Emelisa Mudle, Joy to the World
(December 28) Saw this featured on the Jon Stewart show and was interested, particularly because this year I have read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and Still Alice.
I was really interested to see whether this account would jive with Curious Incident, since that author was trying to create the state of mind of an autistic person based on observing them, rather than on knowing how they are from the inside, like Higashida.
And reading this, I kept reminding myself that autistic people are probably all different from one another like non-autistic people are, even though Higashida spoke of "us" and how "we" are as though they are all the same.
So -- autistic people are not flat and affect-free the way Curious Incident author paints them, based on Higashida's narrative... in fact, Higashida makes them seem as if they are the most passionate and emotional people ever... their outbursts are frustration-based, according to him, because they wish to be understood and to do the right thing but can't because of problems with memory and with control over their own motor functions.
This was the most striking thing about the book -- how deeply Higashida felt things and how greatly he worried about hurting other people by actions he couldn't control, while pleading for patience and understanding.
Very sweet book. Higashida really loves nature and this becomes so charming, and he movingly explains why repetition and simple things are so comforting to autistic people. Their humanity is compromised by a faulty OS.
Curious Incident guy would make you think autistic people are not very human at all, and have some private logic for how they behave. But no. According to Higashida, they don't want to do the crazy things they do and they can't rationalize these activities.
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