Flowers for Algernon

[Quokka]

Sorry if this post is going over old ground for people. As I'm sure this book has been discussed before. However since I couldn't find anything about it here I figured this was probably the best place to post something?

As you've no doubt guessed I've just finished Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes and wow! I have to say I just loved this story. I mentioned in the April readers thread that I haven't read alot of SF and kinda thought older SF would suffer with becoming dated but this book was just so not about the technology but the character's development/experiences.

For anyone who hasn't read it, this was released as a short story in 1959 and extended to a novel in 1966. It's a fairly short novel, easy to read and I just can't recommend it highly enough, I'm not one to become too involved in a story but I have to say this book has probably got the biggest emotional response out of me of anything I've read to date.

******Spoilers to follow**********









I love a book that leaves you thinking afterwards and this one certainly did that, raising alot of good ethical questions. I dont want to rant on to much but i thought i'd post two things that this story got me thinking about, partly in relation to personal expiriences (I'm still new here so feel free to move this or let me know if i should've posted it somewhere else).

I've worked for several years in homeless hostels, firstly with youth and now adults. Most of the people I work with now are homeless because of a mixture of mental health and substance abuse, predominately herion and/or alcohol (putting aside what influences/causes what with that) I was really struck with the parallels of Charlie Gordan's gradual loss with that expirienced by people I know be it personal (knowledge of themselves, memories, hopes, expectations etc), relationship (family, friends, partners) or community/society. On a sidenote my wife is currently expecting our first child which i think added to the response of Charlie's loss as the story builds to the close. As in I kept thinking about what i would lose of my own story both past and future if something like this occured in my life.

A second smaller thing for me was when Daniel Keye's briefly mentions the evolution of terms. In the book retardation is used, now days It's mental health and special needs (feel free to correct me on this). Keye's describes this something like changing the terms so that they never really mean anything and although there is some very good reasons for this such as negative connotations being applied to the terms. It does raise the question as to how much this is done for the sensibilities of the society?

Sorry for carrying on a bit here but I would be interested in what other people felt about this book.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Hey! Flowers For Algernon is a short story and later novel that I think stands among one of the most humanly important works in the genre. I'm glad you enjoyed it - and hope to respod to your interesting thoughts a little later today when I've sufficient caffeine in my system and hours on my time sheet!

 

[dwndrgn]

I've only read the short story but I'd have to say that while it is a type of story I'd normally avoid - I was glad that I was forced to read it (my AP English class had it as a requirement). It was lightyears ahead of the other carp they made us read. The only other short story that effected me as much was Faulkner's A Rose for Emily.

 

[ravenus]

Hey! Flowers For Algernon is a short story and later novel that I think stands among one of the most humanly important works in the genre.

Important? Screw important! Is it interesting? Pray hold in mind that I'm insistent on good shaded characters.

btw the film club is discussing Solaris. I think you've seen the Tarkovski version or at least read the Tem book so why not grace us with a few driblets of wisdom?

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Well, yea, interesting too! It's rivetting, in fact. The journal of a man who emerges from being a moron to being a sort of genius and then back into cretinhood. Amazingly well played-out, gripping and incredibly moving.


Genuinely moving, not a maudlin tearjerker sort of thing.

 

[imkatsman]

It was a graet story..I have read it several times. I would like to comment re: older stuff maybe being dated... I think that real great stories stand on their own based on plot, ideas, characters trying to solve age old human problems with different devices and settings afforded by sci fi. I don't think the great stories can ever be dated.
Personally I love most the older stuff from the 50's, 60's & 70's best!
If you have never read The Bicentenial Man, you should get a copy and I think is fabulous. Very strong parallels to the struggle for acceptance/ freedom by Black America. ( Forget the movie version which did not do the story justice at all!)

 

[Amber]

I read it when I was small- the short story and it affected me a lot, i must say, and then I reread it when I was 13 as a short book... and it is still very good, though a little dated

 

[Stalker]

One of most human book in sci-fi genre - that's what I can name it. I read The Flowers for Algernon as novelette in Russian translation long ago. It impressed me greatly.Is that true it was rewritten into novel later? Wow! I would like to read!

 

[flash]

just finshed reading it... made me cry - mind you so do adverts... is there a parrell?...

did enjoy the book, but couldnt help feeling that charlie and all were all bit 2 dimensional - even if you remenber that it was written in the sixites...

bit that will stick in my mind is his overall all desire not be lonely... think that need flows throughout decades and all humans ....

 

[profeaston]

They made a movie too. See http://entertainment.msn.com/movies/movie.aspx?m=184234 .

 

[lazygun]

Always remember this story,....
Personally found the rise and fall of his progress thru the story powerfully engaging,yet very simply written.

 

[cyborg_cinema]

When I read it for highschool, I never thought of it as a "science fiction" novel, but it is definately speculative science. It's a tear jerker. I liked the movie too.

 

[Brys]

An amazing novel - the best science fiction I've ever read. And I'm very jealous of all of you who got to read it for school, when we were stuck with Thomas Hardy, Arthur Miller and a pretty weak short story collection called Opening Worlds - not an element of SF in them, nor anything like the quality of writing or characterisation present in Flowers for Algernon.

 

[j d worthington]

Flowers for Algernon. Oh, that story!

I'm having to really restrain myself here. Otherwise I'll end up using all the superlatives in the dictionary, and probably invent a vew of my own.

Read the story in junior high, love it. Reencounted it in The Hugo Winners, edited by Asimov.; loved it again, even more. I've never got tired of this story, I must admit. I didn't care as much for the novel when I first read it, I think because I was comparing it to the short version, and they're two vastly different things. The story is concentrated, pure essence of pain, hope, joy, courage, loss, and nobility. (Just thinking about it while writing this is bringing up a lump in my throat.) The novel has more room to breathe, look at things from different angles, allows more development of Charlie and the subtext of how, as he grows more intelligent, he becomes more irritated with those around him, with the idea that this may be the result of the operation never overtly stated until it begins the terminal stages -- so one is left with wondering if high intelligence itself is at least partly to blame for his inability to get along with his fellows, to appreciate the small things that the less intelligent can appreciate, or whether it's all tied to what's been done to him. And when he realizes he's slipping back, and that cry from the heart of "don't let it all slip away".....

Just let me say, before I get too carried away, that I think this is one of the most beautifully moving pieces of fiction I've read in my 42 years of reading more than "kiddie books". I simply cannot read this without crying, to this day, and I have no idea how many times I've read it; I know it's been well beyond 20 (short story version; the novel, about 5)

So glad to see someone mention this one again. Anyone who hasn't read it: oh, what a joy you've got in store for you....!

 

[GOLLUM]

I'm yet to read this I think. Time to march down to my specialist SFF shop again and pick up a copy.

 

[j d worthington]

I'm yet to read this I think. Time to march down to my specialist SFF shop again and pick up a copy.

Gollum: I recommend trying the short story first. I think that its concentrated effect should be the first impression; then give yourself a few days before tackling the novel, and remember that it delves into more issues, but has less of an emotional punch.

 

[Brys]

I've only read the novel - it's hard to conceive of how the story can have more of an emotional punch. I'll keep a look out for it though.

 

[Carolyn Hill]

I read both the novel and the short story long ago and cried while reading both.

Something that just struck me now, reading this thread and being much older than when I read those texts, is how Charlie's journey mirrors the one we all take as we age: our abilities grow and peak and then decline as we enter old age, in an often sad and confusing process of letting go. And for those with Alzheimer's or other mental degenerative diseases, the loss even more closely mirrors Charlie's.

OK, that's not the primary parallel in the text, nor the intended message, but it's something I see now that I didn't see then.

 

[weaveworld]

Oh wow, 'Flowers for Algernon', what a great book, I read it a few years ago. I honestly did not see it as a Sci Fi book, even with the technology they use to help Charlie and Algernon. To me, 'Flowers for Algernon' was more about human nature, how a man can be changed, for good or better, I don't know.

Charlie at times was so conflicted but he didn't have any regrets in what he had done, the worst part of the book was his regression back to his old self, it was so heartbreaking, but Charlie accepted it for what it was.


I hope this made sense.

 

[j d worthington]

It did, Weave. I think we've all been there.

And Brown Rat: I'm not so sure about that. It may well be that was on Keyes' mind, at least at some point, especially since I don't think he felt he ever matched himself on this one. But that's the mark of true literature (or any great art) -- it grows with you.

Weave: I thought that was more or less the definition of science fiction: it posits advances and lets us see possible impact on human beings from different angles. That's why the best sf doesn't really age; it's not about the technology, it's about the way we change with technological (or scientific) knowledge/experience.