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Amazon.co.uk Review
Daniel Keyes wrote little SF but is highly regarded for one classic, Flowers for Algernon. As a 1959 novella it won a Hugo award; the 1966 novel-length expansion won a Nebula. The Oscar-winning movie adaptation Charly (1968) also spawned a 1980 Broadway musical.
Following his doctor's instructions, engaging simpleton Charlie Gordon tells his own story in a semi-literate "progris riports". He dimly wants to better himself but with an IQ of 68 can't even beat the laboratory mouse Algernon at maze-solving:
I dint feel bad because I watched Algernon and I lernd how to finish the amaze even if it takes me along time.
I dint know mice were so smart.
Algernon is extra-clever thanks to an experimental brain operation so far tried only on animals. Charlie eagerly volunteers as the first human subject. After frustrating delays and agonies of concentration, the effects begin to show and the reports steadily improve: "Punctuation, is fun!" But getting smarter brings cruel shocks, as Charlie realises that his merry "friends" at the bakery where he sweeps the floor have all along been laughing at him, never with him. The IQ rise continues, taking him steadily past the human average to genius level and beyond, until he's as intellectually alone as the old, foolish Charlie ever was--and now painfully aware of it. Then, ominously, the smart mouse Algernon begins to deteriorate ...
A timeless tear-jerker with a terrific emotional impact, Flowers for Algernon is the 25th choice in the millennium SF Masterworks series. --David Langford
Book Description
Classic novel of a daring experiment in human intelligence.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
33 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Charlie Gordon, IQ 68, is a toilet cleaner at a bakery. After an experiment is done on him by the local University his IQ gradually increases in parallel with the test mouse, Algernon. However Algernon starts to display erratic behaviour which leads the super-intelligent Charlie to suggest both their intelligences will start to drop back to their previous levels.
Flowers for Algernon is in my opinion one of the greatest stories ever written. It is superbly told through Charlie’s diary entries which catalogue his days just before the experiment and the following months after it. We see the gradual improvement in his grammar, his spelling and punctuation and learn of his life through his dreams which he is instructed to write down. What is most compelling about the novel is the moral dilemma that is presented to the reader when Charlie becomes intelligent. In the beginning of the book he believes he has friends at the bakery whereas in actual fact they are gently mocking him. By the time he becomes intelligent however he is aloof and has no friends (make-believe or real). He also is incapable of certain emotions at this stage which poses the question at the end of the novel – at which stage was he better off?
This is rightly in the SF Masterwork series, it is my favourite book and has won the Hugo Award (as a short story) and Nebula award (as the full length novel).
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Could have been mawkish and over-sentimental. Could have been overly simplistic in its message. Could easily be seen as an "ignorance is bliss" fable with little more to commend it than the fact that it asks us to be sympathetic toward those less fortunate than ourselves. It, to my mind, is none of those things.
Its genius lies in its narrative structure - at each dramatic turn it outwits any second-guessing you may have entered into regarding revelations about Charlie's past as well as any thoughts as to how his intelligence may progress. Charlie's progress is neither predictable nor ridiculously sentimental. Especially since - regardless of his eventual self-awareness - there is an all-pervasive naivety that (I can only imagine) must have been incredibly difficult for Keyes to convey as brilliantly as he does.
What's perhaps more important is not the emotional investment we get in the main character, but the depth and resonance found in the other key players - especially when this is given to us, at all times, by the (first) mentally challenged (then) emotionally awkward Charlie. It is perhaps best just to say that there are no real villains in the novel - just people being people. (I could write more here but it would spoil the plot).
Overall, it is a book that should make you think about your own mental and emotional development. Again, I don't want to plot-spoil but, if you ask me, one of the final comments regarding self-effacement is by far the most poignant and intelligent in the whole book.
Compulsive reading.
Its genius lies in its narrative structure - at each dramatic turn it outwits any second-guessing you may have entered into regarding revelations about Charlie's past as well as any thoughts as to how his intelligence may progress. Charlie's progress is neither predictable nor ridiculously sentimental. Especially since - regardless of his eventual self-awareness - there is an all-pervasive naivety that (I can only imagine) must have been incredibly difficult for Keyes to convey as brilliantly as he does.
What's perhaps more important is not the emotional investment we get in the main character, but the depth and resonance found in the other key players - especially when this is given to us, at all times, by the (first) mentally challenged (then) emotionally awkward Charlie. It is perhaps best just to say that there are no real villains in the novel - just people being people. (I could write more here but it would spoil the plot).
Overall, it is a book that should make you think about your own mental and emotional development. Again, I don't want to plot-spoil but, if you ask me, one of the final comments regarding self-effacement is by far the most poignant and intelligent in the whole book.
Compulsive reading.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This award-winning novel by Daniel Keyes is nearly perfect in its execution, with perhaps the minor quibble of some dated slang that's a slight detraction. But that alone is not enough to prevent the book from receiving a well-deserved five stars. Keyes doesn't hit a false note in his story of the rise and fall of Charlie, a mentally retarded custodian at a bakery who briefly becomes a towering genius thanks to an experimental brain operation, only to loose it all as the effects turn out to be temporary. Worse, Charlie's deterioration is beyond even his advanced abilities to stop or reverse it; he has to bear the slow terror of sliding back down to his previous diminished mental capacity, with the hint that he- like Algernon, the lab mouse of the book title that was first to benefit from the operation- might die too. Although considered by some to be a "just" a sentimental story with a tearjerk ending, Charlie is a fully realized character from start to finish, one whose plight keeps you turning the pages, which is why this novel rates so highly. If you're a new fan of science fiction, or just want to sample what the genre has to offer, Flowers for Algernon should be high on your "must read" list. A newer novel with a similar theme is An Audience for Einstein, another book with an emotionally charged ending.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A book everyone should read.
Fast delivery, brand new and good price.
Better still is the book, proper human story and written ahead of its time.
Better still is the book, proper human story and written ahead of its time.
Published 27 days ago by B. L. Squires
Great into to a new genre - very soft sci-fi and easy to read....
Heard review on radio 4 and thought this would take me to something outside of my usual fare, really thought provoking, makes you look at things from a different perspective and... Read more
Published 28 days ago by Ptolemy
Flowers For Algernon
I'm not drawn by novels that claim to be of the `Sci-fi' genre. I usually prefer my reading matter to be as real as life itself, so when a friend recommended that I read `Flowers... Read more
Published 29 days ago by Elizabeth Stanforth-Sharpe
Excellent service
This book came very quickly, in excellent condtion and by return of post.
I have not yet finished reading it, but I am by no means regretting buying the book. Read more
I have not yet finished reading it, but I am by no means regretting buying the book. Read more
Published 29 days ago by ludensian
flowers for algeron
Really good read few books touch you, this is one of them . The style of writing is clever and matchs the hero's journey, this book deserves to be in everyones top ten a classic
Published 1 month ago by smp
Brilliant and touching.
There are few books that bring me to tears but this is one did. The character of Charlie Gordon is so brilliantly pulled off, that I felt the emotion of the guy as his confusion... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Chess Quant
Insightful and touching
Unusually for a sci-fi novel I didn't feel that this has dated at all even though it was written over forty years ago. Read more
Published 1 month ago by B. A. V. MIDDLEMAST-NEAL
Books and dvds.
I bought this book having seen the film "Charly" in the title of the DVD the "r" is reversed. Superb film starring Cliff Robertson see "IMDB" on't internet. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Paulg
Stunning
Although categorized as sci-fi this is a work that transcends genre. It was written 50 years ago and is still as relevant now as it was then.
Published 3 months ago by Brian Walker
Intelectually and Emotionally Moving
Flowers for Algernon explores the mind of Charlie Gordon a mentally retarded man who, by means of a scientific breakthrough, is transformed into a genius. Read more
Published 3 months ago by H. Goldman
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