Super Good Days or The Weird World of Christopher Boone

Supergute Tage or Die Weird Welt des Christopher Boone (Original title: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time ) is the first book by the British author Mark Haddon , which is not only intended for children. It was published with two different covers for adults and children and was the first book to win awards in both categories and even as a youth book. The novel about the life of a 15-year-old boy won the 2003 Whitbread Book of the Year Award , a British book award.

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Christopher Boone

The 15-year-old protagonist lives with his single father in the small English town of Swindon . At the special school it turns out that he has a mathematical talent for islands . He also has a photographic memory, is very observant and incapable of lying. In addition, he has problems understanding the behavior of others, gestures and relationships. His pet is a rat named Toby. Christopher differs significantly from others because of his point of view. He can only see sadness or happiness in other facial expressions. He doesn't understand any other facial expressions. Furthermore, he does not understand jokes or metaphors . He likes lists and facts, but is very afraid of strangers and unfamiliar places. He's also overly sensitive to any stimulus and starts screaming when too much information reaches his brain. He even becomes violent towards people who want to touch him.

Christopher's favorite book is The Baskerville Hound . He likes Sherlock Holmes because like him he thinks very logically and notices even small details. Christopher doesn't like the author of the books, however , as he was associated with spiritual circles. Christopher generally doesn't believe in the supernatural. So he explains why the Cottingley Fairies are a fake, and then refers to Ockham's razor .

Christopher is a fan of science fiction . He mentions Blade Runner , Blake's 7 , Doctor Who , Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind by name in the book . He also likes to watch nature documentaries, mostly about the deepest ocean. He also likes to play computer games, including Dune 2000 and Minesweeper . In the latter game, his best time is 99 seconds.

Christopher would like to be an astronaut . However, he knows that he does not have the necessary qualifications because he is short-sighted and does not follow orders and therefore cannot join the British Air Force .

Christopher hates the colors yellow and brown, but loves red. Among other things, this means that he has to mix red food coloring into yellow or brown food before he can eat it. Neither can he eat two things that touch on the plate.

If he sees three, four or five red cars in a row in the morning, it means that the day will be either “pretty good”, “very good” or “super good”. On days when he sees four yellow cars in the morning, he doesn't eat or talk to anyone because it's a “black day”. His “favorite dream” is the one in which all “normal” people, i. H. all who are different from him die.

Ed Boone

The single father works as a self-employed plumber and is generally able to give his son Christopher a lot of security with a lot of patience and great understanding. Unfortunately, he is also an alcoholic and thus quickly becomes angry and sometimes violent towards Christopher.

Judy Boone

Christopher reports in the book that his mother died of a heart attack. According to Christopher's knowledge, this happened two years before he wrote this book. However, it later emerges that she is alive and living in London with another man (Roger Shears).

Eileen Shears

She is the owner of the Wellington poodle. As their neighbor, she first had close contact with Christopher and his father after her husband left them for Christopher's mother. After an argument, however, she distanced herself from Christopher's father.

Roger Shears

Eileen Shears' ex-husband has a relationship with Judy Boone and now lives with her in London.

Mrs. Alexander

During the course of his investigation into Wellington's death, Christopher starts talking to the elderly lady, who also lives in his neighborhood. She tells him about the mother's relationship with Mr. Shears.

Siobhan

Christopher's psychiatrist, class teacher and mentor. She explains to him how society works and how to behave in difficult situations.

action

Christopher, a 15-year-old boy with personality traits that can be interpreted as autistic , discovers the lifeless Wellington, his neighbor's poodle , who has been pierced by a pitchfork . Mrs. Shears, Wellington's owner, is calling the police . The policeman tries to question Christopher, which is difficult because he tries to hit him because of his autism after the policeman touches him. Christopher decides to investigate the case to find out who killed the dog Wellington. This is made more difficult by the fact that he has various fears and serious difficulties interpreting the world around him. During his investigation, he writes down everything he learns in a book. He calls this book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time . While doing research, he meets people he has never spoken to, even though they live on his street.

Ed, his father, discovers the book and takes it away from him after a brief but heated argument. While searching for the hidden book, Christopher discovers a pile of letters his mother wrote to him. All letters were posted after the date she allegedly died. Ed had withheld all of the letters from Christopher so he wouldn’t know she was still alive. He had explained to Christopher that his mother had died after a heart attack. Based on the letters, Christopher concludes that his mother is still alive and that his father lied to him for over two years. He is so shocked by this that he curls up on his bed, vomits, and moans for several hours. When Ed comes home, he realizes that his son has read the letters. He confesses that he lied about Judy's death and vows never to lie to Christopher again. That same evening he confesses to killing Wellington. He did so after a heated argument with Mrs. Shears. She had come to them often beforehand and helped them, and Ed had hoped they could live together. After the argument, however, Ed thinks that Wellington is more important to Mrs. Shears than he and Christopher.

Christopher decides to run away and live with his mother because he has lost all trust in his father. He fears that the latter could kill him in cold blood, just as he did with Wellington. The way to London is going to be a very big adventure for Christopher, because up to this point he has only walked to the shop at the end of his street.

After a long and confusing journey, on which he feels very uncomfortable because of the immense amount of information, he finally finds the apartment of his mother and Mr. Shears. Since the two are not at home, he waits in the garden. His mother is very happy to see him and wants to take him in. She can't believe Ed told their son she was dead. She decides that Christopher can live with her and Mr. Shears in the small apartment. Mr. Shears disagrees with this decision, but has to accept it. In addition, Christopher would like to return to Swindon as soon as he arrives to take his math test (math A-level). Ultimately, Judy leaves Mr. Shears after the relationship broke up over the conflict over Christopher.

She moves into a spacious room in Swindon and, after an argument, allows Ed to see Christopher daily for a short period of time. At this point, Christopher is still hoping that his father will be jailed for the "murder" of Wellington. The story ends with Christopher receiving a dog, a golden retriever, from his father, with which the latter wants to regain the lost trust - no matter how long it may take. Christopher is certain that he will take more exams for high school and later go to university. At the end of the book, Christopher is very optimistic about his future: He successfully solved the mystery of the killed dog, drove to London alone, found his mother and passed his math exam with the grade "very good".

Remarks

The original English title of the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time cites a remark made by Sherlock Holmes in Arthur Conan Doyle's book Silver Blaze . The German title refers to the fact that the protagonist Christopher announces “super good days” when he sees five red cars drive by in a row. The novel, which is also available as an audio book , is illustrated with fictitious "original drawings" by the first-person narrator. Since Christopher particularly values order in the world of mathematics, the chapters of his book are numbered with prime numbers, so that after just a few pages the reader is in Chapter 29. For the same reason, some mathematical puzzles that Christopher deals with are also described, including the Monty Hall problem (Eng .: goat problem ). The book is often characterized in reviews as a realistic first-person description of autism . However, according to the author, this is not a book about autism. Mark Haddon says he knows little about the subject. He is more interested in the dignified portrayal of an outsider as a literary figure who awakens compassion and understanding for their individuality.

Awards

2003: Guardian Award
2003: Whitbread Book Award
2003: Los Angeles Times Book Prize for best first work
2004: ALA Best Books for Young Adults
2004: Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Novel

expenditure

The German edition was published by Blessing, May 2005, ISBN 3896672282 .
The English original The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was published by Vintage, 2003, ISBN 0099450259 .

Adaptations

Play

Simon Stephens adapted the material for a play that premiered on August 2, 2012 with Luke Treadaway in the role of Christopher in the Cottesloe Hall of the Royal National Theater in London, where it was performed until October of that year. The evening performance on September 6, 2012 was broadcast live in cinemas worldwide via the RNT's cultural network, National Theater Live . The piece proved to be an enormous success with the public, was also received positively by the critics and received seven Laurence Olivier Awards in 2013 . From March 2013 it was played in the Apollo Theater in London's West End theater district , an extraordinarily long playing time was already planned there until October 2014. On December 19, 2013, however, the ceiling of the Apollo Theater partially collapsed during a performance and injured 80 of the more than 700 present spectators, the rest of the game plan was thus initially in question. However, the production was able to move to the Gielgud Theater (also West End) and open there on June 24, 2014 with a different cast.

The German-language premiere took place on September 15, 2013 at the Staatsschauspiel Dresden under the direction of Jan Gehler . Jonas Friedrich Leonhardi played the main role . Numerous other productions followed across Germany, including at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus (or at their Jungem Schauspiel ).

There are also Spanish, French and Hebrew-language adaptations of the piece:

The Spanish translation is by María Renée Prudencio and was performed in June 2014 at the Teatro de los Insurgentes in Mexico City , Luis Gerardo Méndez and Alfonso Dosal alternated in the lead role of Christopher.
The Israeli version was translated into Hebrew by Daniel Efrat and implemented at the Beit Lessin Theater in Tel Aviv with Nadav Netz as Christopher. The play has been performed there since March 2014, and Netz won the Israeli Theater Award for Best Actor for this role the following year.
The French adaptation is by Dominique Hollier and premiered on September 11, 2015 at the Théâtre de la Tempête in Paris. Under the direction of Philippe Adrien, it was performed there until October 18, 2015. Hollier's version was also performed at the Théâtre Le Moderne in Liege ( Belgium ), where the piece, directed by Daniel Henry-Smith, was shown from April 28 to May 13, 2017.

filming

In 2003, Brad Gray and Brad Pitt secured the film rights to Haddon's novel (for Warner Brothers ). In 2011 it became known that Steve Kloves (including the screenwriter of the Harry Potter film series ) had joined the project as a director. He will implement his own script, written in 2006. So far (as of July 2019) the cinema project has been idle.

A slightly modified Bangla-English version of the story was made into a film by Sudipto Roy under the title Kia and Cosmos . Roy also wrote the script. In this version the gender roles of the main characters are reversed and the starting point of the plot is the murder of a cat named Cosmos.