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: Kerry Myler (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

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 l…

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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://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16877, accessed 24 November 2024.]

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