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.

Review: The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer

I barely know where to start with The Shock of the Fall. I bought it on a whim from ASDA and began it simply because it was close at hand. I had a vague idea of the subject matter, but no more than that. Perhaps it was due to my low expectations, but this book completely blew me away. The second I'd finished, I texted Ellie to let her know that she really must read this... and I've recommended it to almost everybody else I know now too. 

Summary: 'I'll tell you what happened because it will be a good way to introduce my brother. His name's Simon. I think you're going to like him. I really do. But in a couple of pages he'll be dead. And he was never the same after that.'

That's a rubbish blurb, so let me embellish it a tad. So, we have Matthew, who we know is writing his story down on a computer he uses at some kind of care centre. We know he had a brother, Simon, once and we also know that Matthew has been institutionalised at some point in the past. The rest of the novel focuses on what happened to Simon and Matthew's subsequent interpretation, as well as his journey through the mental health system to present day.

Why yes, that is rather vague but so is the book. I know a lot of other readers figured out what happened almost immediately, but I just... didn't. I was trying to interpret it with some kind of Adam-and-Eve theme due to the titular 'fall' and the tree on the cover. Yeah, sometimes you can over-analyse. This way though, my understanding developed along with Matthew's and it was a wonderful journey.

I think it suits the book better if you go into it without knowing too much, so excuse me for not bringing up the details. I was lucky enough to go into it almost blind and so The Shock of the Fall surprised and moved me the way it was meant to. Apparently Nathan Filer is a psychiatric nurse with a degree in Mental Health Nursing, so he understands better than most how symptoms of mental illness can exhibit themselves. 

It's a mixture of Matthew typing away at his computer in the present day and his reminisces of his previous experiences, but there are also medical reports, family trees and official letters. In certain novels this can seem gimmicky, but here it's infrequent and subtle enough to work. It helps that all the inserted media looks like it could be real - a lot of effort has gone in to creating logos, typeface, etc and so it seemed to demonstrate how chaotic Matthew's world feels to him.

What particularly impressed me was that the book didn't seem to set out to make you pity Matthew or his family. It's more of an explanation - why Matthew acts the way he does and what might be going through the head of somebody like him. It doesn't always make for attractive reading as he's very difficult to like, but at the same time I found myself caring so very deeply for him.

The Shock of the Fall is a masterpiece of characterisation - Matthew and his family seem so damn real that I keep expecting to run into them when I go in to our local care facility for meetings. I'd guess that they're drawn from Mr Filer's real-life experience of patients and their parents as nobody's imagination is that good! 

This book really got to me. I sat there with an anxious, tight feeling in my stomach throughout and it persisted long after I'd finished. I really cared what happened to Simon, what was going to happen to Matthew and if the situation was ever going to resolve itself. This is easily, easily going to be one of my best books of 2014. 

Visit Nathan Filer's website or find him on Twitter. 

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

 

I downloaded a sample of this onto my Kindle while I was killing time a few days ago (my iPhone had died and apparently I self-destruct without some form of technology) and was hooked after the first chapter. I definitely need a paper though - some books just need to sit on a shelf!

Amazon - 'A seventeen-year-old girl wakes from a year-long coma and is told her name is Jenna Fox. She doesn't remember the accident; she doesn't remember her life; she doesn't remember herself. Her parents show her home movies of her past, but is she really the same girl she sees on the screen? When the memories start to come, they come with questions – questions no one wants to answer. How did the accident happen? Why does her own grandmother hate her so? And why does she feel her parents are hiding her away? Who is Jenna Fox?'

At first glance (and second, actually) I assumed that the title was referring to a love interest. A stalker, maybe. But its actually nothing like that. Jenna's parents are almost obessed with their daughter, having documented her entire life on camera. She can do no wrong in their eyes - she is the most perfect creature on the planet and nothing must ever, ever happen to her. But when their precious daughter is about to die after a terrible car accident, they go to profound lengths to save Jenna at whatever cost. The underlining question throughout the novel is how far will a parent go to save their child?

At times it seems as though you've actually inside Jenna's head - sometimes phrases of disjointed phrases are just thrown at you as she frantically tries to piece together what's happened to her. She irritated me at times as she can be quite nasty and selfish, but I guess waking up after a year in a coma would leave me a little testy too. Her mood swings and concerns are obvious though - you're never left wondering why she's acting in such a way.

The twists in this book just don't stop. There's some new revelation coming at you every other page and each one is as shocking and moving as the last. Just when Jenna thinks she understands whats going on... something new is revealed. It's so fast-paced and unnervingly shocking.

Why on earth do I have an urge to call her Bella?

My ultimate favourite thing was the relationship between Bella Jenna and her grandmother, Lily. They adored each other before the accident but Lily disagreed with the actions taken to preserve Jenna's life and resents the 'new' Jenna - she feels that this 'version' is an imposter. 

'"Eighteen months ago, I let go of my granddaughter," she says. "I said good-bye. I grieved. Then a few hours later, your parents told me what they had done."
"And you thought it was wrong?"
"I'm not like your parents. I think there are worse things than dying.'

It's wonderful. Lily actually wants what's best for Jenna and considers the quality of life she'll end up having. She's possibly the most real person in the entire book, as she comes to terms with how her grand-daughter has changed and how she's the only one who can help her.

I didn't see the ending coming, but it was wonderful when it did. So perfect in every way. Apologies for the vague-ish review as it's very difficult to write about The Adoration of Jenna Fox without mentioning all the discoveries and twists - I'm dying to talk about them but I can't!

You can look at it on Amazon here.