Mark Haddon, página 2 de 4

"George pensa che il segreto per essere felici stia ""Dell'ignorare del rutto tante cose"". Ma quando sua figlia Katie annuncia di volersi risposare, nella famiglia I lali succedono cose difficili da ignorare. La macchina del matrimonio innesca reazioni imprevedibili e manda in crisi unioni presenti e future. George viene preso dal panico, complice anche una piccola macchia sulla pelle, che pero, a detta di tutti, e uoa cosa da nulla. "

"Anche se e un ragazzino vivace, a scuola Jim non e che sia molto brillante: qualcuno - ma e solo la sorella - dice che corre addirittura il rischio di finire in un istituto per bambini ritardati. D'altra parte, non sarebbe male sapere cosa pensano di lui gli insegnanti. Meno male che il suo amico Charlie ha un'idea davvero brillante: basta nascondere un walkie-talkie in sala professori! Detto fatto. I prof arrivano, discutono, se ne vanno. Anzi no, Mr Kidd e Mrs Pearce restano, e una volta soli iniziano a parlare in una strana lingua: sono forse rapinatori di banca che comunicano in codice? o spie? o marziani? I due nascondono un segreto, Jim e Charlie ne sono convinti; e iniziano la loro indagine senza sapere che si stanno mettendo davvero nei guai: Charlie scompare, Jim rischia di essere a sua volta rapito. E a questo punto la storia decolla verso un pianeta misterioso, a 70.000 anni luce dalla Terra. "

Elogiada amb entusiasme per Oliver Sacks -"brillant"- i Ian McEwan -"superba"-, El curiós incident del gos a mitjanit es una novel"la que no s'assembla a cap altra. El narrador, Christopher Boone, te quinze anys i pateix una forma lleu d'autisme. Sap molt de matematiques i poc sobre els essers humans. Li agraden les llistes, els sistemes, la veritat& Odia el groc, el marro i que el toquin. Mai ha anat sol mes enlla de la botiga de la cantonada, pero quan descobreix que algu ha matat el gos d'una vena, decideix iniciar una investigacio. Lluny de fracassar, la recerca de Christopher, que emula el seu admirat Sherlock Holmes-el model de detectiu obsessionat amb el distanciament i l'analisi dels fets-, questionara ben aviat el sentit comu i el comportament dels adults que l'envolten.

Christopher is 15 and lives in Swindon with his father. When he discovers a dead dog on a neighbours lawn he decides to solve the mystery and write a detective thriller about it. As in all good detective stories, however, the more he unearths, the deeper the mystery gets - for both Christopher and the rest of his family.

Elogiada amb entusiasme per Oliver Sacks -brillant- i lan McEwan -superba-, El curiós incident del gos a mitjanit és una novel·la que no sassembla a cap altra. El narrador, Cristopher Boone, té

El curioso incidente del perro a medianoche es una novela que se parece a ninguna otra. Elegiada con entusiaso por autores consagrados como Oliver Sacks e Ian McEwan, ha merecido la aprobación masiva de los lectores en todos los paises donde se ha publicado, ademas de galardones como el Premio Whtibread y el Premio de la Commonwealth al Mejor Primer Libro.Su protagonista, Christopher Boone, es uno de los mas originales que han surgido en el panorama de la narrativa internacional en los ultimos años, y esta destinado a convertirse en un heroe literario universal de la talla de Oliver Twist y Holden Caulfield. A sus quince años, Christhoper Boone, conoce las capitales de todos los paises del mundo, puede explicar la teoria de la relatividad y recitar los numeros primos hasta el 7.507 pero le cuesta relacionarse con otros seres humanos. Le gustan las listas, los esquemas y la verdad, pero odia el amarillo, el marron y el contacto fisico. Si bien nunca ha ido solo mas alla de la tienda de la esquina, la noche que el perro de la vecina aparece atravesado por un horcon, Christopher decide iniciar la busqueda del culpable.

One of the most keenly awaited books of the year: the new novel from Mark Haddon. "The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night- Time" won no fewer than 17 literary prizes, including the Whitbread, and has sold in copious quantities in all its editions. "A Spot Of Bother" begins with George Hall, a retired man in his sixties, finding a mark on his hip, which he is convinced is skin cancer. His increasingly odd behaviour is a worry to his family, but they have their own concerns to deal with. Part family-farce, part clear-eyed presentation of mental illness, part novel of manners, all written in Mark Haddon's unique and affecting style.

That Mark Haddon's first book after "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" was a poetry collection perhaps came as a surprise to his legions of fans; that it is a collection of such virtuosity and range did not. The gifts so admired in Haddon's prose are in strong evidence here too - the humanity of his voices, the dark humour and the uncanny ventriloquism - but Haddon is also a writer of considerable seriousness, lyric power and surreal invention, and "The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea" combines bittersweet love-lyrics, lucid and bold new versions of Horace, comic set-pieces, lullabies, wry postmodern shenanigans (including a note from the official board of censors on "18" certificate poetry), and an entire John Buchan novel condensed to five pages. Consolidating Haddon's reputation as our most powerful myth-weavers and spell-makers, "The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea" also confirms him as one of the most outrageous and freewheeling imaginations at work in contemporary literature.

'Like plumbers and dentists, poets are fallible, and the possibility of genuine nonsense cannot be ruled out.' Well, Mark Haddon, you said it. The title - prolix, pretentious, shapeless (Haddon is a specialist in long titles - the bestselling Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time comes from his pen - is presumably intended to prefigure the collection itself and so serve by way of health warning. If so, it misses the mark, as nothing could prepare us for the tendentiousness, the unjustified formlessness, the ghastliness, of Haddon's verse.

George Hall doesn't understand the modern obsession with talking about everything. 'The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely.' Some things in life, however, cannot be ignored. At fifty-seven, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden, reading historical novels, listening to a bit of light jazz. Then Katie, his tempestuous daughter, announces that she is getting remarried, to Ray. Her family is not pleased - as her brother Jamie observes, Ray has 'strangler's hands'. Katie can't decide if she loves Ray, or loves the wonderful way he has with her son Jacob, and her mother Jean is a bit put out by all the planning and arguing the wedding has occasioned, which get in the way of her quite fulfilling late-life affair with one of her husband's former colleagues. And the tidy and pleasant life Jamie has created crumbles when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to the dreaded nuptials. Unnoticed in the uproar, George discovers a sinister lesion on his hip, and quietly begins to lose his mind. The way these damaged people fall apart - and come together - as a family is the true subject of Mark Haddon's disturbing yet very funny portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely.

Christopher è un quindicenne colpito dal morbo di Asperger, una forma di autismo. Ha una mente straordinariamente allenata alla matematica ma assolutamente non avvezza ai rapporti umani: odia il giallo, il marrone e l'essere sfiorato. Ama gli schemi, gli elenchi e la deduzione logica. Non è mai andato più in là del negozio dietro l'angolo, ma quando scopre il cane della vicina trafitto da un forcone capisce di trovarsi di fronte a uno di quei misteri che il suo eroe, Sherlock Holmes, era così bravo a risolvere. Inizia così a indagare...