Annotation #9

Keyes, Daniel. Flowers for Algernon. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1966.

    My first introduction to this story came in the eighth grade, in what was probably the "low" English class, though I'm certain that had more to do with the students' propensity for goofing off than with their potential. Adolescent hormones had kicked in and rendered this thirteen-year-old unteachable, at least according to the school's counselors. To make a bad situation worse, the teacher, Mrs. Odegaard, either was oblivious to the students' shenanigans or just didn't care. So I actually looked forward to this class--it was social hour. I can only remember one of our readings from the entire year, and that was Keyes' original short story version of Algernon. Probably I read it twice; I enjoyed it that much, though I certainly didn't understand why at the time. Several years ago I read the novel and was overjoyed to find that I loved the story even more now as an adult. The book has become something of a touchstone on my own journey of discovery.

     The book is told entirely through Charlie Gordon's progress reports, beginning as a motivated but retarded adult, following him through a special research project designed to foster intelligence first in animals, then in humans. Algernon is Charlie's mouse counterpart, also a subject of the new process. Keyes' narrative style cleverly conveys Charlie's personality prior to the operation, using simple words and sentences, misspellings and slang in short journal entries as Charlie tries writing extensively for the first time in his life, not fully understanding why he's required to. I won't dwell on the style here, but it is more than effectively done and throughout the novel the reader gets that same feeling that comes from reading old childhood diaries or class assignments, the feeling of looking back and realizing how much our awareness changes over time, only in Charlie's case that evolution happens rapidly in a short period, taking him to dizzying heights of intellectual prowess.

     What I find most interesting is Charlie's motivation. Early on we find out that the researchers running the experiment don't feel Charlie is the best subject--they think he's not quite intelligent enough--but in the end they take him because he chose on his own to take classes after work to learn how to read, showing a kind of perseverance unusual for someone of his situation. And Charlie gives a little glimpse of perhaps just why he goes to all this trouble: "If your smart you can have lots of friends to talk to and you never get lonely by yourself all the time" (16). Charlie is an innocent, unable to comprehend others' motivations, sometimes trusting blindly, other times fearing needlessly. The subtleties of life are lost on him, as evidenced here: "He said Ernie for godsake you trying to be a Charlie Gordon. I dont know why he said that. I never lost any packiges. I askd Mr Donner if coud lern to be an aprentise baker like Ernie. I told him I could lern it if he gave me a chanse" (24). For seventeen years he has worked in a bakery with people who do little more than make fun of him, yet he thinks of them as his best friends. That soon changes.

     Charlie begins to grow intellectually faster than anyone should have a right to, for it has its consequences. Learning foreign languages and math do little to ease the psychological pain of adolescence, and that is what soon happens to Charlie. Take all the Earth-shattering revelations you've accumulated in life--self-consciousness, insights into other's motivations, flashbacks to childhood--and squeeze them into a few months' time, and you have this novel. Charlie soon feels as two people, his new self, and the old, slack-jawed Charlie who watches from somewhere in the recesses of his mind. In his reports and in psychotherapy, Charlie is able to look back on his dim previous life with new and distant eyes:

Charlie stares at him, the smile melting from his face. He understands what Gimpy wants, and he feels cornered. He wants to please Gimpy, but there is something about the words learn and teach, something to remember about being punished severely, but he doesn't recall what it is--only a thin white hand upraised, hitting him to make him learn something he couldn't understand (57).

Poor Charlie couldn't make the connection his mother's wrathful hand assumed he could make. Like an abused cat or dog he was punished, but for what he didn't know. The hand that sometimes was loving could also hurt, and there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason, at least not until the operation.

Charlie's story is everyone's story. But whereas in real life these changes occur so slowly that we seldom notice, Charlie spends most of his life waiting in a dim fog, a fog that lifts only for a short time but reveals a world of incredible clarity, as he witnesses in a trance-like state:

     Light and unfeeling. Drifting and expanding through time and space.
     And then, as I know I am about to pierce the crust of existence, like a flying fish leaping out of the sea, I feel the pull from below.
     It annoys me. I want to shake it off. On the verge of blending with the universe I hear the whispers around the ridges of consciousness. And that ever-so-slight tug holds me to the finite and mortal world below (250).

As soon as Charlie reaches his peak, Algernon unexpectedly starts behaving badly, then dies, casting a pall over Charlie's future. He learns he's going to lose probably everything he gained from the experiment and possibly be less in control of himself than before. And too late Charlie realizes that as he has surpassed others in terms of sheer intellect, he still is little better off emotionally than he was before. His attempts at loving Alice, his former instructor, are hindered by early conditioning, and he can't bear to be a test subject anymore. Loneliness is with him more than ever before, despite all his gains.

It is here that the book really moves me, as it portrays Charlie taking as many steps backwards as he did forward, yet still gaining something from the experience. My chief struggles in life have to do with keeping positive in light of the fact that for every step forward I seem to take a step back. Just as Charlie seems to be breaking that essential human mold, he begins struggling to understand things he had learned only days or weeks earlier, and despite his limited time, he begins avoiding people and trying to escape with records or television. Even despite this, he finally manages to come to terms with Alice, consoling himself that at least he had been able to love someone, if only for a short time. And he begins making preparations for his return to the fog, taking a tour of the institution where he has arranged to live in the end:

     As I drove out of Warren, I didn't know what to think. The feeling of cold grayness was everywhere around me--a sense of resignation. There had been no talk of rehabilitation, of cure, of someday sending these people out into the world again. No one had spoken of hope. The feeling was of living death--or worse, of never having been fully alive and knowing. Souls withered from the beginning, and doomed to stare into the time and space of every day.
     I wondered about the house-mother with her red-blotched face, and the stuttering shop teacher, and the motherly principal, and youthful tired-looking psychologist, and wished I knew how they had found their way here to work and dedicate themselves to these silent minds. Like the boy who held the younger one in his arms, each had found a fulfillment in giving away a part of himself to those who had less.
     And what about the things I wasn't shown?
     I may soon be coming to Warren, to spend the rest of my life with the others...waiting (205).

After a trip such as that, who wouldn't come away with a sense of urgency, a need to learn and live as much as possible in the time left to us? Charlie may be headed to a hopeless institution, but at least he will have lived for a short time, more than anyone else there. And in the end that's all we have, how we spent the time allotted us. Better not to think of the time wasted in the mental fog, just make use of what clarity there is.

More than any of the other books I've read for this study, this novel depicts life as the never-ending road that it really is. For every hill Charlie clears, he sees another ahead, with a steep drop first, and he knows that sooner or later he's going to wind up stuck in one of those dips, just as he had been in his life prior, without being able to climb another hill. The poignancy comes when Charlie's intelligence begins deteriorating, and his will to keep climbing those hills wanes, so that it's not necessarily a matter of ability to climb, but of desire. He longs as much for the easy way out as he does for the challenge. Who can't identify with that?

All contents, except where otherwise noted, are copyright Andrew Lee Hunn.

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