Il s'appelle Charlie Gordon, c'est un simple d'esprit, un minable, employé aux plus basses besognes dans une usine. Algernon, elle, est une souris de laboratoire et le traitement du Professeur Nemur et du Docteur Strauss vient de décupler son intelligence. Les deux savants tentent alors d'appliquer leur découverte à Charlie avec l'assistance de la jeune psychologue Alice Kinnian. C'est bientôt l'extraordinaire éveil de l'intelligence de ce cerveau demeuré. Charlie découvre avec passion un monde dont il avait toujours été exclu, et l'amour qui ne tarde pas à naître entre Alice et lui achève de la métamorphoser. Mais un jour, les facultés supérieures de la souris Algernon déclinent. Puis elle meurt. Pour Charlie commence alors le drame atroce d'un homme qui peu à peu se sent retourner à l'état de bête.
This was part of my middle school curriculum. I initially read it in seventh grade and a few times later in my early teens. This is one of the few books that I have a full memory of. It haunted me. It still does. Is it better to have something and lose it or never have it at all?
This was a great book! It is clear why it won so many awards. You know the conclusion almost immediately, but the tale is gripping and interesting enough for you to see how it gets there. Flowers for Algernon is about love, loss, and most importantly self-discovery. My only complaint is that the book is a bit slow to start with all the bad grammar but that comes with the territory. All in all recommended.
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.
