Popular Science Review - Flowers for Algernon

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Review - Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes

Science authors' favourites - Brian Clegg

Here's a science fiction book that has crossed the great divide and the powers that be have decided that it's literature. What often happens at this stage is that the author gets airs and graces and decides it was never science fiction in the first place. As far as I am aware this never happened to Daniel Keyes - which is just as well, as it would be highly unfair to see this as anything else.

That doesn't mean it's not literature - great literature, even. You may even have been forced to read it at school, that ultimate killer of a good book.

If you did have it imposed on you at school and haven't read it since - or if you haven't come across it - this is a simply stunning book.

The premise is simple. The book is in the form of a diary, written by by Charlie Gordon (or to be precise, as he first describes it, a progris riport). Charlie has learning difficulties and just about manages to hold down a job sweeping the floor at a bakery. He is a test subject for a treatment that has proved very effective on mice in apparently increasing intelligence.

As the reports build up, Charlie blossoms into an articulate and intelligent writer. Then Algernon, the lead test mouse, dies...

It's one of the few books that can bring tears to the eyes of most readers - yet it's not in any sense consistently miserable. A book to cherish.

The story has been made into a film (Cliff Robertson won the best actor Oscar for this role), a musical and a TV movie.

Film - Charly (Region 2 DVD) -

Musical - Flowers for Algernon (soundtrack) -

Reviewed by Brian Clegg

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