'The Reason I Jump' by Naoki Higashida

The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism, Naoki Higashida (3)

This book turned out to be far more controversial than I imagined. We first heard of it on ‘The Daily Show’, where Jon Stewart interviewed David Mitchell, famous author and one of the translators. Mitchell talked about his son with autism and how the thoughts of Higashida-san on paper helped he and his wife more clearly understand the mind of their son. Who doesn’t want to reveal the secret workings of a non-communicative, hard to understand syndrome, particularly if it afflicts someone you love? So the big question here is – how much was really written by a 13 year old with autism versus how much by his ‘language facilitators’? The book is structured as a series of questions (like ‘why do you jump?’), with answers by Naoki and a few fables he has written in between chapters. The questions are very repetitive and it’s not clear if he was actually asked those questions, or who structured the book this way. Much of the criticism of the book has to do with the insight and poetic abilities of the author. It is hard to believe that someone of that age with little communication to society could be so eloquent and knowledgeable. I tend to think this had more to do with translation than anything else. Much of the short book did read like a 13-year-old’s musings (repetitive, simple, family oriented). My biggest issue with the book is how he answers many questions for the autistic community. If all the non-communicative issues are true, how does he know how anyone thinks beside himself? If I exchange all his ‘we’s’ with ‘me’ and ignore the ‘people with autism feel x’ sections, it helps. I have read a few items about the spectrum and the biggest insight for me had to do with his explanation of the concept of time for him. The idea that time can work different for severely autistic people helps me understand the repetition and difficulty in holding one’s attention.  His explanations for the lack of control for speech and movement were also interesting. While intriguing and likely comforting to some, harder to believe was his incredibly good understanding of the feelings of those around him. Overall I will chose to believe that the majority of this book represents his thinking, though it may have gotten shined up a bit with an award winning author translating.