Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes)

[ase]

Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes): "But I know now there's one thing you've all overlooked: intelligence and education that hasn't been tempered with human affection isn't worth a damn." - Charlie Gordon

Classic story of the man whose impaired intelligence was boosted somewhere past genius for less than a year. It's hard to discuss this because it is a Classic and hard to consider independent of that. The idea that the novel is Charlie's journal/progress reports is really well implemented, showing through grammar and punctuation Charlie's rapid rise and fall in intelligence; the prose is workmanlike, not sparkling, beautiful like freeway bridges. The book was written in the 1960's, but the attitudes displayed by several characters toward the mentally retarded are depressingly contemporary.

Comments

[ase.livejournal.com]

What do you mean when you say it is hard to consider the book independent of its "Classic" status?

Since it's a classic, it's tempting to revert to high school english manners: 1.) automatically assuming it'll be hopelessly dry, with each sentence Freighted With Meaning I'm expected to ferret out, and 2.) assuming that because it's a classic, and well respected by other people, I have to twist myself into a pretzel to find something nice to say about it, even if I hate it. Or 3.) something disparaging if I like it, because liking a classic would mean I'm turning into a dried up old adult.

The exceptions to all this are Catcher in the Rye and Lord of the Flies. Catcher is just annoying and I disagree with Flies' premise. Those two inspired me break Rule Two to pieces as a teen. It was a refreshing experience.

Since I'm no longer in high school, it's now perfectly acceptable for me to say, "I liked it, and I need to buy a copy" without wondering if I'm turning into a prune, or to say, "I threw it against the wall three pages in" without doing equal harm to my grades. The book's just - "just", hah - a book. Sometimes it's hard to remember that, though, and sometimes I still plow through something because It's A Classic, and I'm trying get out of the "SF ghetto", rather than reading purely for my own pleasure.