"The Speed of Dark" What is normal?

[KristenR]

I really found it interesting how this book challenged the idea of "normal"

one of my favorite lines is: "Sometimes I wonder how normal normal people are, and I wonder that most in the grocery store" I thought the following observations were very insightful.

Lou often compares his behavior/reactions to those of normal people and notes how, even though they may be exaggerated in him, normal people exhibit many of the same behaviors.

Were there any of Lou's observations that changed your perception of normal or particularly rang true to you?

[Cindy]

'Normal' is a dryer setting!

What I found most profound was Lou's observational evidence and ultimate conclusion that 'normals' struggle through life just like him - just in slightly different ways. I think many of us forget on a day-to-day basis that other folks (that undefined mass of humanity known as "they") have just as many struggles, worries and difficulties as we do. I suppose we forget this because our troubles are the most important because they are our own.

The other bit I loved from the book was how conscientious Lou was about other people's feelings. As he would fret about hurting someone's feelings, I kept thinking he was more normal than many non-autists. This made him so much more like-able and relate-able than I expected. Perhaps that's why I thought Lou was a woman at the beginning?

[Lara Amber]

I wanted to smack his therapist for her rather silly ideas of normal and acceptable behavior.

Online friends don't count?
Liking laser tag and video games means you have "violent tendencies"?
You should do activities you don't like, because they meet her definition of social?

If someone told me those things, I'd be finding a new therapist. I think that was mostly what held back Lou, that he didn't articulate the "FU" that so many people around him deserved.

[Michael]

Lara Amber wrote: "I wanted to smack his therapist for her rather silly ideas of normal and acceptable behavior.

Online friends don't count?
Liking laser tag and video games means you have "violent tendencies"?
Yo..."

I was with you on this. I felt like Lou's therapist might be limiting him somewhat.

[Laura]

I agree the therapist was limiting him, as was society - he didn't dare be caught with his fencing equipment in his car.

As I'm trying to think of how to write about that perspective, I am starting to see him as part of an oppressed, minority and speaking up to the authorities would have just had bad consequences in many instances. Telling is therapist off probably would have been a very bad idea, not just the freedom to go to a different therapist. It isn't like he had a choice about whether he even went to the therapist.

Hm... I didn't really think any of this aspect of the story through before.

[Cindy]

About the therapist - there's something that wasn't totally clear to me. I know his company paid for him to go to the therapist 4 times a year. The company played this out to be a "privilege." However, we don't know if she was a company/internal therapist or an independent one, do we? (There's a good chance Lou didn't know, either.)

[Lara Amber]

Laura,

You are so right, he was an oppressed minority! People saw him through stereotypes, assumed he was dangerous, and a lot of the freedoms we take for granted he didn't really have. But then people were also jealous of him because he got "special privileges" like having a private car (It sounded to me like not everyone had one.) and being able to drive to work. Instead of being seen as accommodations it was seen as "taking advantage", which reminds me of the flak I hear about "welfare queens" and a generation ago "uppity negroes".

[KristenR]

Reading the sections about the therapist definitely made me angry....and I got the impression that he didn't have a choice of which therapist to go to. If she were asking the same questions of someone she thought of as normal, she would not have thought anything of laser tag or fencing, or his sexual activity. The narrow-mindedness was infuriating, though not unexpected (thankfully I've only experienced it personally a couple of times)

[KristenR]

Yeah, but even a mental health professional can have prejudices.

I think you have a point, though, that because autism in children is cured in the book that there isn't the understanding of the older autists that were too old for the treatment (it just isn't all that prevalent). Lou mentions that he knew only one or two people younger than him that were autistic, and that gave me the sense that even if the treatment were not mandatory, it was conventional.