Quote Originally Posted by GHoSToKeR
'The Curious Incident of The Dog In The Night-time' is one of the best books i've read lately. It's written in the style of an autistic child (I think he was autistic..), and because of his illness he barely had any emotions. He couldnt understand happiness, sadness, excitement, boredom, love, hate, fear or any other emotion - but he would react as if he could feel these emotions because that is what he thinks is the right thing to do. He has fits and extremely bad behavioural problems. He is also insanely intelligent.. at one point in the book (remember, he's only maybe 10-12) he calculates the population growth of a small 'community' of frogs.. he does this in his head. He understands algebra, physics, etc, and is emmensly logical..

Then somebody murders a dog that lives in the same street as him, stabs it with a fork. The boy discovers the dog and goes to it, holding it in his arms.. He doesn't feel remorse for this dog, he doesn't feel sadness or anything, even though he has somewhat of a 'companionship' with it - he just knows that the dog is making strange noises and is bleeding, so it is probably dying. He is fascinated by it so he stays to watch the dog die (remember, he doesnt have any emotion), at which point the owner of the dog, an old lady, arrives and shouts at the boy, thinking it was him who murdered the dog. The boy flees and from then on he vows to find out who murdered the dog so as to free his name. The hunt takes him all over England, where you meet his seperated parents and different members of his family and community.. It's an amazing insight in to the mind of somebody without emotion, somebody who cannot comprehend why or how people can do the things they do because of foreign concepts such as love or hate.. it's also an interesting look at how trivial most of our actions are.. things we consider to be important are usually just blown out of proportion by our out of control emotions. I think one of the most moving factors is the love the boys dad has for him, and yet his son is unable to love him back, which eventually drives the dad away... I would definately recommend this book to everybody.
That sounds like a very interesting read.....I'll add it to my list.