From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Aug 10 12:45:01 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!news.solace.mh.se!news.xinit.se!nntp.se.dataphone.net!fci-se!fci!masternews.telia.net!news-nyc.telia.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!18.181.0.26!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: pj@willowsoft.compulink.co.uk (Paul S Jenkins) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Keyes' _Flowers for Algernon_ Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 27 Jul 1998 15:27:28 -0400 Organization: CIX - Compulink Information eXchange Lines: 45 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: Reply-To: pj@willowsoft.compulink.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2056 _Flowers for Algernon_ by Daniel Keyes Review Copyright (c) 1998 Paul S. Jenkins [Contains a semi-spoiler for the ending, if there's still folks out there who don't know how this fine poignant book ends. --AW] _Flowers for Algernon_ is the story of Charlie, a simple bakery assistant who is selected for a radical new surgery. The experimental operation he undergoes is designed to improve his intelligence. The book takes the form of Charlie's journal, and the narrative is therefore entirely first-person. Keyes has taken a single, simple science- fictional idea -- the 'what if?' -- and applied it to human intelligence. What if a man's intelligence were to be radically improved, from lowly but contented simpleton, to incisive but emotionally inexperienced near- genius? Charlie tells us his story with disarming frankness, his written style transforming before our eyes as the results of the operation take effect. His emerging intelligence is visible on the page. Starting as an educationally sub-normal menial worker, lacking social skills and self-esteem, Charlie matures into an outwardly self-assured, articulate man. But he lives constantly with the threat that his artificially accelerated intelligence might desert him. It's a deeply moving story, which touches many of our contemporary concerns, despite being first published in 1959: the ethics of human experimentation; the essence of self; the issue of informed consent. It's also an intensely personal story. We see everything through Charlie's eyes, and we sympathize as the people around him react very differently during his metamorphosis. _Flowers for Algernon_ is a novel of change, and of stasis. The inevitable end -- more a reversal than a climax -- leaves one aching for a different outcome, knowing that such an outcome is impossible. %A Keyes, Daniel %T Flowers for Algernon %I Indigo (Cassell) %C London %D 1996 (copyright 1959, 1966) %G ISBN 0 575 40020 X %P 216 pp. %O paperback, GBP 5.99