Senses--Emotions

I found myself oddly moved by this following statement: “…he smelled of something I do not know the name of which Father often smells of when he comes home from work” (page 66).  This point in the novel is a point where I felt a clear confliction between the emotional and the non-emotional.  This, I believe, is a result of my personal experience with the way my own Father smells when coming home from work.  Christopher’s description of that scent is extremely easy for me to understand and relate to since my Daddy, who works at Detroit Edison, has always carried this “work scent” that I can’t quite place my finger on.  For me, this scent triggers an emotional response since it reminds me of when my father would come home from work when I was little and I would be excited to snuggle up on the couch while he read to me.  The scent exists as more than just a scent, but as a reminder of important memories and a symbol of the relationship between me and my Dad. 

It is bizarre to think that to Christopher it is just a smell; while he does correlate it with his father it is not on an emotional but a factual one.  As I found myself expressing shock at this realization I then began to question what it is about the way Christopher views this scent without an emotional attachment that makes it shocking.  The answer that I came up with was simply that I felt bad for Christopher for not being able to experience something that carries such a strong emotional weight (that is also a happy sort of weight).  Familial bonds are fun bonds to have and experience and while Christopher has those bonds, he doesn’t take the same values away from them.  Yet despite all of this, the way Christopher views the scent is in no way incorrect.  In fact, all of his observations as they pertain to the scent are 100% accurate.  It is exactly this that exists within Haddon’s writing that makes his novel so powerful; it allows for a direction comparison between what the reader thinks of situations and the way that Christopher thinks of situations.  In other words: “he makes the situation tragic by suggesting that the very linearity and closed logic of the autistic mind is as believable and valid as the normally non-linear way of thinking that we take for granted” ( http://www.jstor.org/stable/4614734 )

What would life be like if we lived it for only the facts and not the emotions?  It is a strange think for me to wrap my mind around.