The story won a Hugo Award and was adapted for television in 1961 before Keyes decided to expand it into a novel. The story is told through journal entries ("Progress Reports") by Charlie Gordon, a 32-year-old janitor with an IQ of 68. Despite his low intellectual capacity, Charlie is an eager learner who attends night school. At the suggestion of his teacher, Charlie volunteers to take part in experimental neurosurgery that increases his intelligence to genius level. Only a laboratory mouse, Algernon, has undergone a similar operation. The "Progress Reports" reflect Charlie's growing sophistication, his intelligence eventually outstripping that of the scientists who performed the operation. More intelligence leads to a more complex social life for Charlie--in particular, an affair with one of his teachers--and he very quickly grasps that knowledge can't always compensate for a lack of emotional experience. Even more disturbing is his discovery, through Algernon, that the operation has no permanent effect. In the end, he reverts to his mentally retarded state, burdened with a new awareness of all that he's missing.
A Sci Fi Classic
Although primarily categorized as science fiction, the award-winning Flowers for Algernon addressed such a wide range of psychological, social, and moral themes that most critics did not bind it to a strict genre classification.
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