Flowers for Algernon

Daniel Keyes

Having read it

★★★★☆

It was a good book. Initially quite enthralling and exciting.

The ideas and the way it handled the lead character’s thoughts and methods were interesting.

Despite all that though, the middle section got a bit dull! It was good that Charlie’s operation had worked and good to see its effects, but it plodded along a bit.

However, the last sixty or so pages that I read in one go, were really good: Charlie’s descent and regression into his previous state and how it also affects the people around him.

A good read and clever story that actually works at saying something between the lines.

A good passage

...it’s frightening to realise that my fate is in the hands of men who are not the giants I once thought them to be, men who don’t know all the answers.

A second good passage

I put Algernon’s body into a small metal container and took him home with me. I wasn’t going to let them dump him into the incinerator. It’s foolish and sentimental, but late last night I buried him in the back yard. I wept as I put a bunch of wild flowers on the grave.