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Flowers for Algernon:
A Review
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For lack of words, heartwrenching.
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The best way to describe this book is as a genius tragedy.
The writing…
The writing is indescribable. In true first-person format, grammar is intentionally foregone as the narrator, Charlie Gordon, a man of exceptionally poor IQ, writes in his notebook – and this is what the book is, Charlie’s notebook – which was given to him by scientists. He writes in the manner of a child, often misspelling words in a way that the reader must sound them out to understand. The beginning of the novel is littered with such rudimentary language. Though his intelligence level is low, as is conveyed both through his social interactions and the book’s meta-language, Charlie is honest and good-willed; he recognizes that it is through the charity of those around him that he has a job sweeping at his local bakery, and he over-repays this kindness by working unreasonable hours and overlooking the cruelty directed at him. Charlie attends the Beekman College Center for Retarded Adults in a motivation to become smarter, and it is there that he is recommended for the Experiment.
Scientists at Beekman – Dr. Strauss and Professor Nemur – wish to use an experimental surgery on him to raise his IQ past the average, past the level of a genius, past where Charlie could ever have conceived it to reach. The experiment, though developing and unstable, is not unprecedented: they have just recently successfully implemented it in a mouse named Algernon. During the treatment, Algernon’s intelligence was measured by how easily he could navigate a rat maze, and this time the scientists track Charlie’s intelligence by his writing. After the surgery, Charlie’s intelligence climbs to 185, and his writing slowly reflects the change. He becomes aware of the snide jokes his co-workers make at his expense. He realizes that his mother hit him; that his sister despised him; that his friends were taking advantage of him.
Here, at the apex of Charlie’s intelligence, the novel begins to lessen its pace. Charlie engages in research and academic work, and the quell of action leaves the narrative more barren than before. Flowers for Algernon was originally written by Daniel Keyes as a short story and expanded to novel form in 1960, and the short story omitted the gap; this present stretch in page count, without adding to the plot, is felt. This ends when Charlie hears from the lab that Algernon had begun to feel unwell, and he has begun to lose himself in the mazes. The book begins to veer downwards at three-quarters of its completion, hedging on the damning thought that what happens to Algernon now will likely happen to Charlie in the future.
Charlie begins to feel himself stutter over complicated words, and Algernon dies.
Here desperation sets in. The diary entries – the book – are rushed and panicked, and Charlie does everything he can to stop himself from falling down to his pre-experiment status and down further into death. Nothing works. He lashes out, and the world around him begins to fall apart. Reading feels like watching a trapped animal, an animal knowing its end and yet running, around and around, to say it tried to stop it from happening. And Charlie runs, again and again, around the notion that he will soon lose everything – he runs like a trapped mouse. On one page, he says, pleading:
Please don’t let me forget how to read.
Soon the grammar shows signs of breaking – and sooner still the writing has returned to its previous state. We know what happens next, but Charlie is no longer aware of it. He returns to working at the bakery. He writes, with some difficulty, that he can no longer read. But he doesn’t mind. His last entry ends with a note – a “to-do” – about putting flowers on Algernon’s grave, with no mention of his own, no mention that he may associate the mouse with himself anymore.
Nobody tells us that Charlie dies at the end of the book. But we know.
The beauty of the story is knowledge: who has it, and how it changes them. Was Charlie’s life with a lower IQ a livable one? If not, it’s because we argue that knowledge makes for a worthier life. But then, why are we so upset at knowing that Charlie will die, when he, towards the end, is unaware of the fact? Surely in this scenario a lower IQ makes his life more livable?
The question is whether or not lives are bettered by increased knowledge, or at the very least an increased capacity to think. While we may argue that yes, it’s always better to learn more, our society seems structured against it. Dopamine rushes to us in the mesmerizing technicolor circus of social media we can spend hooked up to for hours; Huxley argued that happiness was a result of sex – or at the very least, pleasure-seeking – and Bradbury argued that happiness was facilitated by illiteracy. Charlie would have been happier living ignorant of the insults around him. Then again, Charlie also would never have seen as much of the world as he did when he was intelligent.
And so Charlie doesn’t regret the experiment, the lab, or Algernon.
Knowledge of that puts this reader at peace.
