llLeoll
3/9/2013
Amazing. I have not read this book since the 7th or 8th grade. I liked it back then. But now that I'm in my mid 40's, I was blown away. It does what science fiction does so well -- creates new worlds for humans to live in. But it does something that most science fiction does not do well -- it creates a character with a full interior. And we watch him wax and wane.
Flowers for Algernon makes it clear, like no other book does, how complex being human actually is. And how bound to each other intellect and emotion actually are. And that, to me, is where it's genius lies. Because when he was a simpleton, Charlie has many friends. When he becomes super-smart, he is in sich an elite class that few could follow him. But it is in the "in between" that all things meet. He has sustaining and fulfilling love with his former teacher Alice Kinnian.
This book is one of those books, like "Huckleberry Finn," that you can read at 13 because the language is so simple, and the characters so engaging. And when you read it later in life, you see things that you were not aware of before.
Highly recommended. It is literature at its best: thoughtful and emotionally engaging. It is also a science fiction classic.