Taru Luojola reviewed Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Niitä parempia klassikoita
4 stars
Autistin elämää on olla samaan aikaan tyhmä-Charlie ja nero-Charlie.
English language
Published April 4, 2017 by The Dramatic Publishing Company.
Flowers for Algernon
5 stars
(3 reviews)
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)
John reviewed Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Flowers for Algernon - moving, deep and hard to categrorise.
5 stars
The journal entries, which evolve in linguistic style with Charlie's capabilities, make it an Epistolary novel, but the rapid growth and change puts it more into the Bildungsroman, category. In some ways it resembles a rags-to-riches-to-rags format, echoes of the story of Faust and the concept of forbidden knowledge, and hints of the inescapable destiny which remind me of Arthurian Romance.
The way Charlie's relationships with his co-workers at the bakery, staff and students at the university and Alice change as he changes is important, and they too are changed - though in lesser amounts - as the sun is pulled less towards the earth than the earth to the sun.
Throughout there remains a central decent core to Charlie, with his aspiration to know and his wish to be good, which is very endearing and identifiable.
Sean Tilley reviewed Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Review of 'Flowers for Algernon' on 'GoodReads'
5 stars
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.