Flowers for Algernon

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Has anyone read this book and related to it?

It's about a mentally retarded man who has surgery which causes his brain to develop over time until he is a genius. It is excellent writing because it is told in journal style, and Charlie, the protogonist, begins with stunted writing and awful spelling, like a little kid, and gradually it gets better, until he is a genius. He slowly begins to deteriorate again....

I relate to it because I used to have difficulties and now function completley and no one would guess I have AS. Yet I have in recent times descended into severe depression, due to so many years of isolation and the knowledge that I will never get them back. But to me it feels like a deterioration into my former state.

Yet, I still have knowledge, knowledge of knowledge, awareness of my previous blindness, an awareness of things I never knew I never knew existed. And it has been both the process of descending back into the darkness and the recovery process which has made me realize this. Knowledge brings sadness often, oh to go back to that ignorant state....yet I value knowledge so much that I know despite its pain, mine is a high and lonely destiny which so few are blessed/cursed to know.

Sometimes I tell myself I am glad I am not like others, not ignorant like them, nor ignorant like I used to be in a self enveloped world. Yet at times, I just want to sleep....to forget, to be stupid, to be like others, to live in mediocrity. I think in the end, greatness (and I honestly believe I am destined to do great things) can not be found int people that are simply happy and dumb.

Greatness comes from madness or pain. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that madness or pain are often the corollary results of talents destined for greatness. There are great men who were happy and never crazy, and crazy men who descend further into incompetence, but I guarantee you there is a link between genius and madness. Pain and maturity. Even though it hinders for the moment, it will catapult one beyond the stars.

I feel like the tortured genius. I feel like Charlie. But I don't think my end is destined to return to the beginning, for the very nature of awareness of knowledge means that I will never lose it. Feelings can be lost. Knowledge cannot.

There was a movie made of this book, back in the 1970s. Algernon was the rat, was he not?

Yep, your feelings are quite easy to understand.

Yes, Algernon was the rat.

And damn you Juggernaut... damn you all to hell *shakes fist at the sky* I could go a long time without being reminded of this damn short story. It always makes me break down in tears each time I read it. Bah!


How about Ender's Game? That one has a bright child purposefully isolated who thinks and acts differently than all those around him. (much less tear jerking)

I had to read this in eigth grade. I never could get into it...

WOW! I had to read it around the same time. WOW, your sttaement opened a whol knew area of my past. I haven't thought about that teacher before. That was another one of those classes where I had to read a whole bunch of stupid short stories, etc... Frankly, I think this was one of the best stories in that class.

Yeah, Algernon was the rat and the original title was "Flowers for algernon". The movie was "charly". I Felt a little like charlie in reverse. I started out really smart, and ended up feeling far less so. But, like charlie, I am trying to make sure I get better, etc...

I read the story when it first came out in a magazine - either Astounding SF or Fantasy and Science Fiction. I always admired it. In a way it was the same theme as Oliver Sacks' book "Awakenings"

I thought it was a good story, but I couldn't relate to the main character. I did find it frightening that Charly Gordon deteriorated at the end. I think it would be worse to have a gift and have it taken away again, possibly even inevitably ending in death, than to never have it at all.

i read that when i was really young. often makes me wonder why i want to be a scientist.

I read the book in 8th grade. I don't often have any feelings toward what I read, but I also watched the movie. I felt quite sad for Charlie. But no, I cannot exactly say I relate to him in too many ways. Perhaps maybe the way Charlie and I are both easily misunderstood.