Curious incidents in the night-time

There’s been a discussion over on Susurra de Luz’s blog on whether when you look up at the aurora borealis, or even at the moon and stars, do “you find it more reassuring to feel puny in the context of the universe, or more terrifying?” I said I rather like it. I posted a quote in the comments that I found last night in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. I just finished it today – a wonderful read. The narrator, Christopher, is a 15-year-old autistic boy:

And when you look up at the sky you know you are looking at stars which are hundreds and thousands of light-years away from you. And some of the stars don't even exist anymore because their light has taken so long to get to us that they are already dead, or they have exploded and collapsed into red dwarfs. And that makes you seem very small, and if you have difficult things in your life it is nice to think that they are what is called negligible, which means that they are so small you don't have to take them into account when you are calculating something.

Besides giving a fascinating look at the world from the perspective of an autistic person, the writing is interesting in that the narrator’s detachment helps illustrate the old writing dictate: show don’t tell. For example, when Christopher describes his parents reacting to him, as in “Father put his hands over his face,” it gives you a simple but effective clue to their frustration in trying to cope with him. The exchanges are often both poignant and funny at the same time:

     It was 5:54 p.m. when Father came back into the living room. He said, “What is this? but he said it very quietly and I didn’t realize that he was angry because he wasn’t shouting.

     He was holding the book in his right hand.

     I said, “It’s a book I’m writing.”

     And he said, “Is this true? Did you talk to Mrs. Alexander?” He said this very quietly as well, so I still didn’t realize that he was angry.

     And I said, “Yes.”

     Then he said, “Holy fucking Jesus, Christopher. How stupid are you?”

     This is what Siobhan says is a rhetorical question. It has a question mark at the end, but you are not meant to answer it because the person who is asking it already knows the answer. It is difficult to spot a rhetorical question.

5:02:10 PM      trackback [] 

Grab the nearest book meme - variations

Here's a meme that's going around (last seen at All About George):

1. Grab the nearest book.

2. Open the book to page 23.

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the text of the sentence on your blog.

I decided it might be interesting to select five:

This smell brings me back to flour paste and papier-mâché days in my Brownie troop and grade school.

from Keeping a Journal You Love

 

The sense of having met a kindred spirit comes when our energy vibrations connect both in tone and vitality.

from A Home for the Heart

 

When I looked up through the web of trees, the night fell over me, and for a moment I lost my boundaries, feeling like the sky was my own skin and the moon was my heart beating up there in the dark.

from The Secret Life of Bees

 

A good hostess will bring you one anyhow, but on some anterior level she’s thinking, “Sure, here’s one in your lap, schmuck.”

(on using Tráigame un café to order coffee; preferred: ¿Me trae un café, por favor?)

from Breaking Out of Beginner Spanish

 

I like the uniforms and the machines.

from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

10:19:40 AM      trackback []