Haddon, Mark:  the curious incident of the dog in the night

This is an unusual but compelling story told through the viewpoint of the protagonist, an autistic teenager.  It is presented as a book that he has written and we get good idea of what goes on inside the head of a person with this condition.  He is extremely smart, especially in math and puzzles but finds it difficult to function-even to think-when his system is overloaded with too much stimuli.  The basic idea is that he has decided to try to detect who killed the neighbor’s dog with a pitchfork in the middle of the night.  He finds out more than he wants to which leads to a somewhat frightening adventure.  This is a great story well told-no wonder it was so popular.  This is a novel that would appeal to young adults as well as older readers.  It also gives the reader some insight into the difficulties that face people with autism and the people who love them.

Cowan, James:  A Mapmaker’s Dream

I find it difficult to describe this quirky little novel.  It essentially has no plot although you could argue that there is some character development as the one recurring character, Fra Mauro, seems to grow and develop as he processes the information that is brought to him.  The sub-title is “The Meditations of Fra Mauro, cartographer to the Court of Venice.”  The basis of the story is that Fr Mauro lives in a cloistered monastery on an island near Venice and he wants to draw a completely accurate map of the world including not just the boundaries and geographic features of the lands but also all the inhabitants, creatures, culture-in short, everything about each country.  Since he cannot and does not wish to leave his sanctuary travelers of all sorts come to him and describe what they have gleaned from their voyages.  Each chapter is the story a traveler tells and Fra Mauro’s impressions about what he has heard.  At first I found the book rather irritating-a mishmash of unrelated and often seemingly outlandish ideas.  I found, however, if I slowed down and read only one or two chapters at a time and tried to put myself into the time period of Fra Mauro-very early explorations and the making of the trade routes-that this was really fascinating.  Some stories were fantastic-but don’t travelers often have fantastic ideas when they see strange things?  Some resonated with me as ways in which I sometimes perceive the world.  Fra Mauro tried to keep an open mind when receiving all these ideas and images-and I did, too.  One of the thoughts that occurred to me is that in today’s information age we often feel bombarded with more ideas and images that we can process-much as Mauro must have felt.  We, too, are surrounded with a myriad of ideas and world views that need to be considered.   This is a book to expand your mind and to consider other ways of viewing the world-there is enough variety in these approximately 150 pages that every reader should find as least one idea that gives you that “aha!” moment.  There is also enough to disagree with that this would make a good discussion book-as long as your group can vehemently disagree about ideas without getting personal or having it affect your relationships.  Caveat:  if you prefer to read only ideas that support your own world view this is not the book for you.  If you enjoy expanding your mind to consider ideas foreign to you without feeling threatened by them, this is a delightful book-just take it in small doses.

Below are a few passages that caught my eye:

[spoken by a traveler who was exiled from his homeland] “Quitting the place that we loved means we are condemned to inhabit our loss forever.” (p. 27)

[this resonates with me because it summarizes how I felt-and in some ways still feel-about leaving Savannah.]

“…thoughts on the value of experience as being an important guide in our quest.  ‘A man knows the truth only when he has tried it himself and has not gained it by way of hearsay or reading.’  He was suggesting that we are obliged to make mistakes if we wish to attain any degree of knowledge.  Conceivably he wanted us to accept that every error we make is one more brick fired in the kiln of grace.”  (p. 53)

[I underlined this because it agrees well with what I have experienced in my life-but as I was thinking about this I was struck by a disquieting thought:  since each man's experience is different does this idea negate the idea of a universal truth? Not that we can ever know universal truth-but is the concept impossible?]

[Fra Mauro commenting on his visitors:]  “I was struck by the thought that their observations were not independent at all.  Rather, they were affected by sentiments that each of them held to be an expression of himself.   In the end, the world they presented me was reflected through them.”  (p. 59-60)

“It is true, sometimes men in harness to grace are more powerful than an army whose allegiance is suspect.” (p. 101)

“Who but someone who has quit home and journeyed to distant lands would understand?  ….They now know that it is impossible to find elsewhere a place consistent with their own inner world.”   (p. 133)