Quote 1
Siobhan said that the book should begin with something to grab people's attention. That is why I started with the dog. I also started with the dog because it happened to me and I find it hard to imagine things which did not happen to me. (7.6)
Christopher has a very unique way of seeing the world. Where he gets into trouble is his inability to understand the way that <em>other</em> people see the world, while also expecting them to understand his own version of reality.
Quote 2
This made me feel a lot calmer because it is what policemen say on television and in films. (17.2)
It's pretty interesting that Christopher would be comforted by the actions of the policemen because they resemble the ways fictional policemen behave on TV. What does that say about the way he interacts with the "real world"?
Quote 3
Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them. (19.6)
Do you agree with this – is life very logical? Are the rules difficult to figure out? Or does this say more about Christopher than about life in general?
Quote 4
And if I start thinking about something which didn't happen I start thinking about all the other things which didn't happen.
For example, this morning for breakfast I had Ready Brek and some hot raspberry milk shake. But if I stay that I actually had Shreddies and a mug of tea I start thinking about Coco-Pops and lemonade and porridge and Dr. Pepper and how I wasn't eating my breakfast in Egypt and there wasn't a rhinoceros in the room and Father wasn't wearing a diving suit and so on and even writing this makes me feel shaky and scared, like I do when I'm standing on the top of a very tall building and there are thousands of houses and cars and people below me and my head is so full of all these things that I'm afraid that I'm going to forget to stand up straight and hang onto the rail and I'm going to fall over and be killed. (37.3-4)
Christopher claims that he has a hard time imagining things that haven't happened to him (7.6). But it's clear from this passage that he actually has a pretty incredible imagination. Who knew that all the infinite possibilities in the universe were contained in just a single made-up breakfast?
Quote 5
I think people believe in heaven because they don't like the idea of dying, because they want to carry on living and they don't like the idea that other people will move into their house and put their things into the rubbish. (61.6)
Christopher has touched on a pretty deep issue here. In this case, his version of reality lines up with a lot of people's, but he seems to be a little disrespectful of the people who <em>don't</em> agree with him.
Quote 6
It is permitted to move the chairs and the table in the kitchen because this is different but it makes me feel dizzy and sick if someone has moved the sofa and the chairs around in the living room or the dining room. (73.2)
What does this mean, that moving things in the kitchen is "permitted"? Why does Christopher get to make the rules?
Quote 7
Then Sir Arthur Conan Doyle heard about the pictures and he said he believed they were real in an article in a magazine called The Strand. But he was being stupid, too, because if you look at the pictures you can see that the fairies look just like fairies in old books and they have wings and dresses and tights and shoes [...] (139.6)
Elsewhere in the book (181.9), Christopher tells a little fable about an economist, a logician, and a mathematician. The moral of the story is that we should be careful making generalizations. So should Christopher be so confident in his dismissal of fairies here? He can say the pictures in the magazine were fake, sure. But can he be <em>so</em> certain that fairies don't exist that he should ridicule other people (including one of his heroes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) for believing in them?
Quote 8
That was because when I was little I didn't understand about other people having minds. And Julie said to Mother and Father that I would always find this very difficult. But I don't find this difficult now. Because I decided that it was a kind of puzzle, and if something is a puzzle there is always a way of solving it. (163.8)
This is probably the most explicit reference in the book to Christopher feeling different and separate from the people around him, and having made a specific effort to interact with people in a "normal" way.
Quote 9
And people are different from animals because they can have pictures on the screens in their heads of things which they are not looking at. They can have pictures of someone in another room. Or they can have a picture of what is going to happen tomorrow. Or they can have pictures of themselves as an astronaut. Or they can have pictures of really big numbers. Or they can have pictures of chains of reasoning when they're trying to work something out.
And that is why a dog can go to the vet and have a really big operation and have metal pins sticking out of its leg but if it sees a cat it forgets that it has pins sticking out of its leg and chases after the cat. But when a person has an operation it has a picture in its head of the hurt carrying on for months and months. And it has a picture of all the stitches in its leg and the broken bone and the pins and even if it sees a bus it has to catch it doesn't run because it has a picture in its head of the bones crunching together and the stitches breaking and even more pain. (163.15-16)
Is it just us, or does Christopher seem to prefer the dog's version of reality here? Maybe it's just the way he describes the "bones crunching together" that makes us wince (and we assume that the option that <em>doesn't</em> include that thought must be better). Also, as we've mentioned, Christopher claims he has a hard time imagining things that aren't there. Does this mean that he'd put himself on the dog side of things?
Quote 10
Also people think they're not computers because they have feelings and computers don't have feelings. But feelings are just having a picture on the screen in your head of what is going to happen tomorrow or next year, or what might have happened instead of what did happen, and if it is a happy picture they smile and if it is a sad picture they cry.
This is quite a claim. What do you think? Are feelings "just having a picture on the screen in your head"? Or is something deeper going on? Also: usually when we talk about feelings, we talk about the heart rather than the head. Do you think it's significant that Christopher places feelings in the mind instead?
Quote 11
But most people are lazy. They never look at everything. They do what is called glancing which is the same word for bumping off something carrying on in the same direction [...]
But if I am standing in a field in the countryside I notice everything. (181.3-4)
This may not technically be a "version of reality," but it's certainly a unique way of experiencing it. Once again, Christopher doesn't mince words in proclaiming his own way as better. It's not quite right, however, to call other people "lazy," since they can't experience the world in his way any more easily than he can experience it theirs.
Quote 12
It was nice in the police cell. (23.8)
This might be the first time in human history these words have been written. But what's behind Christopher's warm and fuzzy feelings about the place? Well, it's a combination of a few things Christopher values, including being alone, being in an enclosed space, and being in a familiar situation (at least, familiar from TV).
Quote 13
I stepped outside. Father was standing in the corridor. He held up his right hand and spread his fingers out in a fan. I held up my left hand and spread my fingers out in a fan and we made our fingers and thumbs touch each other. We do this because sometimes Father wants to give me a hug, but I do not like hugging people, so we do this instead, and it means that he loves me. (31.5)
It seems noteworthy that this scene – the first time we read about the "hand-hugging" – occurs in a sterile, empty prison corridor. Prison, of course, has got to be one of the loneliest places there is. The corridor outside the cell allows for some interaction, but there really isn't any place for warmth. So in this setting, does this greeting become more like an embrace, or does it make it seem that much colder?
Quote 14
Then, when I've got a degree in Maths, or Physics, or Maths and Physics, I will be able to get a job and earn lots of money and I will be able to pay someone who can look after me and cook my meals and wash my clothes, or I will get a lady to marry me and be my wife and she can look after me so I can have company and not be on my own. (71.8)
We might find this last line a little surprising, since Christopher seems to prefer being alone whenever he possibly can. But look – he practically equates hiring a live-in maid with getting a wife! This makes it pretty clear that he really has no interest living with anyone, but knows he's incapable of living alone.
Quote 15
These are some of my Behavioural Problems
A. Not talking to people for a long time [...]
K. Not noticing that people are angry with me. (73.2)
These two things illustrate "isolation" in very different ways. The former suggests a disinterest in other people, while the latter implies a disregard for others.
Quote 16
Sometimes when I want to be on my own I get into the airing cupboard in the bathroom and slide in beside the boiler and pull the door behind me and sit there and think for hours and it makes me feel very calm. (83.2)
Why do you think it's easier for Christopher to think when he's physically isolated?
Quote 17
[...] I didn't speak to anyone and for the whole afternoon I sat in the corner of the Library groaning with my head pressed into the join between the two walls and this made me feel calm and safe. (89.14)
This is during one of Christopher's Black Days. We're just going to ask this again – what is it that makes him feel <em>so</em> unsafe? We're not sure there's any easy answer, but it's worth thinking about. Again.
Quote 18
Which means that a murder victim is usually killed by someone known to them and fairies are made out of paper and you can't talk to someone who is dead. (139.10)
In that last clause, about how you can't talk to someone who's dead, Christopher is certainly writing about his mother, and feeling really separate from her. But in dismissing the existence of fairies, he's denying us the possibility of connecting to the mystical, magical sides of the world, and of ourselves. The only connection between beings he <em>does</em> allow is a dangerous one, and one that causes great harm: the relationship between murderer and victim. Eek.
Quote 19
I sat on the bed for a long time looking at the floor. Then I heard Toby scratching in his cage. I looked up and saw him staring through the bars at me. (167.29)
Here's another powerful image, as the rat's physical isolation in the cage parallels Christopher's emotional isolation. We might even compare Toby's scratching to Christopher's uneasy processing of his realization about his mother being alive. Deep.
Quote 20
I do not like people shouting at me. It makes me scared that they are going to hit me or touch me and I do not know what is going to happen. (5.5)
The first part of this is pretty inarguable – none of us wants to be shouted at or hit, right? But then Christopher takes a pretty big leap, suggesting that he needs to <em>always</em> know what's going to happen, and what everyone around him is going to do next. Now that's a recipe for disaster.