other people never found.
And it was actually true, because his housekeeper said he could go for a couple of days without eating, without moving out of his room, without saying a word to anybody, but his mind was constantly churning and spinning away. To produce the kind of work that he did, which is everything from light to gravity to motion, making discoveries of the highest order, required this kind of concentration. And then to write it all down with mathematical precision in the Principia. He was one of those very wonderful minds that happen once in a century perhaps.
When you see people who are so-called high-achieving autistic people, you have to remember that there's a lot going on in their mind and you don't have the foggiest about it, and it's far deeper than what some term called neurotypical. The neurotypical can't even fathom that depth.
And then there are people at the other end who are the very low-achieving autistic people who don't have any of these gifts, they're mainly characterised by deficiencies in many respects.
Priya said IQ levels matter, that's how they test, a low IQ and a high IQ. Shoba said you can't test for neurodivergence by ordinary tests as in competitive exams. They don't communicate, so you can't test by such straightforward methods.
Priya typed neurotypical people as normal but everybody is normal in their own way. The parameters of normality are many – it means you're functioning normally and obeying the law, obeying societal conventions, and that sort of thing.
Joe said, “Thank God for people who don't function normally, because they are the people who really contribute in the end, at the high end of the autistic spectrum.”
This ‘normal’ is something that society says – it could be so different in different places. So who's to say? Priya said she knows a very high achieving person.
According to Shoba you are adjusting your behaviour to become a typical person in the society in order to function.
So that is a part of you adjusting in the typical population. But these neurodivergent people are a bit exceptional, and this is quite obvious when you observe them; you know they are different, like the boy in this story, Chris.
Priya knows two high achieving people, but their personal cleanliness is rather wanting. What do you do then?
Priya said she has heard that Steve Jobs was an oddball too. When Je consulted Gemini on the matter this is what it disclosed about the Jobs:
“Steve Jobs was never formally diagnosed with autism or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) during his lifetime.
However, observers, neurodiversity advocates (such as Dr. Temple Grandin), and biographers have frequently noted that he exhibited several behavioral traits often associated with the autism spectrum:
- Hyperfocus and Special Interests: Jobs possessed an extraordinary ability to intensely concentrate on single projects or ideas, often to the complete exclusion of outside distractions.
- Extreme Obsession with Detail and Perfectionism: He was legendary for his uncompromising fixation on micro-details—from product design elements to internal circuitry layouts that customers would never see.
- Social and Communication Challenges: In interpersonal settings, Jobs was known for direct, blunt, and sometimes confrontational communication. He struggled with small talk, often lacked social filter or empathy in executive interactions, and viewed situations in stark "black-and-white" terms.
- Rigid Adherence to Routines or Preferences: He maintained strict personal habits, including specialized fruitarian diets, wearing identical daily attire (black turtleneck, jeans, New Balance sneakers), and adhering to rigid design ideals.”
Zakia said they're not aware of their body, they're not able to connect their body to their mind – that is what she understood about autism.
Saras has learned from a Special Ed teacher that you have to teach a lot of social habits, as Siobhan does, Christopher’s teacher or mentor. She's teaching him many things, which is evident in the passage KumKum read.
The teacher told Saras you have to tell them repeatedly about good social habits. There was a child she was counselling, who would pick her nose and things like that, which is socially taboo.
The other children in the class refused to sit near this child, because she would pick her nose and she'd touch them all the time and do odd things. The other children used to find it very yucky, so she had to be told that you cannot do that.
These little things, these cues, they have to be taught, said Saras. They don't have the social awareness and don't relate to these kinds of things.
Normally parents teach you these things as you are growing up, said Arundhaty; they teach you how to eat, not to open your mouth too wide, and how to speak.
Saras maintained that a lot of the normal kids pick up from cues from parents, but the autistic children are not able to do that, so they have to be specifically and repeatedly told. That is the difference.
Saras
Saras read from Chapter 61, the 18th prime number so really Chapter 18 in normal books. Christopher ponders about God, Death and Black Holes and what happens to the body after death
When Christopher is thinking about death he's literal so he can't understand where heaven is and what is God – not that normal people understand it either, but they pretend they do.
When Joe suggested this little passage it was one of the few, Saras had marked out.
Chris discusses everything in a physical materialistic manner. Scientifically what happens to you when you die, has been the subject of discussion on the Web. When your body is cremated the atoms never die, so it just mixes up and disintegrates and takes on other forms as a result of chemical reactions.
Saras was recalling exactly what one can read on the World Wide Web. Chris is narrating that. What does happen to the atoms of the body upon death? Is matter lost or is it transformed? Gemini was a bit coy about answering, but DeepSeek with volunteered this straightaway:
“To answer your questions directly: No, matter is not lost. The atoms of your body are transformed—they break apart, rearrange, and disperse back into the environment to become part of other living and non-living things.
This is governed by the Law of Conservation of Mass, which states that matter cannot be created or destroyed, only changed from one form to another.
Here is exactly what happens to the body's atoms, step-by-step, from the moment of death to millions of years in the future.
Phase 1: The Immediate Aftermath (Minutes to Hours)
When the heart stops, blood flow ceases. Without oxygen, the cells’ mitochondria can no longer produce ATP (energy). The sodium-potassium pumps in cell membranes fail, causing cells to flood with calcium and water. The atoms themselves don't change, but the chemical bonds holding complex molecules together begin to break down. Enzymes (which are proteins) start digesting the cell structures from the inside out—a process called autolysis.
Phase 2: Decomposition and the Great Dispersal (Days to Years)
This is where the atoms truly begin their transformation.
- Bacteria take over: The trillions of bacteria that lived harmlessly in your gut and skin no longer have an immune system to stop them. They begin consuming your soft tissues (muscles, organs, skin). They break down complex organic molecules (proteins, fats, carbohydrates) into simpler molecules like carbon dioxide, methane, hydrogen sulfide, and ammonia.
- Gases escape: These gases build up pressure and eventually diffuse out of the body or escape through ruptured skin. The carbon and hydrogen atoms in your body literally float away into the atmosphere as gas.
- Liquids seep out: As cells rupture, water and dissolved minerals (ions like sodium, potassium, and calcium) leach into the surrounding soil (if buried) or evaporate into the air.
- Scavengers and insects: Flies, beetles, and larger scavengers consume tissues, incorporating your atoms into their own bodies. When they defecate, die, or are eaten, those atoms move further up or down the food chain.
Phase 3: The Bones and Teeth (Years to Centuries)
Soft tissue decomposes relatively quickly, but bones and teeth are made of dense minerals—primarily calcium phosphate and calcium carbonate. These atoms are much more stable.
- If buried, groundwater slowly dissolves the mineral crystals over decades or centuries, carrying the calcium and phosphate atoms into the soil, where plant roots will absorb them.
- If cremated, the extreme heat (1400°F+) forces the organic carbon atoms to bond with oxygen and escape as CO2 gas. The remaining mineral atoms (calcium, phosphate) form "cremains"—a dry, sterile ash that is chemically identical to rock dust. Even then, rain and wind will eventually weather these ash particles down, dispersing the atoms into the soil or water.
Phase 4: The Ultimate Transformation (Years to Eons)
Once your atoms are in the soil, water, and air, they are entirely at the mercy of Earth's geochemical cycles:
- The Carbon Cycle: The carbon atoms from your proteins and fats that escaped as CO2 or methane will be absorbed by plants through photosynthesis, or dissolved into the ocean to form carbonic acid (which marine life uses to build shells).
- The Nitrogen Cycle: The nitrogen atoms from your DNA and amino acids are converted by soil bacteria into nitrates, which are essential fertilisers for new plant growth.
- The Water Cycle: The hydrogen and oxygen atoms that made up 60% of your body evaporate, form clouds, and fall as rain, eventually being drunk by animals or absorbed by tree roots.
- The Deep Earth: A tiny fraction of your heavier atoms (like iron, magnesium, and trace metals) might be buried deep underground. Over millions of years, under extreme heat and pressure, they could become part of sedimentary rock, fossil fuels, or even, over tectonic timescales, be pushed into the Earth's mantle and recycled into volcanic magma.
So, where do "you" go?
Every single atom that makes up your body today has existed since the Big Bang (hydrogen) or was forged in the hearts of ancient stars (carbon, oxygen, iron). When you die, you are simply returning those borrowed atoms to the universal pool.
Within about a year (for soft tissue) to a few decades (for bones), roughly 99% of the atoms that were once "you" will have been absorbed into new life—the grass, the trees, the worms, the bacteria, and even the crops that feed other humans. As the famous quote by astronomer Carl Sagan goes, “We are made of star stuff.” In death, we become “earth stuff,” ensuring that the matter of your body will go on to form the leaves of a forest, the shells of sea creatures, and the cells of future generations for billions of years to come.”
Chris has a very logical mind and he is aware of the above fragment of knowledge. You can call him neurodivergent and so on, but actually Chris has a very scientific understanding of death. Namely, that that the matter of the body decomposes, and is transformed in a cycle that can take millennia but goes back to form the constituents of the Earth.
How do you hold the notion of God in your mind? That’s a whole different question.
Zakia
Zakia read from chapter 113. Since The 30th prime is 113, it I really Chapter 30.
This chapter is Chris’ memory of his mother. There is a deep connect with his mother; as Saras noted, he does think about how his mother would have gone to heaven. He doesn't react to anything, he's just going about his life, day to day, but in his mind, he has an image of how his mother has gone to heaven and he retains her in his memory.
Christopher can replay any scene from the past in his mind and sometimes it can frighten him.
Zakia noted how exact is the description Chris provides about his mother reading to him and the colour of her towel. He has beautifully recorded everything in his memory, all the details and it's like this whole book has been written with the words that just poured out as he was thinking. There are so many ‘ands’ and long sentences. It’s not written, carefully composed and edited, but more like his thoughts are just spilling out continuously as they come to his mind. The details like the name of the book she was reading – it’s all etched in his memory clearly, the date, that it was a Saturday, etc.. This is how his mind worked, it was so logical and his memory was photographic. Everything was temporally ordered in his mind and he could just play it back like a tape recorder.
Saras noted his mother is very matter-of-fact in comforting him – she just says there are no sharks in Cornwall, that is the only thing that would logically convince Christopher, she knows. Arundhaty observed that both the parents were very sensitive about his condition and both knew how they should respond to him because they understood the way his mind worked. They may have had issues with each other; however, they really understood Christopher and loved him.
It's quite understandable that the parents have issues with each other, thought Zakia. This is usual with parents, and imagine handling a situation like this, which needs so much patience and understanding.
Shoba mentioned the mother taking him shopping when he just falls to the floor and starts screaming, What do you do in such extreme situations? That was what made her break down.
Arundhaty
Arundhaty chose the part when Christopher discovers that his mother is alive. He’s afraid of his father now because his father lied to him and for him, lying was something that he could not understand or overlook – he could not trust his father any more and he was fearful for himself because he felt that the father would in some way betray him again.
He tries various stratagems; he goes out of the house and hides here and there, and he spends the night outside and he debates about what he should do, who he should go to and so on.
There's a long section before this where he goes to different houses and considers what is to be done. For a person like him it would have been difficult to figure out what his options were, and how to decide to do next.
Christopher in the passage is trying to gather his inner strength. He wants to become strong and logically figure out what to do.
Surmounting the train journey was a mental game he had played, and he learned how to catch a train, and how to go to the station.
Shoba
Shoba’s reading was about Christopher’s journey to London by train; his pet rat Toby escapes and he has to jump down on the rails to try and save it.
Toby is his pet but it's more than a pet because he doesn't have any friends. He just has parents and a teacher he has grown to trust, and that's it.
His world is just those people and this pet makes up for lack of friends; whatever he might get from a friendship he derives from this animal. He doesn't talk, and hardly communicates with people.
Therefore the pet relationship was very important and he's made the journey with the rat in his pocket, and on his way to London and something happens and he falls onto the rails. So, he just jumps down and his only thought is to save the rat. He doesn't think of the danger to himself.
It's a scene of action. At some point he waits at the station for nearly five hours. He just sits there and doesn't move.
From his description you can imagine visually those diamond patterns on the socks of his rescuer, said Zakia – the man is pulling him, you can just see that too from the exact description.
Shoba agreed that the author writes in a graphic manner where each scene is pictured as the neurodivergent boy sees it in his mind, in exquisite detail.
The author has written it very well, said Arundhaty.
Shoba noted there is something in the book; even though it doesn't have rich prose – there is something about the description of events that makes the story very powerful.
You see the tape recorder of his mind unravelling, according to Zakia. It's like taking a walk through his mind, and observing how it's working.
Shoba has read that for Mark Haddon, the author, when writing a story, the architecture of the space is very important to him. He has to see the room and everything in the precise layout.
For example in this house where the father shouts from the bottom of the stairs, the author has to visualise exactly where the stairs are and this boy's room and the father's room. Haddon has to have the plan of the house in his mind when he's writing – that’s very important to him.
Collected Readings
KumKum Ch 29 – Christopher is confused by body language and metaphors
I find people confusing.
This is for two main reasons.
The first main reason is that people do a lot of talking without using any words. Siobhan says that if you raise one eyebrow it can mean lots of different things. It can mean "I want to do sex with you" and it can also mean "I think that what you just said was very stupid."
Siobhan also says that if you close your mouth and breathe out loudly through your nose, it can mean that you are relaxed, or that you are bored, or that you are angry, and it all depends on how much air comes out of your nose and how fast and what shape your mouth is when you do it and how you are sitting and what you said just before and hundreds of other things which are too complicated to work out in a few seconds.
The second main reason is that people often talk using metaphors. These are examples of metaphors
I laughed my socks off.
He was the apple of her eye.
They had a skeleton in the cupboard.
We had a real pig of a day.
The dog was stone dead.
The word metaphor means carrying something from one place to another, and it comes from the Greek words (which means from one place to another) and φϵρϵɩν (which means to carry), and it is when you describe something by using a word for something that it isn't. This means that the word metaphor is a metaphor.
I think it should be called a lie because a pig is not like a day and people do not have skeletons in their cupboards. And when I try and make a picture of the phrase in my head it just confuses me because imagining an apple in someone's eye doesn't have anything to do with liking someone a lot and it makes you forget what the person was talking about.
My name is a metaphor. It means carrying Christ and it comes from the Greek word 𝜒⍴ɩ𝛔το𝛔 (which means Christ) and and it was the name given to St. Christopher because he carried Jesus Christ across a river.
This makes you wonder what he was called before he carried Christ across the river. But he wasn't called anything because this is an apocryphal story, which means that it is a lie, too.
Mother used to say that it meant Christopher was a nice name because it was a story about being kind and helpful, but I do not want my name to mean a story about being kind and helpful. I want my name to mean me.
Joe Ch 47 – Christopher likes Order and proves he is not a ‘spazzer’ and starts writing this book
In the bus on the way to school next morning we passed 4 red cars in a row, which meant that it was a Good Day, so I decided not to be sad about Wellington.
Mr. Jeavons, the psychologist at the school, once asked me why 4 red cars in a row made it a Good Day, and 3 red cars in a row made it a Quite Good Day, and 5 red cars in a row made it a Super Good Day, and why 4 yellow cars in a row made it a Black Day, which is a day when I don't speak to anyone and sit on my own reading books and don't eat my lunch and Take No Risks. He said that I was clearly a very logical person, so he was surprised that I should think like this because it wasn't very logical.
I said that I liked things to be in a nice order. And one way of things being in a nice order was to be logical. Especially if those things were numbers or an argument. But there were other ways of putting things in a nice order. And that was why I had Good Days and Black Days.
Mr. Jeavons said that I was a very clever boy. I said that I wasn't clever. I was just noticing how things were, and that wasn't clever. That was just being observant. Being clever was when you looked at how things were and used the evidence to work out something new. Like the universe expanding, or who committed a murder.
Mr. Jeavons asked me whether this made me feel safe, having things always in a nice order, and I said it did. Then he asked if I didn't like things changing. And I said I wouldn't mind things changing if I became an astronaut, for example.
He asked whether I wanted to become an astronaut and I said I did. He said that it was very difficult to become an astronaut. I said that I knew. You had to become an officer in the air force and you had to take lots of orders and be prepared to kill other human beings, and I couldn't take orders.
Terry, who is the older brother of Francis, who is at the school, said I would only ever get a job collecting supermarket trollies or cleaning out donkey shit at an animal sanctuary and they didn't let spazzers drive rockets that cost billions of pounds. Terry is stupid, so quod erat demonstrandum, which is Latin for which is the thing that was going to be proved, which means thus it is proved.
I'm not a spazzer, which means spastic, not like Francis, who is a spazzer, and even though I probably won't become an astronaut, I am going to go to university and study mathematics, or physics, or physics and mathematics (which is a Joint Honor School), because I like mathematics and physics and I'm very good at them.
But this is what is called a digression, and now I am going to go back to the fact that it was a Good Day. Because it was a Good Day I decided that I would try and find out who killed Wellington because a Good Day is a day for projects and planning things.
When I said this to Siobhan she said, "Well, we're meant to be writing stories today, so why don't you write about finding Wellington and going to the police station." And that is when I started writing this. (594 words)
Saras Chapter 61 – Christopher ponders about God, Death and Black Holes and what happens to the body after death
Mrs. Forbes at school said that when Mother died she had gone to heaven. That was because Mrs. Forbes is very old and she believes in heaven. And she wears tracksuit trousers because she says that they are more comfortable than normal trousers. And one of her legs is very slightly shorter than the other one because of an accident on a motorbike.
But when Mother died she didn't go to heaven because heaven doesn't exist.
Mrs. Peters's husband is a vicar called the Reverend Peters, and he comes to our school sometimes to talk to us, and I asked him where heaven was and he said, "It's not in our universe. It's another kind of place altogether."
The Reverend Peters makes a funny ticking noise with his tongue sometimes when he is thinking. And he smokes cigarettes and you can smell them on his breath and I don't like this.
I said that there wasn't anything outside the universe and there wasn't another kind of place altogether.
Except that there might be if you went through a black hole, but a black hole is what is called a singularity, which means it is impossible to find out what is on the other side because the gravity of a black hole is so big that even electromagnetic waves like light can't get out of it, and electromagnetic waves are how we get information about things which are far away. And if heaven was on the other side of a black hole, dead people would have to be fired into space on rockets to get there, and they aren't or people would notice.
I think people believe in heaven because they don't like the idea of dying, because they want to carry on living and they don't like the idea that other people will move into their house and put their things into the rubbish.
The Reverend Peters said, "Well, when I say that heaven is outside the universe it's really just a manner of speaking. I suppose what it really means is that they are with God."
And I replied, "But where is God?"
And the Reverend Peters said that we should talk about this on another day when he had more time.
What actually happens when you die is that your brain stops working and your body rots, like Rabbit did when he died and we buried him in the earth at the bottom of the garden. And all his molecules were broken down into other molecules and they went into the earth and were eaten by worms and went into the plants and if we go and dig in the same place in 10 years there will be nothing except his skeleton left. And in 1,000 years even his skeleton will be gone. But that is all right because he is a part of the flowers and the apple tree and the hawthorn bush now.
When people die they are sometimes put into coffins, which means that they don't mix with the earth for a very long time until the wood of the coffin rots.
But Mother was cremated. This means that she was put into a coffin and burned and ground up and turned into ash and smoke. I do not know what happens to the ash and I couldn't ask at the crematorium because I didn't go to the funeral. But the smoke goes out of the chimney and into the air and sometimes I look up into the sky and I think that there are molecules of Mother up there, or in clouds over Africa or the Antarctic, or coming down as rain in the rain forests in Brazil, or in snow somewhere. (618 words)
Zakia Ch 113 – Christopher can replay any scene from the past in his mind and sometimes it can frighten him
My memory is like a film. That is why I am really good at remembering things, like the conversations I have written down in this book, and what people were wearing, and what they smelled like, because my memory has a smelltrack which is like a soundtrack.
And when people ask me to remember something I can simply press Rewind and Fast Forward and Pause like on a video recorder, but more like a DVD player because I don't have to Rewind through everything in between to get to a memory of something a long time ago. And there are no buttons, either, because it is happening in my head.
If someone says to me, "Christopher, tell me what your mother was like," I can Rewind to lots of different scenes and say what she was like in those scenes.
For example, I could Rewind to 4 July 1992 when I was 9 years old, which was a Saturday, and we were on holiday in Cornwall and in the afternoon we were on the beach in a place called Polperro. And Mother was wearing a pair of shorts made out of denim and a light blue bikini top and she was smoking cigarettes called Consulate which were mint flavor. And she wasn't swimming. Mother was sunbathing on a towel which had red and purple stripes and she was reading a book by Georgette Heyer called The Masqueraders. And then she finished sunbathing and went into the water to swim and she said, "Bloody Nora, it's cold." And she said I should come and swim, too, but I don't like swimming because I don't like taking my clothes off. And she said I should just roll up my trousers and walk into the water a little way, so I did. And I stood in the water. And Mother said, "Look. It's lovely." And she jumped backward and disappeared under the water and I thought a shark had eaten her and I screamed and she stood up out of the water again and came over to where I was standing and held up her right hand and spread her fingers out in a fan and said, "Come on, Christopher, touch my hand. Come on now. Stop screaming. Touch my hand. Listen to me, Christopher. You can do it." And after a while I stopped screaming and I held up my left hand and spread my fingers out in a fan and we made our fingers and thumbs touch each other and Mother said, "It's OK, Christopher. It's OK. There aren't any sharks in Cornwall," and then I felt better.
Devika Chapter 149 – Christopher opens an envelope containing a letter for him from his ‘deceased’ mother
And that was when I saw the envelope.
It was an envelope addressed to me and it was lying under my book in the shirt box with some other envelopes. I picked it up. It had never been opened. It said
Christopher Boone
36 Randolph Street
Swindon
Wiltshire
Then I noticed that there were lots of other envelopes and they were all addressed to me. And this was interesting and confusing.
And then I noticed how the words Christopher and Swindon were written. They were written like this
I only know 3 people who do little circles instead of dots over the letter i. And one of them is Siobhan, and one of them was Mr. Loxely, who used to teach at the school, and one of them was Mother.
And then I heard Father opening the front door, so I took one envelope from under the book and I put the lid back on the shirt box and I put the toolbox back on top of it and I closed the cupboard door really carefully.
Then Father called out, "Christopher?"
I said nothing because he might be able to hear where I was calling from. I stood up and walked around the bed to the door, holding the envelope, trying to make as little noise as possible.
Father was standing at the bottom of the stairs and I thought he might see me, but he was flicking through he post which had come that morning so his head was pointing downward. Then he walked away from the foot of the stairs toward the kitchen and I closed the door of his room very quietly and went into my own room.
I wanted to look at the envelope but I didn't want to make Father angry, so I hid the envelope underneath my mattress. Then I walked downstairs and said hello to Father.
And he said, "So, what have you been up to today, young man?"
And I said, "Today we did Life Skills with Mrs. Gray. Which was Using Money and Public Transport.
And I had tomato soup for lunch, and 5 apples. And I practiced some maths in the afternoon and we went for a walk in the park with Mrs. Peters and collected leaves for making collages."
And Father said, "Excellent, excellent. What do you fancy for chow tonight?"Chow is food.
I said I wanted baked beans and broccoli.
And Father said, "I think that can be very easily arranged."
Then I sat on the sofa and I read some more of the book I was reading called Chaos by James Gleick.
Then I went into the kitchen and had my baked beans and broccoli while Father had sausages and eggs and fried bread and a mug of tea.
Then Father said, "I'm going to put those shelves up in the living room, if that's all right with you. I'll make a bit of a racket, I'm afraid, so if you want to watch television we're going to have to shift it upstairs."
And I said, "I'll go and be on my own in my room."
And he said, "Good man."
And I said, "Thank you for supper," because that is being polite.
And he said, "No problem, kiddo."
And I went up to my room.
And when I was in my room I shut the door and I took out the envelope from underneath my mattress. I held the letter up to the light to see if I could detect what was inside the envelope, but the paper of the envelope was too thick. I wondered whether I should open the envelope because it was something I had taken from Father's room. But then I reasoned that it was addressed to me so it belonged to me so it was OK to open it.
So I opened the envelope.
Inside there was a letter.
And this was what was written in the letter
Priya Ch 157 – Christopher discovers from the letter, his mother was not dead as his father had told him.
Then I stopped reading the letter because I felt sick.
Mother had not had a heart attack. Mother had not died. Mother had been alive all the time. And Father had lied about this.
I tried really hard to think if there was any other explanation but I couldn't think of one. And then I couldn't think of anything at all because my brain wasn't working properly.
I felt giddy. It was like the room was swinging from side to side, as if it was at the top of a really tall building and the building was swinging backward and forward in a strong wind (this is a simile, too). But I knew that the room couldn't be swinging backward and forward, so it must have been something which was happening inside my head.
I rolled onto the bed and curled up in a ball.
My stomach hurt.
I don't know what happened then because there is a gap in my memory, like a bit of the tape had been erased. But I know that a lot of time must have passed because later on, when I opened my eyes again, I could see that it was dark outside the window. And I had been sick because there was sick all over the bed and on my hands and arms and face.
But before this I heard Father coming into the house and calling out my name, which is another reason why I know a lot of time had passed.
And it was strange because he was calling, "Christopher. . . ? Christopher. . . ?" and I could see my name written out as he was saying it. Often I can see what someone is saying written out like it is being printed on a computer screen, especially if they are in another room. But this was not on a computer screen. I could see it written really large, like it was on a big advert on the side of a bus. And it was in my mother's handwriting, like this
And then I heard Father come up the stairs and walk into the room.
He said, "Christopher, what the hell are you doing?" And I could tell that he was in the room, but his voice sounded tiny and far away, like people's voices sometimes do when I am groaning and I don't want them to be near me.
And he said, "What the fuck are you. . . ? That's my cupboard, Christopher. Those are. . . Oh shit. . . Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit."
Then he said nothing for a while.
Then he put his hand on my shoulder and moved me onto my side and he said, "Oh Christ." But it didn't hurt when he touched me, like it normally does. I could see him touching me, like I was watching a film of what was happening in the room, but I could hardly feel his hand at all. It was just like the wind blowing against me.
And then he was silent again for a while.
Then he said, "I'm sorry, Christopher. I'm so, so sorry."
Then he said, "You read the letters."
Then I could hear that he was crying because his breath sounded all bubbly and wet, like it does when someone has a cold and they have lots of snot in their nose.
Then he said, "I did it for your good, Christopher. Honestly I did. I never meant to lie. I just thought. . . I just thought it was better if you didn't know. . . that. . . that. . . I didn't mean to . . . I was going to show them to you when you were older."
Then he was silent again.
Then he said, "It was an accident."
Then he was silent again.
Then he said, "I didn't know what to say. . . I was in such a mess . . . She left a note and. . . Then she rang and. . . I said she was in hospital because. . . because I didn't know how to explain. It was so complicated.
So difficult. And I. . . I said she was in hospital. And I know it wasn't true. But once I'd said that. . . I couldn't. . . I couldn't change it. Do you understand. . . Christopher. . . ? Christopher. . . ? It just. . . It got out of control and I wish. . ."
Then he was silent for a really long time.
Arundhaty Ch 179 – By a process of elimination Christopher decides he has to go and live with his mother in far away London by taking a train.
And then I had to work out what to do.
And I did this by thinking of all the things I could do and deciding whether they were the right decision or not.
I decided that I couldn't go home again.
And I decided that I couldn't go and live with Siobhan because she couldn't look after me when school was closed because she was a teacher and not a friend or a member of my family.
And I decided that I couldn't go and live with Uncle Terry because he lived in Sunderland and I didn’t know how to get to Sunderland and I didn't like Uncle Terry because he smoked cigarettes and stroked my hair.
And I decided I couldn't go and live with Mrs. Alexander because she wasn't a friend or a member of my family even if she had a dog, because I couldn't stay overnight in her house or use her toilet because she had used it and she was a stranger.
And then I thought that I could go and live with Mother because she was my family and I knew where she lived because I could remember the address from the letters, which was 451c Chapter Road, London NW2 5NG. Except that she lived in London and I'd never been to London before. I'd only been to Dover to go to France, and to Sunderland to visit Uncle Terry and to Manchester to visit Aunt Ruth, who had cancer, except she didn't have cancer when I was there. And I had never been anywhere apart from the shop at the end of the road on my own. And the thought of going somewhere on my own was frightening.
But then I thought about going home again, or staying where I was, or hiding in the garden every night and Father finding me, and that made me feel even more frightened. And when I thought about that I felt like I was going to be sick again like I did the night before.
And then I realized that there was nothing I could do which felt safe. And I made a picture of it in my head like this
And then I imagined crossing out all the possibilities which were impossible, which is like in a maths exam when you look at all the questions and you decide which ones you are going to do and which ones
you are not going to do and you cross out all the ones which you are not going to do because then your decision is final and you can't change your mind. And it was like this
Which meant that I had to go to London to live with Mother. And I could do it by going on a train because I knew all about trains from the train set, how you looked at the timetable and went to the station and bought a ticket and looked at the departure board to see if your train was on time and then you went to the right platform and got on board. And I would go from Swindon station, where Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson stop for lunch when they are on their way to Ross from Paddington in The Boscombe Valley Mystery.
And then I looked at the wall on the opposite side of the little passage down the side of Mrs. Shears's house where I was sitting and there was the circular lid of a very old metal pan leaning against the wall. And it was covered in rust. And it looked like the surface of a planet because the rust was shaped like countries and continents and islands.
And then I thought how I could never be an astronaut.
Shoba Ch 227 – On the journey to London by train, his pet rat Toby escapes and Christopher has to jump down on the rails to try and save it.
And then I saw Toby, and he was also in the lower-down bit where the rails were, and I knew he was Toby because he was white and he had a brown egg shape on his back. So I climbed down off the concrete. And he was eating a bit of rubbish that was an old sweet paper. And someone shouted, "Jesus. What are you doing?"
And I bent down to catch Toby but he ran off. And I walked after him and I bent down again and I said, "Toby. . . Toby. . . Toby," and I held out my hand so that he could smell my hand and smell that it was me.
And someone said, "Get out of there, for fuck's sake," and I looked up and it was a man who was wearing a green raincoat and he had black shoes and his socks were showing and they were gray with little diamond patterns on them.
And I said, "Toby. . . Toby. . ." but he ran off again.
And the man with the diamond patterns on his socks tried to grab my shoulder, so I screamed. And then I heard the sound like sword fighting and Toby started running again, but this time he ran the other way, which was past my feet, and I grabbed at him and I caught him by the tail.
And the man with the diamond patterns on his socks said, "Oh Christ. Oh Christ."
And then I heard the roaring and I lifted Toby up and grabbed him with both hands and he bit me on my thumb and there was blood coming out and I shouted and Toby tried to jump out of my hands.
And then the roaring got louder and I turned round and I saw the train coming out of the tunnel and I was going to be run over and killed so I tried to climb up onto the concrete but it was high and I was holding Toby in both my hands.
And then the man with the diamond patterns on his socks grabbed hold of me and pulled me and I screamed, but he kept pulling me and he pulled me up onto the concrete and we fell over and I carried on screaming because he had hurt my shoulder. And then the train came into the station and I stood up and I ran to the bench again and I put Toby into the pocket inside my jacket and he went very quiet and he didn't move.
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