Flowers for Algernon by
Daniel Keyes
pbk out January 00
(Millenium)
at £6.99
I've always wondered how it is that anyone reads at all given the
crap that they make you slog through during your school years. I
don't know about the British system, but an American education
doesn't so much open a doorway into the wondrous land of
literature as slam a window shut on grasping, young fingers. Of all
the "worthy" books I was forced to read in junior high and high
school - and we're talking junk like Johnny Tremaine and A
Separate Peace - only two made any real impact on me. One
was To Kill A Mockingbird. (To borrow a phrase from Joseph
McBride, if you don't like Mockingbird I never want to meet you
and that's that.) The other was Daniel Keyes' Flowers For
Algernon. Interestingly, both books were the works of one-shot
wonders. Harper Lee is, of course, a legendary literary loner, but
Keyes, like that other science fiction mystery Walter M. Miller,
while not abandoning the word altogether, never produced another
work near as significant as Algernon in his career.
Although I wouldn't have thought this a difficult book to find
(perhaps, again, that's my American mindset), Flowers For
Algernon is a nonetheless welcome addition to Millennium's
impressive SF Masterworks series. Keyes' extraordinary 1966
novel, expanded from an earlier novella, is the story of Charlie
Gordon, a simpleton made into a genius through an experiment
into intelligence enhancement. The book takes the form of a series
of journal entries by Charlie, as we follow his intellectual and
emotional growth following a radical surgical procedure. Algernon
is the name of a mouse upon whom the procedure was previously
tried and whose fate serves as a proxy for Charlie's. When
Algernon fades and dies, what can be in store for poor Charlie? Flowers For Algernon is science fictional in its ideas, but
the execution is decidedly non-genre. No doubt this is how it has
slipped into high school curricula. But whether you view it through
genre shades or not, it remains a considerable work: clever,
thoughtful, gripping and deeply moving. If you only know the story
from the mediocre film adaptation, Charly, forget what you know
and pick up the novel. It's a treat. And an education.
(
Jay Russell
- one of the greatest talents the horror industry has produced for some time… (Black Tears))
Flowers for Algernon by
Daniel Keyes