Flowers for Algernon

hardcover, 274 pages

Publié 27 mars 1966 par Harcourt.

(2 critiques)

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... (source)

66 éditions

cblgh@bookwyrm.social a publié une critique de Flowers for Algernon par Daniel Keyes

Flowers for Algernon

4 étoiles

Goodness gracious. So many themes are touched on in this book, and I think I'll be haunted for some time to come by the ideas raised.

I'm a sucker for both an epistolary-style novel (which this classifies as, given the diary format) and the bildungsroman genre which I can also see reflected in the type of story it is, albeit not perfectly—so if either of those butter your biscuits well dangit bring out the tea cause these biscuits are ready to be eaten, buttered and all!!

Recommended read for many reasons, and not only because it's hard to let go of once started.

Sean Tilley a publié une critique de Flowers for Algernon par Daniel Keyes

Review of 'Flowers for Algernon' on 'GoodReads'

5 étoiles

Poignant, sad, and deeply insightful

I had been assigned a watered-down adaptation of this in Junior High, so I went into this with some knowledge of what the general arc would be. What I didn't expect is that I would be reading until the sun came up, bawling my eyes out, absolutely shaken.

From the very first page, I liked Charlie Gordon. He comes across as innocent and sweet, with good intentions and a very one-dimensional frame of reference to the world. There's a few moments where people ask Charlie things that made me chuckle, like his initial confusion at the Rorschach test, but his attitude is strangely endearing.

The prose in this book is phenomenal. The gradual narrative shift from crude writing to eloquent philosophical insight is kind of an amazing writing trick, and the development of Charlie's awareness is hypnotic to watch.

In a way, I was kind …

Poignant, sad, and deeply insightful

I had been assigned a watered-down adaptation of this in Junior High, so I went into this with some knowledge of what the general arc would be. What I didn't expect is that I would be reading until the sun came up, bawling my eyes out, absolutely shaken.

From the very first page, I liked Charlie Gordon. He comes across as innocent and sweet, with good intentions and a very one-dimensional frame of reference to the world. There's a few moments where people ask Charlie things that made me chuckle, like his initial confusion at the Rorschach test, but his attitude is strangely endearing.

The prose in this book is phenomenal. The gradual narrative shift from crude writing to eloquent philosophical insight is kind of an amazing writing trick, and the development of Charlie's awareness is hypnotic to watch.

In a way, I was kind of reminded of the story of Faust, where a man tries to use his seemingly unlimited knowledge to get out of an inevitable outcome. I'd argue that Charlie is a far more sympathetic character, but watching his mind develop and deteriorate, along with his strained efforts to work against time, made for one hell of a roller coaster.

Beautiful, beautiful story. I haven't cried like that in a while.