Book Bearings
Flowers for Algernon
- 274 pages · about 5 hours
- First published 1966
- 79 editions
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1 About this book
Until he was thirty-two, Charlie Gordon --gentle, amiable, oddly engaging-- had lived in a kind of mental twilight. He knew knowledge was important and had learned to read and write after a fashion, but he also knew he wasn't nearly as bright as most of the people around him.
There was even a white mouse named Algernon who outpaced Charlie in some ways. But a remarkable operation had been performed on Algernon, and now he was a genius among mice. Suppose Charlie underwent a similar operation...
- Science fiction
- Psychological fiction
- Dementia
- Brain
- Surgery
- People with mental disabilities
- Gifted persons
- Young adult fiction
2 What to expect
A science fiction novel told as the progress reports of Charlie, a man with an intellectual disability who has experimental surgery to raise his intelligence. The spelling and style of his reports change as he does, which is the book's central device, and through them it looks at how people treat the disabled, at memory and family, and at whether intelligence brings happiness. It is short, direct and deeply sad.
Good for readers who want: an emotional classic, a story told through diary entries, and questions about intelligence.
3 About Daniel Keyes
Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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