Flowers for Algernon

This article is about the short story, play and novel. For the film, see Charly. For the Kyosuke Himuro album, see Flowers for Algernon (album).

Flowers for Algernon

File:Algernon.jpg
Author	Daniel Keyes
Language	English
Genre	Science fiction, Novella & Novel
Publisher	Harcourt
Publication date	April 1959 (original novella) & March 1966 (full novel)
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	216
ISBN	ISBN 0-15-131510-8 (first edition, hardback)

Flowers for Algernon is a soft science fiction story and play written by Daniel Keyes. It was originally published as a novelette in the April 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, winning a Hugo award for Best Short Fiction in 1960 . It was later extended into a full-length novel under the same title, which won the Nebula Award for Best Novel, awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, in 1966.

The book is often found on required reading lists in North American public schools and major universities throughout the world.

Plot summary

The story of Flowers for Algernon centers on Charlie Gordon, a 37 year old mentally retarded janitor, who volunteers to take part in an experimental intelligence-enhancing treatment. His progress parallels that of Algernon, a laboratory mouse who had been "enhanced" earlier. The story is told from Charlie's point of view and written as a journal, in progress reports or progris riport as he initially spells it, which he keeps as part of the experiment. Succeeding entries trace Charlie's ever-increasing comprehension and intelligence in the aftermath of the treatment, as he passes through "normalcy", and then reaches super-genius level, becoming vastly more intelligent than the doctors who invented the procedure (he learns 20 languages, reads books at one page per second, writes a piano concerto, and disproves the hypothesis of the experiment that he was the subject of, among various accomplishments).

He discovers both the advantages of intelligence and awareness, including his sexual-emotional relationship with his former teacher, Alice Kinnian; and the disadvantages, as he discovers that the people he thought were his friends had only viewed him as 'entertainment', and now resent his superior abilities. He feels isolated from those less intelligent than him.

Yet, all else seems to be well, until Algernon's enhanced intelligence begins to fade rapidly. As Charlie himself confirms, the neural enhancement is only temporary, and he too is doomed to revert to his original mental state. Some say that Algernon's death is supposed to imply that the treatment will also eventually kill Charlie, but his own notes on the subject, dubbed the Algernon-Gordon Effect, say nothing of his impending death. He records his struggles to find a way to stop the decay until he realizes the futility of it all. The title's mention of flowers is a reference to Charlie's last request that "please if you get a chanse, put some flowers on Algernons grave in the bak yard...".

The story is told from Charlie's point of view, and as Charlie's mental state shifts, it is reflected in his writings. He becomes depressed, for example, when he realizes that his cognition will decay when he can no longer understand his own proof-this is conveyed directly to the reader as a change in Charlie's attitude towards others and descending level of intelligence.

Literary significance and criticism

In January 1970 , the school board of Cranbrook, British Columbia, Canada, as well as Calgary, Alberta, Canada, banned the novel-length expansion of Flowers for Algernon from the local grade-nine curriculum and the school library, ". The president of the BC Teachers' Federation criticized the action. Flowers for Algernon was part of the BC Department of Education list of approved books for grade nine and was recommended by the BC Secondary Association of Teachers of English. A month later, the board reconsidered and returned the book to the library; they did not, however, lift its ban from the curriculum. [Mind War: Book Censorship in English Canada, p. 37; Not in Our Schools! p. 9] While the full novel does contain material about the character's personal life (that is, flashbacks of experiences of puberty that may be objectionable to some people), the original short story does not. It is on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000 at number 47.

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Awards and nominations

The novel (in its original form) won a Hugo award for Best Short Fiction in 1960 . It was later extended into a full-length novel under the same title which won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1966.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

A list of the numerous adaptations of the story can be found here [1].

• a radio play for BBC Radio 4 starring Tom Courtenay as Charlie.
• a 1961 tele-play starring Cliff Robertson, on CBS's The U.S. Steel Hour.
• a 1968 movie entitled Charly, also starring Cliff Robertson. Robertson won the Best Actor Oscar for the title role.
• a 1979 London musical starring Michael Crawford
• a 1999 movie titled Molly starring Elisabeth Shue
• a 2000 TV movie starring Matthew Modine
• a 2002 11-episode drama series (アルジャーノンに花束を) for Japanese television, starring Yusuke Santamaria
• a 2006 Japanese musical starring Kenji Urai
• a 2006 Korean drama series 안녕하세요 하느님 (Hello, God) for KBS starring Keon Yoo

Allusions/references from other works

Explicit:

• Japanese rock singer Kyosuke Himuro's solo debut album is named Flowers for Algernon.
• Flowers for Algernon's title is mentioned in a Nujabes rap song named "Feather."
• In episode 14 of season 5 (Smile Time) of the TV series Angel, Charles Gunn's implant which granted him complete knowledge of human and demon law and languages is failing, and the doctor's diagnosis is "Acute Flowers For Algernon Syndrome."
• In Marvel Comics' Spider-Man's Tangled Web #5-6 (Flowers for Rhino), the notably unintelligent supervillain Rhino undergoes an experiment to increase his intelligence in order to impress the girlfriend of his boss. While initially this improves his life, his exponentially increasing intelligence means he quickly becomes bored of her, and everything else (in one scene he goes to see Hamlet, and starts making notes on how to improve it), before realising his now-superhuman intellect has separated him from humanity. On the point of suicide, he instead devises a way of reversing the machine, asking the doctor "Could you make me a little dumber, just to be on the safe side?"
• The book is referenced in the Newsradio episodes Arcade and Flowers for Matthew. In Arcade, Lisa thinks she's getting dumber because Beth is faster at solving the jumble. Dave jokes, "Well, we knew this day would come Algernon." Lisa, after a moment's pause, rattles off, "Flowers for Algernon written by Daniel Keyes inspired the 1968 film Charly for which Cliff Robertson won an Oscar for best actor I should have known that faster." Dave responds, "No, you shouldn't have known it at all," at which point Lisa wisely decides to retake the SAT's. The main plot of Flowers for Matthew is loosely based on that of the book. Matthew's intelligence is supposedly increased by a smart drink invented by Joe. However, the smart Matthew soon realizes that the drink had no effect, and his newfound intelligence was manifested by his own gullibility in believing that the drink would work. Once he makes this realization Matthew begins regressing to his old self.
• In the 2005 video game Destroy All Humans!, if the player scans a Majestic Psi-Mutant, a possible thought is "Algernon... smarter... than.. Charlie..."
• In an episode of the comic strip Tom the Dancing Bug titled "Flowers for Trinitron", the temporary loss of cable television service causes a sedentary young man to blossom into a creative genius, until his TV starts working again.
• In the episode "MACHINES DÉSIRANTES" of the anime Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, one of the Tachikomas, after gaining self-awareness, states that it has an interest in reading books and is shown to be reading Flowers for Algernon at the time.
• The book is referenced in an episode of Friends: when Joey and Chandler contemplate moving back from the large luxurious apartment to the small dingy apartment, Joey sees no problem with this. Chandler asks him incredulously, "Haven't you ever read Flowers for Algernon?!"
• It is used as the solution for a subplot of the Adult Swim show Frisky Dingo. In the episode "Flowers for Nearl", the Xtacles attempt to pass off a mentally challenged man as the person they had been sent to kidnap, giving him an injection to increase his intelligence. The novel is specifically mentioned by one of the Xtacles, asking "So...who's read Flowers for Algernon?", to which the others incorrectly reply "Oooh, about the kid with all the chains, and the goggles, and at the end he gets killed with a shotgun?" (A mistaken reference to Harrison Bergeron, the dystopian science fiction story written by Kurt Vonnegut.)
• Mentioned in the 2002 movie Adaptation when the character of Donald Kaufman suggests Flowers for Algernon as an example of a movie about flowers, to which Charlie Kaufman replies, "It's not about flowers; besides it's not a movie." regardless of the fact that the book had been filmed twice (once as Charly in 1968, and as a TV movie in 2000 under the same title).
• An issue of Justice League of America features Plastic Man and Martian Manhunter discussing the book as a parallel to their own situation (they had been separated from their superhuman alter-egos, and Plastic Man wanted to reverse the process). Mention is also made of the movie adaptation, Charly.
• Edinburgh-based acoustic pop group Flowers For Algernon take their name from Daniel Keyes novel.
• In the game World Of Warcraft, the Undead capital city "Undercity" contains an alchemist named Algernon, holding a flower in the off hand.
• In the webcomic Pvp online, Skull, the normally unintelligent troll, accidentally sticks a fork into a toaster and electrocutes himself, becoming a genius in the process. As time goes by, however, he feels isolated from his friends, and decides to electrocute himself again to reverse the process. After Brent reads Skull's note explaining his actions, he says, "I'll go plant some flowers for Algernon in the back yard." Later, when the super intelligent cat, Scratch, electrocutes himself and becomes stupid, while regaining his intelligence he muses "This is like 'Flowers for Algernon' in reverse."
• In episode 12 of the television series Dirty Pair, the 3WA's R&D department increases the intelligence of a mouse (called Algernon), who then leads other mice in the 3WA headquarters to take over the building.
• Terry Carr's Egoboo For Algernon is an obvious pastiche.

Implicit:

• A Curious Feeling, the 1979 debut solo album by Genesis keyboardist Tony Banks, was based on a concept inspired by the novel.
• An episode of The Simpsons, entitled "HOMЯ", is apparently a loose parody of Flowers for Algernon; Homer is given an operation to remove a crayon from his brain, resulting in increased intelligence. He proceeds to lose his friends, and consequently requests that the crayon be re-inserted by brain surgeon Moe. Not unlike Charlie, he cannot understand a note he wrote to Lisa while intelligent. Indeed, even the misspelling of the main character's name alludes to the spelling of the title "Charly" in the 1968 movie.
• In the seventh season of the Golden Girls in the episode titled "The Pope's Ring", the character Rose tells her boyfriend Miles that she was once in a lab experiment where they doubled her IQ. She said that it lasted as long as the I.V. giving her "smart-juice" was in, and that her doubled capacity disappeared when they took it out.
• "Mars University", an episode of Futurama, wherein a monkey named "Guenter" is made more intelligent by a hat designed by the Professor and enters the university on Mars, doing much better than Fry in the process. However, he comes to lament his super-intelligence and escapes back into the jungle, only to find it is useful for saving Fry, Leela and the Professor from falling over the falls. He then tumbles and damages his hat, making him only moderately intelligent (he goes to business school instead of graduating from college.)

See also

• Unreliable narrator
• The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929-1964, an anthology of the greatest science fiction short stories prior to 1965, as judged by the Science Fiction Writers of America

External links

• Charly at IMDb
• Flowers for Algernon at IMDb