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Autism is always an
interesting thing to write about. It's honestly kind of a gimmick,
and can sometimes drown in its own one-track perspective, but as with
anything of this genre, it can be used to expose interesting facts
about human nature and the way the world works. The best of this type
is Kozinsky's wonderful Zen book, Being There, but for every
Being There we are tortured with likes a million Sean Penn
and Juliette Lewis stinkers. Not that being mentally challenged is
the same as having autism, but the whole "innocent" viewing the screwed
up world around him is pretty much par for the course. Execution is,
of course, the essential piece of the puzzle. Now, you could take
the St. Elsewhere approach and just fake it, or you could
write a convincing story, and be consistent with it. That's often
the problem when adults write stories with children main characters--let
alone autistic kids. Haddon does a great job with the child part.
Granted, he's a British child, so there's already a kind of funny,
adult thing going on from the start. Anyway, Haddon nails the kid
thing. As far as autism goes, I don't have a ton of experience with
it, although I've been around a couple higher functioning autistic
kids who you never would have known suffered from autism hadn't they
been waaaay too into The Warriors or been able to calculate exactly
how much everyone in our party of fifteen (along with a 15% tip) owed
after looking at the dinner bill for three seconds. I can't claim
this as a major work of genius, or literature, but it certainly is
an entertaining book that manages to keep a consistent and engaging
narrative going. I liked it.
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