When Hornby, who has an autistic son, picks up Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time he’s intrigued by the notion of a narrator with Asperger’s syndrome. He’s enjoying the book until he reads, ‘I decided it was a kind of puzzle’. Haddon’s narrator would apparently be incapable of this feat of mental willpower. ‘The truth,’ grieves Hornby, ‘gets bent out of shape.’ He then turns into a pre-Chatterley Lord Chamberlain. ‘Maybe it’s a book that can’t properly be described as a work of art.’ Uh? From a writer who believes a list of humanity’s greatest achievements must include Arsenal’s central midfield?
Well, anyway, that’s the end of the nasty bit, Hornby, you small-minded, nit-picking girlie-man. Now back to the kind review. I laughed on every page. I wanted to buy dozens of copies and give them to all my friends. It’s a hoot, a treasure, an absolute joy. Hornby is such an accomplished literary entertainer that one can happily apply to him the ultimate test of all critical writing. Is he worth reading even if you haven’t experienced the work he’s reviewing? Absolutely.
Comments
There are currently no comments for this article.