The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

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You can be severely autistic and high-functioning. The two are not mutually exclusive.

A friend suggested that I read it, possibly thinking I could relate to it. Not really. I would say I'm mildly autistic, so maybe that's why. Then again, I agree with the "stereotype on two legs" comment that someone made on this thread.

Are there any good fiction books where the protagonist has AS and the author also has it?

You might enjoy " the Swan & the Burglar" written by Brenda Boyd as well...

I thought that was a weak point. The door that Monty Hall chooses in not a random occurrence, it is baised on pre-knowledge of what is behind all three doors.

What it comes down to is the contestants first choice is irrelevant. On his second choice he has a 50-50 chance of getting the car.

Actually, it's a 67% vs a 33% chance. But maybe that's for a different forum...

I'm afraid you are wrong. The explanation given in the book is correct. The contestant should always reject their first choice.

There's quite a length article on it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem

"doubled up post removed"

Last edited by mgran on 05 Jul 2009, 6:10 am, edited 1 time in total.

The description of what happens when he's travelling on the train I could really relate to. Sometimes I've been nearly that bad. You know it's bad when your eleven year old son has to take you by the hand and lead you to safety. He's thirteen now, but my worst time on a train occured when he was eleven, and I think if he hadn't got me off the platform, they'd have probably sent security or something.

Also, interestingly the way the character tries to calm himself with squaring numbers. I'm bad with numbers, but good with shapes, and when I'm very stressed, I sometimes find myself calming down by trying to visualise an object in four or five dimensions. Alternatively I'll try to hum at a pitch to counteract the noise of the train.

I never intend to stand there with my eyes closed humming, or knocking my forhead on walls, but it does occasionally happen, usually on the London Underground.

So I could relate to the character.

I enjoyed the book, but I can't relate to the character he's too severe. I think the character is too stereotypical with the whole maths genius thing. And some parts of the book are a bit too descriptive and graphic, like when christopher describes going to the toilet, it's a bit pointless. And I wasn't too keen on the bits where he goes on about maths and that, I just skipped through those bits because I just wanted to read the story I'm not interested in the maths. My favourite part is where Chrsitopher hides in the storage cupboard on the train and people pretend they can't see him, I find that bit quite amusing, I actually drew a picture based on that scene the other week.
All in all I think it was a good book, and I found it both funny and sad in parts. Thre's only a few critisisms.

I think only someone who knows autism could understand what a hero Christofer was to take that trip across town. He was it was a quest akin to Jason's!

I've attempted to read it, but it's quite terrible. Way to slow, and all the off-topic-ness just clouds it up and districts me from the story.

That was the first novel I read in under 24 hours. I was on holiday and was totally antisocial all day cos I couldn't put it down. Well more than usual, instead of playing Sims in the living room I shut myself in my room. I didn't think much of it when I first read it cos I was only young, and just liked it cos autism had been around me a long time cos my friend's brother has it and I have worked with sufferers, but reading it again recently I found I could relate to some aspects of it. My psychologist asked me about it when I mentioned its one of my favourites too. I think its beautifully written and can imagine that is possibly as close to being a classic autist as you can get without actually suffering from it.

I haven't read the book and won't either. I don't like fiction in the first place and I don't like books about Asperger's written by someone who has absolutely no merit for writing about it whatsoever.

I disagree that he has "absolutely no merit...whatsoever." He worked with autistic children for years. That's certainly some merit, at least. I suppose, though, you could argue that it's a bit like a white guy trying to right about the black experience in America.

I have to agree with the poster who said that the book was essentially the embodiment of every single autistic stereotype out there. Being that it's a work of fiction, I think that's okay. People, however, need to realize that virtually no one who is autistic exhibits every single autistic symptom.

I've finished this book a couple of weeks ago, and thought it was great. The writing is different than that other novels, which I liked. I do have some things in common with Christopher, but I suck at math and I don't care about outer space (I do believe in aliens, but I don't constantly research on the subject).

I think that the non-autistic writer took all the different quirks and oddities of the autistic children he worked with, and mixed them up to create Christopher. I'd like to read a book that was written by someone with autism, but I keep thinking that they would only be interested in writing fantasy novels (I love the fantasy genre, but I'm not into reading actual fantasy novels anymore).

Certainly extreme and stereotypical but the way he simply didn't get his social environment, both what is happening and his role within in, was very good. He didn't understand what it meant that his parents loved him, he just did not see the significance, very similar to myself for many years. Or the way that if something goes wrong he just continues on the with the same path that actually caused the problem, if I'd realised I do this I could have avoided years of pain. Very depressing to be honest, especially towards the end when he believes that because he'd done this huge task of travelling to London he'll be able to leave home, go to university and meet a pretty lady. Something tells me that characters really wouldn't be able to. That ability of the character to draw inferences about social situations which relate to what he wishes to happen in life and yet they are completely false, very well done and very depressing.

I tried to read it, couldn't stand it. It all struck me as an Aspie written by someone who'd never met a real one, and I kept getting rather annoyed by all the reviews saying "This book's brilliant, it's so useful for learning how people with Asperger think".

In fact, until I read this thread, I'd never met an Aspie who said anything other than "That book's nonsense". It just seemed exaggerrated, clichéd, and full of the sort of thing that in other media might result in Boston Legal.