describing something as autistic?

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So I just started the book, "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.

He rose and stood tottering in that cold autistic dark with his arms outheld for balance while the vestibular calculations in his skull cranked out their reckonings.

Could someone please explain why the author described it as cold, dark and autistic? What would that mean... that autistics are cold and dark?

I've no clue, but I'm sure it's not an insult to autistics.

It's actually a rather interesting turn of phrase in my opinion because it's so strange.

Ohbytheway, how's the book?

I take it to mean that the dark is cold and isolating, playing on the roots of the word autism, from the Greek autos -- or self. I agree, it's definitely an interesting turn of phrase, and I rather like it.

It means that the dark gets obsessed with weird fixations!

I agree that he probably means it as "isolating." The way he talks about the vestibular sense trying to compensate for the dark means that there is no visual or tactile cues for him to get his balance by, so he's keeping his balance based on completely internal information (the distribution of endolymph of the semi-circular canals in his inner ear)- so his positional information is based entirely on cues relating to himself, and not his environment.

I think also think it is a very interesting descriptive word.

I think the word "autistic" should have been left out but yes... I get the sense that he meant isolated and separated.

Thanks for the explanations! Makes more sense now. And yeah, I thought it was an interesting descriptive word also.

Ohbytheway, how's the book?