Sometimes your have narrators that just don't know what's going on. They're clueless (like, if you hang around, you'll realize that our protagonist this week is.)
Christopher is the protagonist of our book, a high functioning, autistic child (once called Asperger's syndrome, but now it's all just different levels on the autism scale.) The book opens with one of the neighbor's dogs being dead on her front lawn. You realize, pretty early on that there is a lot going on in the adult world that Christopher just isn't catching onto.
I don't want to give away too much here, because there's a lot to give away, but Christopher tells everything that adults tell him at face value, a lot of times because they're adults. There are some adults he's skeptical of, but his believes everything his father says. He believes everything the police say, because his father says to believe them. It's a very naive world view and, as an outside reader, it's easy to see his naivete.
I don't want to give away too much here, because there's a lot to give away, but Christopher tells everything that adults tell him at face value, a lot of times because they're adults. There are some adults he's skeptical of, but his believes everything his father says. He believes everything the police say, because his father says to believe them. It's a very naive world view and, as an outside reader, it's easy to see his naivete.
I haven't read it recently, but I loved Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue. It's from the viewpoint of a little boy (Jack) who was born after his mom was kidnapped and sequestered in a little room set up by her kidnapper. (Donoghue wrote the story after hearing about the Fritzl case.) The boy has only ever known life inside that room, so he hasn't socialized with anyone other than his mom (the kidnapper visits, of course, but the boy's interaction with him is extremely limited) and the TV.
Like Cassy, I don't want to give away the rest of the book, but the boy has a unique perspective on everything, and it really makes you think what the world would be like if you had spent your first several years caged like he did.
I LOVE both of those books. Seriously can't even begin to explain why I loved them so much. I think partly because they were told from the point of view of a child. Room was such a tragic story and I almost cried so many times, just because that kind of abuse is so horrific. But it was such an interesting perspective.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I'm the only person in the whole world who didn't like Room. Maybe I have no soul. Or maybe I've just read so many horrific things, I expect things to be, well, gut wrenching. I don't know. I expected more out of Room and I think BECAUSE it was told from the kid's perspective is why it kind of made it not as good for me.
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