Mark Haddon is a writer and illustrator of numerous award-winning
children's books and television screenplays. As a young man, Haddon
worked with autistic individuals. He teaches creative writing for
the Arvon Foundation and lives in Oxford, England.
1. On pages 45-48, Christopher describes his "Behavioral
Problems" and the effect they had on his parents and their
marriage. What is the effect of the dispassionate style in which he
relates this information?
2. Given Christopher's aversion to being touched, can he
experience his parents' love for him, or can he only understand it
as a fact, because they tell him they love him? Is there any
evidence in the novel that he experiences a sense of attachment to
other people?
3. One of the unusual aspects of the novel is its inclusion of
many maps and diagrams. How effective are these in helping the
reader see the world through Christopher's eyes?
4. What challenges does The Curious Incident
present to the ways we usually think and talk about characters in
novels? How does it force us to reexamine our normal ideas about
love and desire, which are often the driving forces in fiction?
Since Mark Haddon has chosen to make us see the world through
Christopher's eyes, what does he help us discover about
ourselves?
5. Christopher likes the idea of a world with no people in it
[p. 2]; he contemplates the end of the world when the universe
collapses [pp. 10-11]; he dreams of being an astronaut, alone in
space [pp. 50-51], and that a virus has carried off everyone and
the only people left are "special people like me" [pp. 198-200].
What do these passages say about his relationship to other human
beings? What is striking about the way he describes these
scenarios?
6. On pages 67-69, Christopher goes into the garden and
contemplates the importance of description in the book he is
writing. His teacher Siobhan told him "the idea of a book was to
describe things using words so that people could read them and make
a picture in their own head" [p. 67]. What is the effect of reading
Christopher's extended description, which begins, "I decided to do
a description of the garden" and ends "Then I went inside and fed
Toby"? How does this passage relate to a quote Christopher likes
from The Hound of the Baskervilles: "The world is
full of obvious things which nobody by chance ever observes" [p.
73]?
7. According to neurologist Oliver Sacks, Hans Asperger, the
doctor whose name is associated with the kind of autism that
Christopher seems to have, notes that some autistic people have "a
sort of intelligence scarcely touched by tradition and
culture-unconventional, unorthodox, strangely pure and original,
akin to the intelligence of true creativity" [An
Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks, NY: Vintage Books,
1995, pp. 252-53]. Does the novel's intensive look at Christopher's
fascinating and often profound mental life suggest that in certain
ways, the pity that well-meaning, "normal" people might feel for
him is misdirected? Given his gifts, does his future look
promising?
8. Christopher experiences the world quantitatively and
logically. His teacher Mr. Jeavons tells him that he likes math
because it's safe. But Christopher's explanation of the Monty Hall
problem gives the reader more insight into why he likes math. Does
Mr. Jeavons underestimate the complexity of Christopher's mind and
his responses to intellectual stimulation? Does Siobhan understand
Christopher better than Mr. Jeavons?
9. Think about what Christopher says about metaphors and lies
and their relationship to novels [pp. 14-20]. Why is lying such an
alien concept to him? In his antipathy to lies, Christopher decides
not to write a novel, but a book in which "everything I have
written . . . is true" [p. 20]. Why do "normal" human beings in the
novel, like Christopher's parents, find lies so indispensable? Why
is the idea of truth so central to Christopher's narration?
10. Which scenes are comical in this novel, and why are they
funny? Are these same situations also sad, or exasperating?
11. Christopher's conversations with Siobhan, his teacher at
school, are possibly his most meaningful communications with
another person. What are these conversations like, and how do they
compare with his conversations with his father and his mother?
12. One of the primary disadvantages of the autistic is that
they can't project or intuit what other people might be feeling or
thinking-as illustrated in the scene where Christopher has to guess
what his mother might think would be in the Smarties tube [pp.
115-16]. When does this deficit become most clear in the novel?
Does Christopher seem to suffer from his mental and emotional
isolation, or does he seem to enjoy it?
13. Christopher's parents, with their affairs, their arguments,
and their passionate rages, are clearly in the grip of emotions
they themselves can't fully understand or control. How, in
juxtaposition to Christopher's incomprehension of the passions that
drive other people, is his family situation particularly
ironic?
14. On pages 83-84, Christopher explains why he doesn't like
yellow and brown, and admits that such decisions are, in part, a
way to simplify the world and make choices easier. Why does he need
to make the world simpler? Which aspects of life does he find
unbearably complicated or stressful?
15. What is the effect of reading the letters Christopher's
mother wrote to him? Was his mother justified in leaving? Does
Christopher comprehend her apology and her attempt to explain
herself [pp. 106-10]? Does he have strong feelings about the loss
of his mother? Which of his parents is better suited to taking care
of him?
16. Christopher's father confesses to killing Wellington in a
moment of rage at Mrs. Shears [pp. 121-22], and swears to
Christopher that he won't lie to him ever again. Christopher
thinks, "I had to get out of the house. Father had murdered
Wellington. That meant he could murder me, because I couldn't trust
him, even though he had said 'Trust me,' because he had told a lie
about a big thing" [p. 122]. Why is Christopher's world shattered
by this realization? Is it likely that he will ever learn to trust
his father again?
17. How much empathy does the reader come to feel for
Christopher? How much understanding does he have of his own
emotions? What is the effect, for instance, of the scenes in which
Christopher's mother doesn't act to make sure he can take his
A-levels? Do these scenes show how little his mother understands
Christopher's deepest needs?
18. Mark Haddon has said of The Curious
Incident, "It's not just a book about disability.
Obviously, on some level it is, but on another level . . . it's a
book about books, about what you can do with words and what it
means to communicate with someone in a book. Here's a character
whom if you met him in real life you'd never, ever get inside his
head. Yet something magical happens when you write a novel about
him. You slip inside his head, and it seems like the most natural
thing in the world" [http://www.powells.com/authors/haddon.html ].
Is a large part of the achievement of this novel precisely
this-that Haddon has created a door into a kind of mind his readers
would not have access to in real life?
19. Christopher's journey to London underscores the difficulties
he has being on his own, and the real disadvantages of his
condition in terms of being in the world. What is most frightening,
disturbing, or moving about this extended section of the novel [pp.
169-98]?
20. In his review of The Curious Incident, Jay
McInerney suggests that at the novel's end "the gulf between
Christopher and his parents, between Christopher and the rest of
us, remains immense and mysterious. And that gulf is ultimately the
source of this novel's haunting impact. Christopher Boone is an
unsolved mystery" [The New York Times Book Review,
6/15/03, p. 5)]. Is this an accurate assessment? If so, why?