Abstract
Recently, I saw the award-winning National Theatre production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. It’s a compelling journey into the world of a teenager, Christopher Boone. Mark Haddon published Curious Incident as a novel in 2003. Simon Stephens adapted it for the theatre in 2012. Right now, the play is on stage in London and New York, and about to launch a year-long UK tour.
Haddon has been diffident about depicting Christopher as someone on the autism spectrum: ‘I gave him some rules to live by and some character traits and opinions, all of which I borrowed from people I know, none of whom would be labeled as having a disability’. Others say Haddon has given Christopher ‘too many’ autistic traits to be believable. Personally, I think it’s not a matter of tallying up characteristics: autism is always pervasive, but shapes individuals in different ways. I find Christopher strongly evocative of someone on the spectrum, although if there’s one aspect that jars, it’s Christopher’s exceptional mathematical ability (it’s often assumed that people with autism will be savants, and that’s far from true). But – no spoiler intended – it’s Christopher’s passion for maths that gives the play its feel-good finale.
Looking at the world through Christopher’s eyes – patterns of thinking, sensing, feeling – Curious Incident alerts us to the way we ourselves ‘process’ all that bombards us. It also highlights the strain that differences in perception bring. Christopher is not the only one who feels overwhelmed: his mother wrestles with the gritty everyday reality of making adjustments to ‘normal’ life for Christopher; his father struggles with the impact of caring for Christopher on his marriage. All three are locked in a quest to meet life’s unexpected demands with integrity, and to find a way through the thicket together.
Characters who might be on the autism spectrum have made a splash in detective fiction too, of late: Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Saga Norèn in The Bridge, the eponymous hero of Sherlock. Finding autistic perspectives in the mainstream is good sign of a journey towards understanding and celebrating difference.
Today around 1 in 100 people are said to be on the autism spectrum. Isolation is common. Many fall through cracks in public provision. To secure support, it’s always necessary to catalogue ‘what’s wrong’, which is disheartening. As a refreshing alternative, Debi Brown lists twenty ‘Advantages of being on the Spectrum’ (www.aspiedebi.com):
We are a lot more able to be honest than most other people; we are rare and precious; we have an ability to focus and work harder than other people when we want to; we love justice; we see things in a different way; we are creative; we are innocent; we have child-like hearts; we are good learners and may be very good teachers; we respond well to consistency, rules and structure; we are highly moral; we have lives that frequently present new comic situations; our number one priority is not ‘what other people might think’; we are simple people; we value substance over style; we have a rich and complex inner life; we are very courageous; we are survivors; we can use our bad experiences to help others.
Christian communities are called to be inclusive. And strangers bring unexpected gifts.
Resources: http://www.oxford.anglican.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/autism_guidelines.pdf.