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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon

I read this book on holiday by accident.

I had bought a couple of books at the airport which I will never finish - one is Confessions of a Sociopath (I may blog about how bad it is later) and the other was another David Mitchell (the comedian) that I haven't even started. I was trying to get through the Sociopath book and my wife was reading this and I picked it up and couldn't stop.

In fact this holiday I read it, my wife read it and our thirteen year old daughter read it. We had a mini book club and were able to discuss it. Everybody got something different from this book and everybody's views were slightly different. I realise I am coming to this twelve years too late and that many people have read this and it's old hat but this is how it goes with books, sometimes you just navigate into one which is very old and you see why everybody loved it.

This book is a bit more important than that I think and should probably be one which is most insisted upon in the National Curriculum although my daughter tells me they may be doing this at school next year which I think is wonderful progress.

I wanted to have a conversation with one of my friends who has an autistic son before I felt able to write anything about this because I didn't want to come across as being a preacher or someone out of their depth with little understanding of how challenging it can be to look after someone with Autism or Aspergers and how difficult it can be as a couple.

This is a wonderfully profound and emotional story read in the first person by a boy with high-level Aspergers who is able to function reasonably well on society contrary to the experience of many people with profound Autism. It gives an insight into the condition which may be difficult to get from almost anywhere else but I think, much more than that, it gives an insight into the lives of the people who care for him.

It was only after talking to my wife about the book that I really understood and felt the sadness for his father, the position that he found himself in and the difficulty he had loving and caring for someone who might never truly understand, or seem to understand the sacrifices he has made.

For those of us who grow up without Aspergers or Autism and suddenly realise how much our parents have done for us and how little we would have achieved without them, it must be devastating to realise that that point will never come: and so difficult to try and function in a normal relationship with your partner when your day to day struggles are mammoth compared to everybody else's.

Heroes are not people who make the most money and heroes are not the people who wear the nicest clothes and put themselves on a pedestal. Bravery is a choice every single day and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time demonstrates just how brave the people who choose to care for those less able to care for themselves are. When its easy to give up or when the route seems too hard to take, the brave ones are the ones who take it on a day to day basis. Nobody thanks them, nobody holds them up in high esteem and nobody provides them with shiny bright objects or large pay packets for doing so.

This book taught me a lesson in the way that watching Schindler's List taught me a lesson. I think it should be compulsory for thirteen year olds and I salute everybody who has the ability and the stamina to continue to care in situations such as this.