Christopher as the only character with real depth and texture
Can you show some respect for the deads?
My son has been diagnosed with autism, and I feel like the author really does get what autistic people are like.But the thing I liked most was how he managed to portray Christopher as the only character with real depth and texture. Where Christopher has his very obvious and real limitations, his parents are enmired in equally debilitating and more stupid squabbles and jealousies. Christopher's issues come across to me as more real. He doesn't like people to touch him for a very good reason - because it hurts. He was certainly the most sympathetic character in the book, but also the bravest, the most honorable, the smartest, the wisest, the fairest, the one with the most interesting life. Everybody else in the book was sort of flat and predictable by comparison. He was the hero. He had a future you wanted to know about. At least that's how I saw it. And in real life, as I experience it, it can really be that way. For that reason, autism isn't this gigantic tragedy to me. Yes, you wonder who will hire him and love him when you are gone, and no, he wasn't prom king. But there are plenty of compensations if you can get past all that.I've read some reviews about how Christopher fails to understand the tragedy of his parent's divorce, because autistic people have no empathy and so on and so forth. I beg to differ. Christopher is initially motivated by his love for a dog, and a sense of the injustice done to the dog. But his other big move is to go to London, which wouldn't have happened if he hadn't cared about his mother. He explains that the reason he has an easier time with animals is that they don't lie to him. He understands their minds and can trust them to be faithful and honest... it's not about lack of empathy for people. Every autistic person I know well is deeply empathetic. Because of (for example) the stupid fights he sees his parents go through, people have to do more to gain his trust. Autism is seen as a disability, because people like Christopher don't get some really big things, like that his father isn't going to kill him. But Christopher doesn't get his father for the same reason his father doesn't get him - because their brains are wired differently. In this sense, Christopher isn't any dumber or less empathetic or less rational than his father, and Haddon conveys this beautifully.Christopher and his father are thrown into this world with different brains, but with the same desire to create a meaningful life. The mind of Christopher's father gives him certain advantages toward this end, but Christopher's mind gives him equally big advantages, and Haddon leaves you genuinely wondering which mind you would rather have. It was just great. 