Daniel Keyes (1927–2014)

'This is joy. And now that I've found it, how can I give it up?'
By sally tarbox on 17 July 2012
Format: Paperback
I don't normally read sci-fi but this was brilliant; it's the human story of a scientific procedure that takes a young man with learning difficulties and turns him into a genius. Charlie works in a menial capacity in a bakery where he reckons his workmates are his friends. His family no longer have contact with him; he attends adult education classes in his spare time.
Narrated by show more Charlie, the 'progress reports' begin as innocent, ill-spelt, childlike entries. But after the treatment, we notice a gradual change as Charlie becomes highly literate and faces a plethora of new problems...
As he begins to get to grips with his new persona- including realising that he was previously perceived as a 'joke' by his workmates and 'not a real person' by the doctors- he has to face the possibility that the treatment might only offer temporary results... show less

Flowers for Algernon was the fall play at my daughter's school. I bought the book for her (she's on the stage crew) and my whole family ended up reading it. It's a beautiful, thought-provoking, and terribly sad book. Charlie Gordon is a man with severe intellectual disabilities who undergoes an experimental surgery to improve his intelligence and memory. This surgery was very successful on a mouse named Algernon, against whom Charlie competes at solving mazes and other puzzles. Charlie show more experiences a meteoric improvement in his intelligence and learning, and disturbing flashbacks of memory. He faithfully records his observations and progress, and discovers that the old Charlie's life is incompatible with the new. When Algernon experiences a rapid deterioration, Charlie fears he may follow Algernon again on this regressive path. All four of us were absolutely riveted and devastated by this book. show less

pretty empathetic and forward-thinking for its time. questions the morality of "curing" someone of their neurodivergence/intellectual disabilities at the expense of turning them into someone they're not. i think it's also important that in the ending where charlie's cognition returns to the level prior to the operation, the main obstacles in his way to living the regular life he had before is everyone else's reaction to his mental regression; being as empathetic and even more emotionally show more intelligent as he was before his operation (not solely because of the nature of the operation, but the lived experiences that occurred as a result of it), charlie takes it upon himself to leave society because he couldn't bear to be a burden on others' sensibilities. to that end, the most crucial lesson from the operation does not concern charlie's rise-and-fall from intellectual superiority, but rather the social conditioning that either crushes or instills empathy and sympathy in neurotypical people for people with intellectual disabilities. even if the reader takes pity on charlie at the end, they should appreciate and respect that he is happily his own person. show less

I’ve been meaning to read this short story for ages, I don’t really know why I haven’t.

What a cruel and unethical experiment this was! Charlie’s progression and insights are a fascinating and emotional journey. And then there’s heartbreak as we follow the regression. I loved how effortlessly the author made Charlie come alive as a character.

The ending is bleak and hopeful all at once. To me, this story is really about the dignity of being human, no matter where your talents lie.