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“My name is Christopher John Francis Boone. I know all the countries of the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7,057.”
p. 2These words, in which Christopher introduces himself to the reader, revealhis unusual mind, his gift for memorizing facts and his talent for mathematics. -
“Mr. Jeavons, the psychologist at the school, once asked me why 4 red cars in a row made it a Good Day, and 3 red cars in a row made it a Quite Good Day, and 5 red cars in a row made it a Super Good Day, and why 4 yellow cars in a row made it a Black Day, which is a day when I don't speak to anyone and sit on my own reading books and don't eat my lunch and Take No Risks. He said that I was clearly a very logical person, so he was surprised that I should think like this because it wasn't very logical.”p. 24This provides more insight into Christopher’s mind. It is logical to him, even if not for anyone else. He explains that he likes things to be in a “nice order.” He does not like the color yellow and refuses to touch anything that is yellow.
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“A white lie is not a lie at all. It is where you tell the truth but you do not tell all of the truth. This means that everything you say is a white lie because when someone says, for example, ‘What do you want to do today?’ you say, ‘I want to do painting with Mrs. Peters,’ but you don't say, ‘I want to have my lunch and I want to go to the toilet and I want to go home after school and I want to play with Toby and I want to have my supper and I want to play on my computer and I want to go to bed.’ And I said a white lie because I knew that Father didn't want me to be a detective.”p. 48Christopher has just told a white lie to his father, who has asked him where he has been. Christopher replies that he has been out, but he does not say that he has been investigating the killing of Wellington. In his explanation, Christopher reveals a more sophisticated understanding of social interactions than might perhaps be expected of him. He knows that people often tell white lies because the truth does not always go down too well with others. It is not what they are expecting to hear.
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“My memory is like a film. That is why I am really good at remembering things, like the conversations I have written down in this book, and what people were wearing, and what they smelled like, because my memory has a smelltrack which is like a soundtrack.”p. 76Christopher remembers almost everything that has ever happened to him, and he can search his memory as if it was a computer database to see whether he has ever heard a certain expression before, for example. He can also “rewind” his memory and recall in great details whole scenes from the past.
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“Eventually scientists will discover something that explains ghosts, just like they discovered electricity, which explained lightning, and it might be something about people's brains, or something about the earth's magnetic field, or it might be some new force altogether. And then ghosts won't be mysteries. They will be like electricity and rainbows and nonstick frying pans.”p. 100
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“I doubled 2's in my head because it made me feel calmer. I got to 33554432, which is 225, which was not very much because I've got to 245 before, but my brain wasn't working very well.”p. 120Christopher has found the letters from his mother that his father hid from him, and he is now confused and upset. He cannot even talk to his father. But making mathematical calculations in his head helps him, perhaps because it is an orderly and familiar process that he knows he can rely on.
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“And then I Formulated a Plan. And that made me feel better because there was something in my head that had an order and a pattern and I just had to follow the instructions one after the other.”p. 132Christopher does not like surprises or unexpected events where he might not know how to react or what is expected of him. Making a plan is his way of imposing some order on life. In this situation, he is formulating a plan about who he is going to live with, since he has decided to run away from his father’s house.
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“I knew that the train station was somewhere near. And if something is nearby you can find it by moving in a spiral, walking clockwise and taking every right turn until you come back to a road you've already walked on, then taking the next left, then taking every right turn and so on.”p. 139Christopher is trying to get to the railway station at Swindon, but he has become lost. He knows the station must be close, and he formulates a plan for how to get there. He may be handicapped in many ways by the odd way his mind works, but sometimes he can come up with solutions to problems that are absolutely correct, based on his powers of reasoning in a logical way.
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“And people who believe in God think God has put human beings on the earth because they think human beings are the best animal, but human beings are just an animal and they will evolve into another animal, and that animal will be cleverer and it will put human beings into a zoo, like we put chimpanzees and gorillas into a zoo.”p. 165Christopher does not believe in God or the supernatural. He believes that science is the method that produces the correct information about things. In this passage he shows his views on the evolution of life on earth.
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“And then there was a sound like people fighting with swords and I could feel a strong wind and a roaring started and I closed my eyes and the roaring got louder and I groaned really loudly but I couldn't block it out of my ears and I thought the little station was going to collapse or there was a big fire somewhere and I was going to die.”p. 176Christopher has never been on the London Underground before, and this is how he experiences the approach of a train from the dark tunnel.
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