Beer And Books Book Club Choice Review - Daniel Keyes - Flowers For Algernon.
- arthurpeterchappell
- Jun 11
- 3 min read
1966. Gollancz Science Fiction Masterworks & other editions.
Spoiler Alerts
The Vinyl Tap’s wonderful book club has books chosen randomly from suggestions offered by its members. This month, the book picked was one I selected, having read it some years back, and I was confident that it would be well received.
The Handmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood once upset her readership by denying that her dystopian novel was ‘science fiction’ because she thought SF was all just ‘talking squids in space’. Flowers For Algernon is a book to share with anyone making such an assumption.
It is a book with a fairly light premise. A man called Charlie who has a very low IQ and learning difficulties, working in an industrial bakery where he is frequently bullied and mocked, gets selected for an experimental treatment that can boost his intelligence. The research team show him how this has already taught a lab-mouse called Algernon how to work out routes through extremely complicated mazes.
Charlie agrees to the tests and becomes extremely bright, ultimately vastly cleverer than the scientists around him. He helps make some major scientific discoveries. However, emotionally, he has not developed and he comes very close to sexually assaulting a woman he desires, and his hyper-intelligence frightens his old work-mates at the bakery. He begins to wonder himself about the ethics of his treatment.
Ultimately, Charlie makes an alarming discovery. The effects of his treatment are going to wear off, and his mind will go back to how it was, and possibly worse than before. He watches helplessly as Algernon’s skills collapse first before rapid onset dementia and amnesia tear apart his mind too.
The book is an emotional roller coaster ride, ultimately heart-breaking. The style, beginning with Charlie’s progress journal deliberately mis-spelt in pidgin-English, but becoming more articulate and complex as his mind strengthens, only to revert back to how it started in the closing pages carries a Hell of a gut punch.
Originally an award winning novella, Keyes expanded the work to novel length to more awards and acclaim. A film version, (just called Charly) was made in 1968, and Cliff Robertson took the best actor Oscar for his performance as Charly (spelt Charlie in the novel). The full film is on free download on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddtNxb43yYo My review of it is here. https://letterboxd.com/arthurchappell/film/charly/
If there is a flaw in the novel it is the assertion that the treatment was only ever tested on one mouse, Algernon, when it would have realistically been tried on hundreds of mice to check the drugs had the same effects in repeat circumstances and to seek out any possible variables. It would have been many years before human testing. His final days seem horribly lonely for him. Having seen my mother fade and eventually die from her vascular dementia a few years back, this book returns to haunt me a great deal now.
As a poetic fable and character study and SF without space monsters, Flowers is to my mind, one of the genre’s greatest works.
It was influential on many later works. It gets referenced in an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and the dreadful film, The Lawnmower Man has its low IQ test subject not only gain intelligence but God-Like supervillain gifts too.
In the 1980’s the book was turned into a Broadway musical, with Michael Crawford playing Charlie. Pictures in my head of an actor dressed as a mouse dancing with a straw hat and a cane. Sounds dreadful to me. I have no idea how its songs went, but I wrote these lyrics as I picture such a show coming over to me. (deliberately awful).
Flowers For Algernon – The Musical Reimagined
I remember the start
When I got really smart
I used to amaze
When I ran round the maze
I did it with ease
And got rewarded with cheese
I have the mightiest mind
In all rodent-kind
But nowadays
I fear I fail the more I'm trying.
I think I might in fact be dying.
CHORUS - Poor Algie might be dying.
Poor Algie might be dying.
Oh no, what a to-do. What can we do? What can we do?
Looks like poor old Charly's done for too
Soon we'll be gone
Nothing to be done
Send for some flowers for Algernon.
CHORUS - Send for some flowers for Algernon.
Send for some flowers for Algernon.
Huge thanks to Millie Angel, the members of Beer & Books and all at Preston’s Vinyl Tap. Next month’s book is Luke Rhinehart’s dark social satire, The Dice Man (which I have read).
Photos taken by myself.
Arthur Chappell
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