Independent+novel+study

Questions left: How does the author get you to read on or hold your interest? Comment on the style of the novel. Is it easy or hard to follow the events? Describe any new characters that are introduced? What is their purpose?  What is the climax of the novel?  How are the major and minor conflicts solved?  What message did you get from the novel? How was this message conveyed?  Is the novel believable?

The curious Incident of the dog at night-time By: Mark Haddon

Entry one Pgs: 1-28 Questions- Why did you select this novel?  What information did you need to know before reading the novel?  What has happened before the novel began?

(just a reminder) At first, Christopher, the main character, seems to be a normal teenager, but after the first few pages of the book I begin to discover that he is not so normal at all. The author talks about his obsession for numbers and how he can not stand to be touched. The chapter begins when Christopher finds a dead dog with a fork embeded in it's chest, on his neighbors lawn. As Chris begins to pick up the dog his neighbor comes outside and begins to yell at him, thinking that he killed the dog. Christopher also can not stand to be yelled at, so he curls up in a ball and plugs his ears. This is when it was safe to assume that Chris is autistic. The neighbor then calls the police and Christopher gets taken to the police station. In the end of this chapter Chris gets home safely after convincing the police that he was not guilty and almost everything is back to normal. The only thing out of ordinary is that his mom is very sick and ends up dying. My favorite thing about this book so far is that the whole book comes from the point of view of someone who is autistic. This makes it very funny because the topic is always changing and Christopher is always saying funny things.
 * You may see that I edited this after class ended, but I asked for your permission.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time was not actually my first choice of book. Originaly I was planning on reading "Animal Farm". When I introduced this Idea to Mr. Janzen however, I was strongly cautioned not to read it because next year we would be reading it as a class novel study. So I decided to read the giver. I had heard many good things about this book and it seemed to be very interesting,but to my suprise, when I got home on Wednesday, I walked into the door only to find my sister burried in a novel called "the Curious Incident of the Dog at Night-time ". She said she was hooked on this book and suggested me to read it as well. I took up her offer and got it from the library on Thursday.

Before I began to read The curious incident of the dog at night time, I had already been well informed of the basic plot line by my sister, and mom, who was now also hooked on the book. I knew that it was about an autistic boy who put himself up to the challenge of discovering who was responsible for the murder of the dog that he found on his neibors lawn. I guess I didn't need to know this information, but it was what convinced me to choose the book. I had also talked to a few people who said the it was not only a funny book, but was also very emotional. This were the deciding factors for me of wether to read the novel or not.

10/10

Entry two pgs 28-48 Questions- What's going on as the story begins? Who is telling the story? How does this person’s perspective effect the way the story is told?  What is the setting of the novel? Is the setting important or could the novel be happening anywhere? Why?

As I progress through the novel the rising action becomes more apparent. At the beginning of page 28 Christopher decides that he is going to Mrs. Shear's house and make it clear that he did not kill Wellington(the dog) but without even agnologing him she shuts the door on him. This is when Christopher decides to be a detective and find out who really did kill wellington despite his fathers advice to mind his own buissnes. He begins by searching Mrs. Shears shed to find clues but this operation is quikley interupted when she sees him and thretens to call the police again. After that, he begins going about his street asking some of his neighbors if they have any information on the murder. None of them know anything about the crime so christopher concludes that it was someone he did not know who killed the dog. His prime suspect is Mr. Shears, who left Mrs. Shears many years before. Within these page there were various sub topics that christopher talked about like How he will take his advanced math test at school or how he had many behavioral problems but this was beside the main plot. The whole novel comes from Chistopher's point of view, and as you know Christopher is autistic. This makes the story very interesting because everything is different to him and you can see through the eyes of someone who is autistic. There are also times where you can understand how he does not understand something even though you may understand it. Like when christopher can not understand instructions. "...when people tell you what to do it is usually confusing and does not make sense. For example, people often say "be quiet" but they don;t tell you how long to be quiet for" Christopher also always goes off topic. One minute he will be taking about the murder and the next he will go into detail about how he always brings his pocket knife with him and how he does not talk to strangers...

The setting of this novel is in England, though so far in the story this has not effected the plot. I do not think that it really matters where the story takes place because the all the action occurs on Christopher's street. This would not be a hard atmosphere to replicate in Victoria or even in France. 10/10

Entry 3 pgs 48- 100 Questions- What is the initial or first problem faced by the main character? What new things are added to the original problem as the novel progresses? What plot twists or unexpected events happen as the novel goes on?

It is within the pages 50 to 100 that I am finally very intreged in the plot. At the beginning of page 48 Christop her's dad finds out that he is secretly still detecting and he gets very angry. Christopher tells him who is prime suspect is and all his dad says is that Mr. Shears is an evil man. The next day Christopher goes to the corner store to purchase some chocolat, when he is there he sees one of his neighbors Mrs Alexander. Christopher and Mrs. Alexander have a chat and she explains (after much questioning) that his mother was cheating on his father with Mr Shears. The pace begins to quiken when Christophers dad finds his novel. He gets very angry about it because he told Christopher not to do any more detecting so Christopher and him get in a fight and Chris is nocked unconciouse for a while. His dad also takes the book. The next day however His dad shows that he is sorry by appologising and by taking him to the zoo. Christopher persists with his novel and secretly looks around the house for it. He finds it in his fathers room, wich is the room he is not supposed to go into, but along with the book he finds many letters addressed to him in his mothers hand writing. He leaves the book where he finds it because he knows that his dad would notice if it was missing but takes one letter. The letter turns out to be from his mother and it talks about how she moved to London with Mr Shears and has a new job. Chris does not know what to think because he thought his mother was dead. The letter was addressed 18 months after she had died. The thing I really like about this part in the story is that I know only as much as Christopher so it is as much of a mystery for me as for him.

The initial problem faced by Christopher is finding out who killed the dog that he found on his neighbors lawn. Along with this problem however, comes many others that are even more confusing. The new problems that he is faced with are writing his novel and detecting without being seen by his father and uncovering the mystery of all the letters that he finds.

8/10

Entry 4 pgs 100-126 Questions- Is there a message or main theme emerging in the book? How is it shown? Why would you (or why wouldn't you) recommend this novel to a friend? Is the language in the novel difficult or easy? GIve examples and explain.  To what age group is the novel aimed? Support your answer with evidence.

 In this section Christopher continues to read the letters addressed to him from his mom, he finds out lots of little bits of information like where his mother is working and all about her new home. It is after the third letter however that Christopher begins to believe what he is reading and doubt what his father has told him. In this letter his mom tells him why she left and ran off with her boyfriend. She tells him that she left for the families sake because Chris and his dad were more happy without her around. After reading several more letters Christopher begins to feel sick and passes out on his bed, because he is unconscious his father gets home and sees him with all the letters lying around him. He explains to Chris that he lied about his mother because it all happened so fast, she left a note and phoned once and was gone. He didn't know what to say so in the spur of the moment he made a lie. The other huge piece of information that is revealed in these pages is that Christopher's dad killed the dog. He told this to Chris and explained that he became very close to Mrs. Shears but they began to fight and one night when she locked him out of her house, because they had had a particularly big fight., The dog (who was quite crazy because of meds) attacked him and it was out of personal defence that he killed it. After that Chistopher's dad goes down stairs and Chis pretends to go to bed. The reason he pretends to go to bed is because he is convinced that his father is a murderer and is very scared. He sneaks downstairs and out the door with his coat, some food and toby his rat and sleeps the rest of the night between the shed and the fence.

<span style="font: 12px/19px Arial; letter-spacing: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> The main theme in this book is slowly emerging and becoming a bigger part of the story. At the beginning the main theme seems to be the mystery of who killed the dog, but because this is discovered halfway through the book, it could not be the main theme. The author merges this problem with another, where and what exactly happened to Christopher's mother. There does not appear to be any messages at this point in the book exept maybe the author is trying to say that lying is bad.

<span style="font: 12px/19px Arial; letter-spacing: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> Personly I would not recommend this book to others simply it is not my type of book. I am interested in action packed books and not so much mysteries. Even if the person was interested in mysteries though, I still would not recommend it because even the mystery in this book is kind of lame.

<span style="font: 12px/19px Arial; letter-spacing: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> The language in this novel is not hard to understand for the most part because it is written, or supposably written, by a teenager. The only time I have troubles understanding the language is when Christopher goes on one of his rants about science or math because he is very advanced in those subjects. " Here is a formula for the population of animals, N new= (there is a symbol here which is not on my keyboard)(N old) (1-N old)" Then christopher goes on explaining this formula which is very confusing. I would say that this novel is aimed at adults for a few reasons. <span style="font: 12px/19px Arial; letter-spacing: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> 1) It has lots of swearing and talks about sex "Oh shit, shit, shit..." "What the fuck Christopher." <span style="font: 12px/19px Arial; letter-spacing: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> 2) The interesting part about this novel for many people is not the plot but is understanding what it is like to be autistic. This is something kids would not be interested in. 3)There are lots of topics which not suitable for younger audience members. Reader discretion is advised.

Entry 5 Pgs 126-end Questions- Why did (or didn't) the novel meet your expectations? What were the major things that helped to resolve the plot? What is the climax of the novel?

Because Christopher now thinks that his father is a murderer, he does not want to live at home anymore. He cannot think of anywhere else to go but his mothers, so with the address from the letters he begins making his way to the train station. Meanwhile Chris' dad discovers that Christopher is gone and phones the police suspecting that he has runaway to his mothers house in London. Christopher gets very overwhelmed by the busy station but gets on the train anyway. A policeman sees him and gets on the train with him. Just as they are getting off the train to take him home it begins to move and they are forced to wait until the next stop. Part way through the trip to the next station Christopher has to go to the bathroom but once he gets there he hides. When the train arrives at the next station, the policeman suspects that Chris has gotten off so he gets off to look for him. Chris actually gets off in london and finds his way to his mothers apartment. he tells her all about the letters and how his dad lied to him about many things. Roger does not understand Chris' behaviour and his mom gets very angry with him. Roger and Chris' mom split up and she moves back to the old house with Chris. Christopher and his mother stay at the dad's for a while but he tells the mother to find her own place to live. She buys a place close to his house and Christopher goes with her. Since the dad feels bad about lying to Chris about so many things he buys him a puppy. Christopher goes back to school and completes his level A maths and gets a great mark on it. The book ends with Chris's dad trying to amend the trust that he has broken.

I thought that this book was a bit boring because the pace was slow and I was not fond of the plot. When I first heard about it I thought that this book would be more of a mystery novel as opposed to a drama. The mystery itself was also quite predictable. I did like however, that it was from the view of someone who is autistic because it gave the plot a twist and everything the protagonist did was an extra challenge. I also the author did a good job of portraying an autistic person.

The major plot resolving incidences were, Chris finding his mother and him finding out who killed the dog. If Chiristopher had not found his mom, the book could not have ended happily. If he had not run away and found her, she would not have moved home or broken up with Roger. She would have stayed in london continuing on her life as normal. It was also cruetial that Chris discovered who killed the dog because that was the initial problem and was the main conflict in the story.

The climax was when Christopher decided to run away to his mothers. Everything before this had been building up to it; his dad telling him he killed the dog, his was what made him want to leave in the first place because he was scared. And the letters which gave him the vital information he needed to find her.