Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon ::
by William the Bloody
Wellington, the dog, has been murdered. Christopher was out for a quiet, late-night walk when he found the body. The dog had been run-through with a garden pitch fork. Christopher removed the fork and held the dog in his arms. Mrs. Shears, Wellington's owner then discovered Christopher holding her dead dog and demanded to know what he had done.
Christopher knows every prime number up through 7.057 and can solve complex math equations in his head. He knows a smiley face means "happy" and a frowny face means "sad," but when it comes to facial expressions that is all he knows. Christopher is 15 and autistic.
Mrs. Shears decides not to press charges on Christopher so he is free, but decides he must prove his innocence by finding out who really did kill Wellington. He follows in the footsteps of Sherlock Holmes, his favorite fictional character, and begins his quest to solve the mystery. Unfortunately for Christopher, someone like himself who tries to avoid people in general because he cannot understand their fluctuating complexities, such a task proves very difficult and he finds out more than what he was looking for.
Curious Incident was a fascinating book to me. It is all told through Christopher's confused eyes and seems to open up another world. A world where logic rules and people's faces and expressions are the most frightening things of all. He also has a photographic memory and an all seeing eye for detail, and as a result new places and crowds are confusing and overwhelming due to his mind's need to recognize and remember every last detail of its surroundings.
The mystery of Who Killed Wellington is interesting as it unfolds, not just on itself, but into an even bigger mystery. It may at times seem obvious to the reader where it is headed but it isn't to Christopher because of the way his mind works differently from ours, and as result you find yourself wondering just what will happen to Christopher mentally when he gets there.
This book was a wonderful insight into the inner workings of someone in Christopher's mind-set, and amazingly at times isn't always logical. He hates certain colors and won't even touch things that happen to be hose colors. He doesn't like to be touched, unless it is by someone he trusts, and even then only to hold hands. These peculiarities do occasionally expand to the mildly disgusting, just as a warning. Such as, his refusal to use a bathroom when he doesn't know who else might have used it, and sometimes, wetting himself. Some people might find this unnecessary, but I think it only helps to show just exactly how different he is, and that it isn't always pretty in real life. It's an honest, no-holds-barred look at the mind of a child who is brilliant but at the same time trapped and what this can do to a family.
A-
