Good afternoon, everyone! I will try to keep it short, albeit (hopefully) constructive.
I have finally read the long acclaimed Flowers for Algernon (‘FFA’). So many different people, with the most distant tastes in books, have suggested me FFA for years: emotional, rich, beautifully written, intimate, and so on and so forth. I strongly disagree for several reasons. Some are as follows (spoilers):
1. Though such style of writing could be very interesting *per se*, it comes (very) short if presented to an adult reader. I was expecting such a read, but it is not: it is a book for kids and adolescents. Not that is a problem, of course; but that should have been advertised, so that expectations would have been different (not higher, not lower: different);
2. Remaining with writing for now, not even Charlie ‘genius version’ comes par with expectations. It is such a…ordinary, trivial writing. I am really sorry for that, but I was definitely expecting something different. That is not the writing of someone who has just become a genius; nor is the writing of a good writer (if we prefer to dissociate Charlie from Daniel Keyes, the author);
3. Content wise, well, the story does not stick. There are major holes in the development of Charlie that I come to trust the genuineness of its behavior. What’s the path from subject of research to researcher himself? The Convention, in my view, is the real turning point of the story: but can we really accept that? I mean, just like that, it pops, boom, out of the blue, Charlie and Algernon: a new beginning (or the beginning of the end)… out of a convention? Mmm, not buying that. Likewise his relationship with Fay: how does it start, how does it evolve, how does it end? I got the why, god yes I got it, but why don’t you tell me about the how, the when, the where, the what. Same with Alice: here the story is built better, granted, and that was sort of interesting me, but again: repeteadly and repeteadly I come getting the ‘why’: what about everything else? If we move to Algernon, it probably gets worse: this is Algernon, meet him, play alongside him, steal him, study him, see him dying. I honestly don’t get it. Again, yes, the ups and the downs; and eventually death. Got it. Is that it?
4. The ending. I am forcing myself into thinking that there could have been a worst ending. But I find none. Gosh, what a terrible wrap up. Because, yes, it is a gigantic wrap up. It felt like the author had a dinner planned with the editor, it was running late, and it had to finish the book before it; so it inserted the first few words coming up to mind and that’s it. Oh, wait: let’s remind ourselves of flowers. Flowers are beautiful and stick into the mind of the reader. So let’s walk this walk.
Am I too harsh? Yes, and I am sorry. But I feel really really sad.
What do you really think of FFA? Am I the only one who found it (almost) unbearable? Does someone want to elaborate on where the specialty of this novel lies?
Thanks!
by Beadsman24