Book Club #3 - Flowers for Algernon

Content Warning: This article discusses ableism and abuse.

Eighth grade was a great year for me as a reader. It was a killer combination of having a great English teacher as well as a great selection of books to read in class. One short story that stuck with me was Flowers for Algernon. It’s about a man named Charlie who is belittled by society for having low intelligence but is chosen to get a surgery that makes him the most intelligent person in the world.

I thought it would be a wonderful idea to read the full version of the story, so I chose it to be the next book I would cover at the end of the last book club post. I didn’t realize quite a few things before doing this. In particular, the short story actually came first, so there are more differences between the stories than you’d think there’d be. The most jarring difference was the change in… erm… language between the two versions of the story.

Slurs Everywhere

I have a tendency not to remember how problematic the media of my childhood was, only figuring that out as I revisit them. Having only read the short story as a child, reading the novel was a shocking experience given how prevalent the r-slur is in it. How could I have forgotten the story was like this? Well, it turns out it wasn’t, though it still isn’t free of sin (it does use the r-slur once in the middle of the story). But when you compare this to the novel that throws around the r-slur like it’s some new fad, the short story suddenly feels like Joan of Arc.

I suppose it’s worth mentioning that the short story came out in 1959, and the novel came out in 1966. As such, it shouldn’t be the most shocking thing that there are some problematic parts to this story. But it’s still strange that it somehow got worse between versions. I think that the author developed quite a problematic view on slurs, which he projects onto Charlie as he says:

I’m exceptional - a democratic term used to avoid the damning labels of gifted and deprived (which used to mean bright and [r-slur]), and as soon as exceptional begins to mean anything to anyone they’ll change it. The idea seems to be: use an expression only as long as it doesn’t mean anything to anybody.

Like, no. The reason society has come up with alternative terms to the r-slur isn’t because it started “meaning something,” but because the term was used as a means to discriminate and harass (you know, like a slur). And don’t get me started on how this story portrays love and sex.

Me Getting Started on How This Story Portrays Love and Sex

A little background on me first. I am asexual. Personally, I feel romantic attraction towards others, but very little to no sexual attraction. I can certainly say that it’s not due to some physical or mental condition that I am the way I am - my attraction to others is inherent to me as a person.

And that’s my biggest problem with Flowers for Algernon. You know the first time Charlie ever has any romantic or sexual attraction to someone? After his surgery. It seems weird to me that the author associates intelligence with the ability to love. Even in a flashback scene where he gives a valentine to a girl in his class, it’s heavily implied that the only reason he did so was due to the other guys in his class being attracted to her.

It’s revealed throughout the book that Charlie had an extremely abusive past, with his mother often drilling him that he wasn’t to look at girls in “that way.” I don’t think that this excuses the way the author treats Charlie. We see the story from Charlie’s point of view, so Charlie’s intentions are clear - all he’s doing is trying to be nice and not get hit while his mother is assuming all Charlie is thinking about is sex. Charlie is never shown to have had any romantic or sexual feelings towards anyone, even before his mother started drilling him about it.

The Parts I Actually Enjoyed

I’ve ranted a lot about the particular aspects I disliked about the novel. However, it’s based on a short story that I really enjoyed as a child, so some of that had to carry over, right? While the author did add a lot of detail that ended up being quite problematic, there were parts of the story that I think benefited from going more in-depth.

A big part of the novel is the dynamic between Charlie and Algernon. Algernon is a white lab mouse who underwent the same surgery Charlie did¹. The success of Algernon’s surgery was what prompted the scientists involved to look into human trials.

I believe the short story only mentioned a sentence or two about Charlie and Algernon being shown off at a science convention. The novel goes much further, in what I believe is one of the best chapters of the book. It shows how in spite of Charlie’s intelligence being higher than anyone else there, society’s views of him haven’t changed. To them, he’s just some nobody with no autonomy - an experiment just like the mouse beside him. There are certainly moments where Charlie belittles his past self, but I think the convention is what makes him truly internalize that he was and is a person of inherent value and that one’s self-worth isn’t defined by their intelligence.

Before I Spoil the Ending

I normally write my blog posts in a way that naturally goes from generically talking about the book to becoming more spoiler heavy by the end. I assume that if one is interested in the story, they’d stop reading and pick it up before getting spoiled. This book in particular benefits from not knowing how it ends, hence why I’m making this disclaimer much more explicit.

That being said, it’s also really hard to recommend this book to others. There’s a lot that’s problematic with it, even more than what I’ve covered in this post. If you have any interest in the story at all, I’d recommend reading the short story. Otherwise, I’m going to talk about the story as a whole now, including spoiling the ending.

Flowers for Algernon

I cannot think of a better title for this story than Flowers for Algernon. Its beauty perfectly encapsulates the tragedy of this story. And there’s a lot of tragedy in this story.

Certainly a big moment was Charlie realizing that who he thought were his friends were actually just discriminatory pieces of shit who metaphorically and physically pushed him around for their own pleasure - and it is truly awful how this discrimination still exists in spite of the strides society has taken towards equal rights.

But the biggest tragedy is the ending. Algernon’s mental state starts to decay, despite the assumption that the surgery’s effects were permanent. Charlie, having received the same surgery as Algernon, now has to cope with the fact that his fate will be the same. This itself isn’t tragic. What is tragic is that Algernon dies, sealing Charlie’s fate.

The worst part is that Charlie eventually doesn’t remember why his memories are fading, so he assumes that it’s because he didn’t try hard enough to retain them. Charlie’s final request before checking himself into a mental hospital acts as a stark and gut-wrenching reminder of what his fate will be, asking that Algernon continues to receive flowers on his grave.

Closing Thoughts

I still don’t know whether reading Flowers for Algernon was a worthwhile use of my time. While I really did like the expansion on certain key moments in the story, the short story did a good job of getting to the core of the message without as many problematic parts or implications. At least it was interesting thinking about these concepts and revisiting what was a very interesting story about society’s views of intelligence.

For my next book club post, I’m going to return with a more light-hearted story, as this book certainly took a lot more time and care to get my thoughts on the paper. That being said, next month will still be a bit different than normal, as I will be covering the first two issues of the manga Haikyu!! by Haruichi Furudate. Feel free to read them for yourself before I cover them in that blog post. See you then!