Autistic character in book

Now the Iron Chicken is another matter. The Soup Dragon is just a liberated soul with an unfortunate soup addiction. The Iron Chicken reminds me more of an eccentric inventor with a special interest in metal. Maybe he’s a precursor to Professor Yaffles eccentric academic from Bagpuss?

. said:

any potential outcast can be re-examined under this potential autism lens

Hmmm. I found Frankenstein's monster very sympathetic (some arguments Mary Shelley was basing it on part of herself), but I wouldn't say it was autistic, as the difference is more physical. Caliban similarly.

Mr Darcy has been cited as autistic, but I'd disagree: he does 'change his manners' and it feels much more like a class and social convention thing that is being sent up. I only know Jane Eyre from films, alas.

Boo, however, is extremely reclusive to the point of not indulging in any of these family stories, obsessed with his scrapbook, has meltdowns, is considered for the 'asylum', only comes out at night, has an innocent manner, and it's hard to know what's inside his head. Don't want to say more for fear of spoiling the book.

The Soup Dragon seems friendly and emotive to me, confined to an exotic volcanic habitat because of a soup-dependent lifestyle, but does speak a different language from most of the other characters. Would you also make the case for the Iron Chicken? I'd love to ask a psychiatrist with literary pretensions to make a professional assessment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G512fvK9KXA

AutLit or autism literature.

any potential outcast can be re-examined under this potential autism lens and quite an interesting exercise in its self.

say for example, Calliban from the Tempest, Mr Darcy from Pride and Prejudice , Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre.

”When he attends the Meryton assembly ball, Mr Darcy declines to be introduced to any woman in the room. He will dance only with the women he already knows, the baleful Bingley sisters. Not only is he too proud to mingle with the vulgar locals, as a rich young man he is also sick of being the target of husband hunters.”

....think of the Soup Dragon in the Clangers? 

Reviving an old thread.

I've just finished re-reading To Kill a Mockingbird, and was glad I did. Among other things, I was struck by how clearly Boo, Mr Arthur Radley, the mockingbird of the title, is autistic. I can't remember how I would have described him the first time I read it, before I had understood autism, as such a classification makes no difference to the story. I suppose I'd have put him down as a sympathetic, emotionally disturbed outcast. Apparently he may have been based on a real character in Monroeville. Boo's autism turns out to be hardly a new revelation – the 2010 'young adult' novel Mockingbird takes its title from the earlier book and centres on an 11-year-old girl 'with Asperger syndrome'.

I think it's good to have neurodivergent characters in fiction that are genuine. Further up this thread are other authors and characters (Claude Frollo) that precede any real adoption of 'autism'. Christopher Boone in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is not identified as autistic in the text, but is better drawn than many fictional characters with an explicit diagnosis in works where autism has become a trendy theme (the film Adam is one example), characters who I've thought of more as collections of symptoms.  So I'd far rather see autistic characters where the reader makes their own mind up (and they're fictional, so why would they need the label?) than risk characters with the label that aren't realistic. 

Mlle Lermontova said:

 ....I think there's a kind of 'radar' that picks up on one's own kind.

I think you're right Mlle.

Tom, I agree with you about Aspies not missing much because I was watching a Stephen King lecture the other night on YouTube where he said he thought that writers tended to be on the margins of society, sculking in the shadows, looking in. In other words, they have to be good observers of human behaviour, even if they don't really understand it.

I've read Dr Sleep and Mr Mercedes and although quite long, do engage you if you're prepared to stick with them.

And yes, there are many Aspies in King's novels, something he seems to like including and I have to wonder if he's on the spectrum too.

Lermontov (whence my user name) was almost certainly Aspie (see A Hero of Our Time for its partly autobiographical 'superfluous person' anti-hero) and it contributed to the events leading to his death. (Problematic social skills in a culture with duelling is not a good combination).

My favourite fictional Aspie, as I've posted on another thread, is Claude, the young priest in Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris. He's intellectually brilliant, interested in philosophy and early science (has his own lab!), but socially and sexually a walking disaster-zone, destroying himself and everyone he loves in the course of the book. I've loved him since I first encountered him in my teens: long before diagnosis, I think there's a kind of 'radar' that picks up on one's own kind.

I love Steven Kings stuff. In particular The Storm Of The Century(film adaptation).

I learned to read thanks to the early Stephen King novels - especially 'Salem's Lot, The Shining, The Stand and Pet Sematary.  I haven't been able to read him since about Dolores Claiborne onwards.  It just seems bloated and over-written to me.  Maybe he was sharper when he was younger and hungrier.  Having said that, a friend has told me I should try Dr Sleep and the Mr Mercedes novels, so maybe I will.

I think autistic characters exist throughout his novels.  Trashcan Man in The Stand.  Jack Torrance, maybe, in The Shining. Arnie Cunningham in Christine.

Maybe King himself is an Aspie and doesn't know it!

I'm sure most of my favourite authors were probably way up on the spectrum: Faulkner, Steinbeck, Dickens, Carver, Dos Passos.  Bukowski.  Yes... definitely Bukowski!  I think it's their 'stand-apartness' that gives them insights into human behaviour that other people miss.  It's an important ingredient for many writers.

Aspies don't really miss anything, do they.  They see it all.  All they miss is the ability to understand it.

But they can always write about it.

Writing is understanding, I think.

vometia said:

I'm somewhat reminded of a video game (sorry, that tends to be my point of reference for things these days, I seldom have the concentration to read) where a couple of significant characters were subsequently described as somewhat autistic by the game's creator: the game being Bioshock Infinite, for the record, the characters being the Lutece twins and the artistic director (or creator, or whatevs: I always find job titles an imprecise art) being Ken Levine.  In a way I'm not surprised that some of the characters are of the ASD persuasion although I was slightly surprised by which ones.  But maybe that's just me.

Yes, it's just you. (Kidding)

I'm somewhat reminded of a video game (sorry, that tends to be my point of reference for things these days, I seldom have the concentration to read) where a couple of significant characters were subsequently described as somewhat autistic by the game's creator: the game being Bioshock Infinite, for the record, the characters being the Lutece twins and the artistic director (or creator, or whatevs: I always find job titles an imprecise art) being Ken Levine.  In a way I'm not surprised that some of the characters are of the ASD persuasion although I was slightly surprised by which ones.  But maybe that's just me.

I'm currently listening to this novel in audio book format and yes, I noticed that Holly seemed to a bit autistic.

Stephen King seems to know some of the traits of autism and I'm wondering if it's because he himself has them.

He mentions at one point that Holly and her parents didn't get along and they thought she was a bit 'mad' so that would support the view she could have been autistic and also that most people do not understand autism and often think it's a form of something else.

But the ex-detective who relies on her admires her abilities in terms of computer skills and her persistence in finding out stuff he needs.

The Holly character reminded me a bit if the kids in 'the loser's club' in his novel 'IT', where the members of the aforementioned seemed to have in common 'special talents' which brought them together to fend off bullies. Presumably, they were supposed to be 'oddballs' and actually, they all seemed to go on to become successful in life because of their abilities (the story is told in retrospect, of course, and interestingly, one of them became a famous horror novel author, just like King himself).

But I haven't yet finished 'End of Watch' so I'm not really in a position to offer a complete view at the moment but I will get back to you, Pixiefox.