I’m super busy at the moment as I’m playing in the orchestra for ‘West Riding Opera’s’ performance at the Carriageworks theatre in Leeds. There are six performances Monday to Saturday, plus there’s been the rehearsals, so with three nights to left to go I’m already feeling tired. The show is a triple bill is of three ‘short’ comic operas:
Mozart: The Impresario
Schubert: The Conspirators
Weber: Abu Hassan
I’m glad there is quite a lot of talking bits, which means the orchestra do get some breaks. Playing in these performances requires a lot of concentration, and many people don’t seem to realise how physically demanding it can be playing an instrument. I do enjoy it, but would enjoy it more if it weren’t quite so long and so many nights (or in Leeds, which is 9 miles away and a nightmare to park). At least it’s only once a year.
As often seems to be the case of book award winning novels, I found this book to be somewhat overrated. Yes, it is different, and I’ve not read a book quite like it before, but I don’t think it lives up to the hype. I get the feeling that rather like Dan Brown’s novels, lots of the people who have read this and say it’s brilliant haven’t read many books.
The story is told from the point of view of 15-year Christopher Boone who has Asperger’s Syndrome. Christopher discovers his next door neighbours dog dead on the front lawn, killed by a garden fork, and sets out to find out who killed him. He decides to write about it in a murder-mystery novel – hence ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’. Christopher is brilliant at maths and has a photographic memory. He likes logic and order; he can’t recognize emotions and dislikes brown, yellow and being touched. The style of writing is unique, and it’s interesting at first, but I found myself getting a bit fed up of it eventually. By the end I had lost interest and cared little about what happened.
I would say this book is worth reading as it’s something different, but I personally am not a fan. In fairness, I believe it is meant to be a book for children of 11 and over, so that is possibly part of the reason why it didn’t grip me. I do think it is a good book for teenagers, adults who don’t read much, or people interested in autism.
The server was broken, but now we’ve got a new one. So, back online again now.