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I am a 40 year old English major who has read and re-read thousands of books, and yet hadn't even heard of "Flowers for Algernon." Why is that? I read the much censored/banned "Catcher in The Rye" and "Huckleberry Finn" while in high school, but not Flowers, which I think is as timelessly thought-provoking and valuable, if not more so. Flowers looks at something less obvious than color, gender or age; something hidden, less obvious. Intelligence! As a teacher and parent, I am caught up in the push for smarter is better. Cognitive stimulation! Brain development! Charlie's story causes us to pause and think about what is really the most meaningful in the human experience: superior intellect or human relationship? The smarter Charlie became, the more intellectual success he had, the less connected, unfulfilled and unhappy he became. Once Charlie was bright enough to understand that his "friends" had been taunting and mocking him, he felt intellectually angry, but more interesting is the sense of loneliness he felt. The friends who he laughed with and had a good time with (or so he believed) had been laughing at his expense. Was it cruel treatment if Charlie didn't perceive it as such? Should Charlie have been outraged? Should his co-workers have known better? There is an intellectual pecking order, just as there is survival of the fittest. Charlie set out to "get smart" so he could have more friends and people would like him. In the end, higher intelligence led to fewer friends, and most people liked him less -- including himself in some respects! This part of ourselves that no one can see, our intelligence, is a more important part of who we ARE than we might realize. As with 1984, Brave New World and Invisible Man, finishing Flowers for Algernon left me with a similar, uneasy feeling about humanity.

2022-11-14 17:26