The Curious Incident

So. I finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. And let me just say, that is a phenomenal book. I really enjoyed it, largely in part to the fact that I've never read anything like it before, and I'm always down for some innovative writing. In class today we discussed what Christopher's idea of a "proper novel" is. And while he doesn't specifically talk about it, I noticed some other things about the book compared to "proper novels". I suppose it is implied that "proper novels" are supposed to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. In this sense, The Curious Incident could be considered proper. While Christopher himself does not seem to notice the various segments of his story (beginning, middle, climax, resolution, etc.) as they are happening, or even afterwords, they are definitely identifiable to the reader. Christopher writes what he does and sees happening around him. Yet he does not divide up his story or describe the events that happen in ways which suggest that they are meant to be the beginning, middle, end, etc. In this way, the readers are not told what happens, but rather they are shown. I don't mean this in the typical way that writers show readers, for example using large quantities of descriptive words and lots of metaphors and wordplay and such. Rather, while Christopher is literally telling us what is happening around him, he does not tell us or even imply that these events are part of something bigger, because he cannot notice this. Thus, we can infer our own meanings from the story by being shown what happens.

This is probably very confusing but it was on my mind a lot while reading this... =]