Books: Flowers for Algernon

⚠️ Warning: Spoilers

I enjoyed Flowers for Algernon (the novel). I think this story will echo within me for a while.

The story is a series of reports written by Charlie, a person with an IQ of 168. Charlie undergoes an experimental surgery which makes him incredibly intelligence —he starts making valuable contributions to various fields of knowledge. Unfortunately —as Charlie himself, at the height of his genius, discovers— the effect is only temporary: he will, inevitably, regress to his original intellectual level.

The main theme: how likely we are to fall in the trap of basing our appreciation of others —the dignity we afford them— on our perception of their intelligence.

The story provides examples of these dynamics in relationships with colleagues, close family, and romantic partners. Charlie has suffered plenty from the contempt of others, and yet we see how much disdain genius-Charlie has for those he judges intellectually inferior (everybody else, at that point). Ironically, this happens as he is complaining of how they treat him as if he hadn’t even existed before the operation.

The novel uses a literary device brilliantly. Written by Charlie, the reports mirror his intelligence as it changes through the story. We notice the decay even before Charlie tells us about it. This gives us an additional connection to Charlie, making our emotional reaction to his deterioration stronger. We feel empathy with Charlie’s loss, and the difficulties he must be going through, but also annoyance at the gradual reappearance of plain Charlie, who can’t think clearly, use apostrophes nor spell well. This conflict forces us to acknowledge the relevance of the novel’s central question.

Where the story falls short is that most characters —other than Charlie and, perhaps, his father— are not very convincing, perhaps underdeveloped. It’s not so much that their stories aren’t fully told, but rather that the constant twists feel somewhat forced and unnatural and one is left with the feeling that they don’t really have a story.

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