"Flowers for Algernon" - flash book, book-emotion

"Flowers for Algernon" - a novel by Daniel Kies, written by him in 1966 based on the story of the same name. The book does not leave anyone indifferent, and confirmation of this - the award in the field of literature for the best novel of the 66th year. The work belongs to the genre of science fiction. However, when you read it, you do not notice the science-fiction component. She imperceptibly wears off, fades and goes to the background. Captures the inner world of the protagonists. They say that a person uses the potential of his brain by 5-10%. What lies behind the rest of 90-95%? Unknown. But there is a hope that science will sooner or later come to account. And what about the soul? This is a big mystery, without the prospect of finding its solution ...

The book "Flowers for Algernon"

First page, second, third ... "Sloppy" text with a lot of grammatical errors. There are no points or commas. Lean language, more reminiscent of the indistinct inconsistent story of a five-year-old child, who tries to tell us something important, but he does not go out. Puzzling and questions, because Charlie Gordon, the protagonist of the novel, in whose name the narrative is conducted, is 32 years old. But soon we realize - Charlie is sick from birth. He has phenylketonuria, in which mental retardation is almost inevitable. The protagonist of the novel "Flowers for Algernon" works as a cleaner in the bakery. He has a simple life with his joys and sorrows. Although he writes little about his sorrows. But not because there are many or few, but because he simply does not notice them. For him, they simply do not exist: "I told me anyway if people will be a Smyat woman over me. A lot of the people of Smica are over me, but they are my friends and we are having fun. " He talks about his "friends" at work, about Nora's younger sister and parents whom he has not seen for a long time, about Uncle Herman, about Mr Donner's friend, who was filled with compassion for him and took a job in a bakery, and about Miss Kinnian, a good teacher In the evening school for the feeble-minded. This is his world. Let the small and not always friendly - he does not care. He sees and observes many things, but does not give an assessment of what is happening. People in his world are without virtues and weaknesses. They are not bad and not good. They are his friends. And Charlie's only dream is to become smart, read a lot and learn to write well to please his mother and father to understand what his companions are talking about, and to meet the hopes of Miss Kinnian, who helps him so much.

His great motivation for studying does not go unnoticed. Scientists of one research institute offer him a unique operation on the brain, which will help him become clever. He readily agrees to this dangerous experiment. After all, a mouse named Algernon, who went through the same operation, became very smart. It easily passes a labyrinth. Charlie can not do it.

The operation is successful, but it does not bring instant "healing". And sometimes it seems that this will never happen, and most likely the guy was once again deceived and laughed at him. But no. We see how in his daily "accounts" there are points and commas. There are fewer errors. More and more complex sentences. He is no longer limited to describing his daily duties. Gray everyday life is filled with deeper feelings, more complex experiences. More and more often he remembers the past. The fog gradually dissipates, he remembers the faces of his father and mother, hears the voice of Nora's little sister, smells the home. There is a sensation, as if someone took a brush, bright colors, and decided to paint white with black outline pictures of the past. The people around are also beginning to notice these amazing changes ....

Charlie takes up his studies. What yesterday seemed incomprehensible and confusing, today - is simple. The speed of training the cleaner in the bakery exceeds in tens, if not hundreds of times, the pace of study of ordinary people. After a couple of weeks, he is fluent in several languages and reads scientific literature. His dream came true - he's smart. But did this make his friends happy? Was he really happy?

At work, he independently learned how to bake bread and rolls, introduced his proposals that could increase the company's income ... But most importantly, he noticed that those whom he had loved and respected yesterday could deceive and betray. There was a clash, and "friends" signed a petition for his dismissal. They are not ready to communicate with the new Charlie. On the one hand, there have been mysterious changes. And what is not clear and somewhere even unnatural - frightens and alarming. On the other hand, after all, it is impossible to communicate on an equal footing and to take in its ranks someone who yesterday was a few steps lower. However, Charlie can no longer and does not want to be close to those whom he yesterday immensely loved and respected. He learned to read and write, but at the same time he learned to condemn and take offense.

Alisa Kinnian, one of the brightest female images of the novel "Flowers for Algernon", sincerely rejoices at his success. They get closer. Friendship grows into mutual sympathy, and then into love ... But every day the level of his intelligence grows. Sometimes the former teacher and mentor Charlie lacks the knowledge and abilities to understand him. Increasingly, she is silent, accusing herself of being insolvent and defective. Charlie also keeps silent. He is irritated by her stupid questions and lack of understanding of the "elementary" questions . Between them appears a small crack, a fault that increases in parallel to the growth of its IQ. In addition, there is another problem: as soon as he wants to kiss her, embrace and approach her like a man, he is covered by an incomprehensible numbness, fear, inexplicable panic, and he falls into the darkness, where he hears the voice of that feeble-minded Charlie. What is it - he does not understand and does not want to understand. Charlie does not exist anymore, but maybe he never was. The circle narrows. The world laughed at him when he was idiot. Changed the circumstances, he himself changed, but the world continues to not take it. In place of cynicism, fun and mockery came fear and alienation. The blue stamp with the words "not like everyone else" used to cause others to desire to rise, fill their gaps with it. The subsequent events did not erase the image of the outcast of society fixed to him, they only colored it in other colors. The new Charlie is not a human being, but a "laboratory animal". Nobody knows how he will behave tomorrow, what to expect from him and how it will end.

Bad news is coming from the research institute - the strange behavior of a laboratory mouse. Algernon is experiencing a rapid decline in intelligence. The apparent initial success of the experiment ends in failure. What to do? Charlie Gordon takes Algernon away, and then runs away with him from troubled scientists and psychologists, from Alice and from himself. He hides in a rented apartment and decides to figure out the reasons for the imminent collapse. Soon, Algernon dies. At autopsy it is visible, that its brain has considerably decreased, and meanders are smoothed. There is very little time left ...

Why is life given to us? It's a difficult question ... From the very beginning we know the world around us and ourselves in this infinity. What role does the soul play in this? What place is given to reason? Why do some have a broad soul, but a "lean" mind? At others - on the contrary? Man always aspired to reveal "this secret", to know what is hidden there, beyond the limits of "our understanding", and each time, approaching the clue closely, found itself at its source. It's no wonder - we are not creators, we are not the creators of everything. Scientific progress allowed us to climb the ninth floor of a skyscraper, and we look at the world from the next window, naively believing that now the whole world is before us, but forgetting that the house still has an unattainable "roof". Symbolically, in this sense, sounds the phrase of a nurse at the very beginning of the novel "Flowers for Algernon": "... she said the mozhetons did not have the right to make you clever, because if the Lord wanted shtoby I was smart he would have done so shtoby I radiated smart ... And maybe Prof. Nemur And Doc Strauss are playing with things that are better left to pack "

Work to complete the experiment was in full swing. Charlie was in a hurry, because it was important for him to find mistakes and help future generations, and most importantly - to prove that his life and Algernon was not just a failed experiment, but the first step toward achieving the main goal - real help to people born with such a disease. He found a mistake, and in his scientific article left a farewell note - in the near future not to put such experiments on people. But the search for a scientific justification for what happened, made him ask other questions: "So what exactly is the mind?" He came to the conclusion that the pure mind, which so adores humanity and for whose sake rejects all those who do not have it - is nothing. We put everything at stake for the sake of illusion and emptiness. A highly intelligent person without the ability to love, with a "underdeveloped" soul is doomed to degradation. Moreover, the "brain for itself" is not capable of bringing any benefit and progress to mankind. Conversely, a person with a "developed" soul and without reason is a "concentration" of love, the possibilities of which are unlimited, which brings true "progress" to the human race - the development of the spirit. And before you help people with intellectual disabilities cope with their problem, you need to deal with their own. And then, probably, the very concept of "the problem of mental retardation" will lose its relevance ...

Charlie did not let him burn the corpse of Algernon. He buried him behind the house, and he left the city and settled in the hospital for idiots. The book "Flowers for Algernon" ends with a remarkable phrase - he asks if possible to visit Algernon's grave in the backyard and bring him flowers ...