Saturday, September 17, 2011
Flowers for Algernon
I'm reading a book called Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. It's about a mentally retarded man named Charlie Gordon. He was abused as a child. His mother kept thinking he was a regular kid and because of that he was always scared. She beat him yelled at him and put him though many bad experiences. Now he is a grown man and has a job. Even though he is grown up he still has the emotional capacity of a 10 year old. People make fun of him. He goes to school just for mentally challenged people. He is chosen to have a surgery that makes him smarter. The thing is he becomes a genius but still has the emotional range of a 10 year old. People are scared of him now. He is scared, angry and insecure. He doesn't now what to do with his life. He feels like a pet. He is depressed and has no friends. This story is captivating, heart warming (and heart breaking), a romance and a story that will make you look differently at life. He eventually finds out the procedure is temporarily. He slowly forgets everyone around him and everything he knows. He watches his life disappears before him. Eventually he is back to his normal self and forgets everything he ever did.
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Wow, I remember reading Flowers for Algernon when I was in high school. It was super sad, that part I remember, but I guess it hadn't really occurred to me that it was such a science fiction-y book as well. There was a sense that people with developmental delays need fixing and that somehow "fixing" them is good - and a book like this is the antecedent to a book like Pretties by Scott Westerfield -
ReplyDeleteI don't know that I have read anything else by Keyes. I guess I let an author break my heart only once.
What's next on the To Be Read Pile?