I've been reading this novel called LE BIZARRE INCIDENT DU CHIEN PENDANT LA NUIT by Mark Haddon (Pocket Jeunesse, 2005) and it is of course the French translation of his THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME (2003).
At first I had no intention of reading it but I browsed at the Uni bookshop and it looked so inviting. I could even hear it whisper. Now I am halfway through and more or less convinced that this is a masterpiece! The hero-narrator is a boy with the Asperger syndrome. This fact is revealed gradually by his odd obsessions with order, numbers, colors, etc. But it's so convincing and you begin to experience a sort of parallel world lived by the boy with his own incredibly rich inner space.
Particularly entertaining in the novel are little bits of mathematical and scientific knowledge and problems. Deft. I am charmed by such magical ideas as:
Ou voir un nom et attribuer à chaque lettre une valeur de 1 à 26 (a=1, b=2, etc.), additionner les chiffres dans sa tête et trouver que le résultat est un nombre premier, comme Jésus-Christ (151), Scooby Doo (113), Sherlock Holmes (163) ou Doctor Watson (157). (p.56)
Or again something like:
Les étoiles sont le lieu où les molécules qui constituent la vie se sont formées, il y a des milliards d'années. Par example, tout le fer qui se trouve dans votre sang et vous évite d'être anémique a été fabriqué dans une étoile. (p.97)
Details, additional flavours, toppings, whatever you may call them, they give solid, rich, inviting, and rewarding substances made of words in novels. Pretending itself to be a young adult-oriented work, it actually is for everybody over 12. And you don't need to be strong in math!
