Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Garan Holcombe (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of York), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 2004

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Crime and Detective
Novel
Children's Literature
- Young Adult

Resources

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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

, a memorable title which Mark Haddon took from a comment made by Sherlock Holmes in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s story

Silver Blaze,

represents a unique moment in modern fiction. Haddon’s novel may seem as if it fits neatly alongside those which deal with a child’s perspective on the darkest aspects of human behaviour, such as

What Maisie Knew,Flowers for Algernon

and

To Kill A Mockingbird

, but it is, above all, something entirely new. Haddon’s triumph is to have given us as unusual, convincing and strikingly alive a narrator as any in English literature. Christopher Boone is, in some ways, reminiscent of Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole (they share a love of mundane detail) and J. D. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield (in his defiant…

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2309 words

Citation: Holcombe, Garan. "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 September 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16877, accessed 24 November 2024.]

Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

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