#flowersofalgernon

Spoilers Ahead

What if you got a chance to see the world in a whole new light? Not just that, the world saw you back in a different light too.

The caveat being that it would only be fleeting. And painful in ways more than one.

At the heart of the psychological sci-fi novel, Flowers of Algernon by Daniel Keyes, is Charlie Gordon, a thirty-something working modestly as a cleaner at a bakery. Charlie suffers from phenylketonuria, a disease that has limited his intelligence since childhood.

Charlie is the first human to be operated on to artificially boost intelligence – almost tripling his IQ from 68 to 185.

He develops a close relation with Algernon, a lab mouse on whom these experiments were found to be very promising. He is fascinated by how smart Algernon is and hopes to beat him at the maze once he’s operated upon.

The story is narrated in the form of poignant ‘progress reports’ that Charlie writes to document how his brainpower changes. The rise and fall of his grammar and language reflect the rise and fall of his intelligence.

Even in the pre-experiment phase, Charlie presents some profound thoughts, those that come from having an unpretentious view of the world. His childlike outlook to the world is endearing, to say the least. Sample this:

THEMATIC APPERCEPTON TEST. I dont know the frist 2 werds but I know what test means. You got to pass it or you get bad marks.

His insights only deepen after the operation. On being disappointed by a cheap thriller at the movies, he says,

“Even in the world of make-believe there have to be rules. The parts have to be consistent and belong together. This kind of picture is a lie. Things are forced to fit because the writer or the director or somebody wanted something in that didn’t belong. And it doesn’t feel right.”

Things don’t turn out to be the candy-sweet future that Charlie imagines lay ahead. He expects the experiment to make him more loved among his friends and co-workers. However, the dramatic rise in his intelligence (and the rise in his perception of the world that comes with it) drives a wedge between him and all the people he knows and loves. For the first time it dawns on him that people pity him, laugh at him and that he unwittingly joined them in the mockery. The professors that he was once in awe of are no longer the intellectual giants he made them to be. People lie. Nothing is what it appears to be. The world is simple no more.

As a teenager on the path to adulthood who is beginning to see the complexity of worldly affairs, I related with Charlie’s bafflement by these revelations.

At the peak of his post-operative super-intelligent phase, he has an epiphany. Charlie begins a series of experiments that culminate as the ‘Algernon-Gordon Effect’. He begins to piece together his life from the flashbacks of his childhood – the jeers of classmates, the tense environment at home, the feeling of being unwanted by his mother that was kindled by the birth of a brilliant sibling. A brief reunion with his mother comes to be. He craves her love and validation, now that he has become ‘normal’, just like she always wanted. He wants her to have his scientific paper as proof that her son is no longer a dimwit. Charlie’s sister, Norma (Doesn’t the name seem like a nod to her ‘normality’ over Charlie’s ‘abnormality’?), all grown-up now, regrets the insensitive manner in which she treated her brother as a child and hopes to fix their relationship.

Charlie has a peek into a universe that will forever remain alien to him – one where he can be with the woman he loves, take on advanced tasks and get promoted, not be pitied upon or sniggered at. The stay is only ephemeral and returns to his universe – a cleaner at the local bakery with patronizing friends.