Review: The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

So I've spent the last three months pretty much solely writing about War & Peace. It's not that I wanted Booking in Heels to become a Tolstoy-only zone, but between starting a new job and desperately trying to get the read-a-long posts up, there wasn't a whole lot of time to talk about other, lighter books.

But now I'm finally freeeeee (if no less tired) and able to talk about books that may actually interest people. Perish the thought.

Plot summary: Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. So when an acquaintance informs him that he would make a “wonderful” husband, his first reaction is shock. Yet he must concede to the statistical probability that there is someone for everyone, and he embarks upon The Wife Project. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which he approaches all things, Don sets out to find the perfect partner. She will be punctual and logical—most definitely not a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver.

Yet Rosie Jarman is all these things. She is also beguiling, fiery, intelligent—and on a quest of her own. She is looking for her biological father, a search that a certain DNA expert might be able to help her with. Don's Wife Project takes a back burner to the Father Project and an unlikely relationship blooms, forcing the scientifically minded geneticist to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie—and the realization that love is not always what looks good on paper.

Of course I'm going to restart regular posting by trashing a book everybody loves. Of course. 

Well, no. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I even disliked The Rosie Project really and so I'm not going to 'trash it' as such. It has a unique concept and it's meant to be a light-hearted and fun romance. It's just that for me, it's slightly over-rated and caused me to raise an irritated eyebrow at times.

Graeme Simsion writes quite well - the prose flows well, in a light quirky way, and it's hard to put the book down once you start reading. The plot could be an interesting one too - staid, reserved Professor decides that he can use logic and reasoning to find a partner, only to have his project contradicted when he's confronted with a wild, rebellious woman that rationally shouldn't interest him at all. Sounds great.

The problem is, for such a concept to work you need to invest an awful lot into the characters... and that just doesn't happen here. Let's start with Rosie, because she's easier. And alsoprofoundly average in every way. She is neither boring not interesting, she's just sort of... there. Don't get me wrong, it's a bit of a twist to have the female love interest in a romantic novel be the flat one, but I was thinking maybe at some point we could really push the boat out and have two fleshed out charcters?

Alright, let's get to the real problem. Don Tilman has some sort of mental health issue, and there's a heavy implication that he's on the Autism Spectrum somewhere. I mean, they say that everybody is, but his behaviour is severely impacted. Think of him as Sheldon Cooper-esque.

The message I took from this book is that everybody with Asberger's or High-Functioning Autism or whatever are hilarious. It's okay to laugh at them. Don Tilman is obviously exaggerated to the effect that he's not a believable character at all, but it really does give off a vibe that everybody that suffers from these genuine mental illnesses are clowns.

Oh, but they're also geniuses. Because of Don's mental health, he's wonderful at science but can also instantly teach himself black-belt karate from a book, learn expert high-level bartending in a few hours and can be an expert dancer, again from reading a book. So, to clarify, Asberger's sufferers are basically loveable buffoons who have plugged in to the Matrix. 

Believe it or not, that's not what bothered me. I know, right? And you thought we were done. But no. What really offended me was that, apparently, if you just explain to somebody with Asberger's that what they're doing isn't rational, they can just... stop. Isn't that nice? I can't believe that the mental health teams across the world haven't reached this ground-breaking conclusion yet.

I get that it wants to end on a happy note; that Rosie is good for Don and brings him back to Earth, I do. And I'm sure that, for some sufferers, the right person can help stabilise their mental health. It just doesn't work the way that The Rosie Project implies.

I know a lot of you will think I'm over-reacting and that's fine. This is a light-hearted, fun book that I understand wasn't intended to be a wider analysis of mental health issues. But I'm sensitive to stereotypes of OCD, Asberger's, Bipolar Disorder, etc, and books like this, fun though they may be, really don't help.

Climbing down from my soapbox and putting aside the above issues, I still don't really understand the hype surrounding The Rosie Project. It didn't make a lasting impression as the ending is very rushed and weak, so as a result I feel profoundly 'meh' about this book and won't be reading the sequel.   

Read a more balanced review of The Rosie Project at Devouring Texts.

Review: The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida

I think it was Ellie who first introduced me to The Reason I Jump during one of our shopping trips. I nodded, agreed that the concept sounded vaguely interesting and then moved on. However in April I suddenly began to desperately want this book, so I ran out, bought it, and read it the very next day.

Summary: Written by Naoki Higashida when he was only thirteen, this remarkable book provides a rare insight into the often baffling behaviour of autistic children. Using a question and answer format, Naoki explains things like why he talks loudly or repeats the same questions, what causes him to have panic attacks, and why he likes to jump. He also shows the way he thinks and feels about his world - other people, nature, time and beauty, and himself. Abundantly proving that people with autism do possess imagination, humour and empathy, he also makes clear how badly they need our compassion, patience and understanding.

Please keep in mind that I'm reviewing this from the perspective of an average reader, just as I would any other book.  

This book came about through David Mitchell, the award-winning author of Cloud Atlas and other novels. His wife, Keiko Yoshida, came across the Japanese edition while searching for help relating to their autistic son and then worked on an English translation in order to help others. While it's interesting to know the background, I couldn't help but feel that the introduction cheapened the book a little - I didn't need David Mitchell to tell me how autistic children are people too and how much they struggle. Naoki Higashida did that well enough on his own and it felt like Mr Mitchell was stood behind him patting him condescendingly on the head.

Anyway. The Reason I Jump isn't a memoir or an autobiography, which I think is what I was (unfairly) expecting. Instead it's actually a FAQ about living with autism, answered by a thirteen year old Japanese boy. There are 58 questions and the answers are approximately a page each in quite large font. Interspersed are four short stories written by the author himself.

The benefit of this is the perspective of a sufferor themselves - not their parent or a psychologist and what can be more accurate than a person telling you how they are feeling. The downside is that it's not all that enlightening. Essentially, it's:

Q: Why do you... (ignore us, echo questions, etc)

A: Because we do. We can't help it.

x 58.

This was interesting at first but because it doesn't really expand beyond the above, it got a little repetitive and I lost interest. I think I unfairly expected The Reason I Jump to be moving when it's written as more of a manual to understanding autism and the related symptoms. It's a list of things to do and not do when interacting with an autistic child:

Please never laugh at us, even when we're doing a less than great job.

Please don't judge us from the outside only.

Please try to understand what we're going through.

Please don't tell us off.

x58.

However, there were some questions that resonated with me. It's difficult to explain which parts I found interesting and which I didn't, but I realised that some actions towards an autistic person might affect them in a way I had never considered:

Q16: Is it true that you hate being touched?
   ...for a person with autism, being touched by someone else means that the toucher is exercising control over a body, which even its owner can't properly control. It's as if we lose who we are. Think about it - that's terrifying!

I feel bad even thinking this, but I actually felt a little bit patronised. It seemed as though I was being looked down on for being healthy... or gently chided, anyway. 

   I think it's very difficult for you to to properly get your heads around just how hard it is for us to express what we're feeling. For us, dealing with the pain by treating it as if it's already gone is actually easier than letting other people know we are in pain.
   Normal people think we're highly dependant and can't live without ongoing support, but in fact there are times when we're stoic heroes.

I think this may have been one of the parts heavily edited by David Mitchell and his wife. Read this article for a thorough background, but basically his wife translated the original and then David Mitchell altered the prose. How much is left of Naoki Higashida's work? Instinct says not a lot. The prose alternates between lecturing and rambling quite philosophically, alternating between a very adult tone and an almost childish one. I'd be interested to read a different (direct and accurate) translation of the same work.

The other issue is the large amount of sweeping statements about what all children with autism do, because of course there isn't any such thing. The effects of autism differs hugely from person to person, and I'd have thought that Naoki (of all people) would have known that. It doesn't really discuss the spectrum; here, all autistic people are the same, with the same behavioural characteristics. This is concerning because it occasionally states that you should absolutely never do a certain thing that I know has helped people in my life with autism (like the use of schedules). Perhaps another thing that was confused during translation?

The last thing I want to do is take away what Naoki Higashida has achieved just by putting this book together. It's a huge accomplishment and the painstaking effort that must have gone into The Reason I Jump is almost incomprehensible. I believe that my issue with it relates to the translation which seems to have taken advantage - David Mitchell's name on the cover is the same size as Naoki's, after all. 

There were some very interesting questions that provided insight in a way that had never even occurred to me, but on the whole it's a fairly repetetive manual that I have difficulty believing is anything like the original.

Again, this is my opinion on a book that I read out of interest, as a standard reader. If you have a go at me, I will delete your comment.