The Italian title isn't an accurate translation.
The title is a reference to one of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories, 'The Silver
Blaze' (in 'Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes):
"'Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?'
'To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.'
'The dog did nothing in the night-time.'
'That was the curious incident,' remarked Sherlock Holmes."
The point, I think, being that the fact that the dog hadn't barked suggested
that there was no intruder present or that whoever committed the crime in
question was known to the dog.
Not having yet read Haddon's book, I'm not certain how the quotation relates
to the subject. (I've got a feeling that Haddon's character is an obsessive
Sherlock Holmes fan, though I may be wrong on that point, and it wouldn't be
the whole story anyway.)But I think to say that the dog was 'bumped off'
misses the point of the original.
Allan Sutherland
----- Original Message -----
From: "m99m" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2004 11:01 AM
Subject: Re: "The Curious Incident of theDog in the Night Time"
> .
> The author is Mark Haddon.
>
> The Italian title is "Lo strano caso del cane ucciso a mezzanotte", which
> is a little more informative than the English title, i.e. it says the dog
> was bumped off in the middle of the night.
>
> (If they had used such an explicit title in UK, Tony would have declared a
> People's Day of Mourning for the Dog, and Blunkett would have declared a
> National State of Emergency and had every dog's paw prints recorded, and
> lost on a computer. A Scientific Commission of Enquiry might also have
been
> set up to discover the precise timing of the death, to report within five
> years).
>
> The book - a work of fiction - is related in the supposed voice of a 15-
> year-old boy with Asperger's syndrome, attending a school for children
with
> special needs. (Non-disabled children therefore shout "Special Needs!" as
> an insult. If UK gets a bit more modern, presumably they will shout
"Yah-ha
> Included!")
>
> The boy's own remarks about children with physical disabilities, perhaps
> articulating a covert public opinion, are rather contemptuous. However, he
> is not portrayed as an expert on PC terminology. His views might have been
> influenced by the fact that he does not like the smell or sight of other
> people's excrement, and therefore cannot use the pupils' toilet at school,
> which is liberally smeared with this product.
>
> The language used by adults throughout the book is of a kind that could
not
> legally have been published in UK 40 years ago. The religious cursing may
> have been tidied up in the Italian version, and the film version (in
> progress) might, I suppose, use less of the procreational epithets for the
> American market.
>
> People with Asperger's who have, for years, been irritated by the Rain Man
> being the standard reference point, can now look forward to 30 years of
> being "understood" by complete strangers in terms of Christopher Boone,
the
> supposed Asperger hero of the Curious Incident. (However, in the film
he'll
> probably make Professor of Math at Cambridge, which he doesn't in the
book).
>
> Although the book has sold well in the UK, close textual analysis has been
> delayed because everyone's copy has been loaned out by their partner to
> someone at the office whose cousin has a child who might have Asperger's.
>
> m99m
>
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