Flowers of algernon is a really good book
the story is simple, there is this guy who has intellectual disability, and due to certain experiments, they manage to rise their IQ to incredibly high levels. The book is mainly focused on that character developement on how this change affects their person and in what ways
the thing is, while the experiments raised their book intelligence to maximum levels, they really didn't do that for their emotional intelligence, moving on from being a lovable idiot to a arrogant, narcissistic redditor and quora . You really feel that slow change too, in the last part of the book, some scenes really hurt emotionally as the book really made you like charlie
the book is also in a way about ableism, but we got to that the original short story was written in 1959, the full novel being released in 1966, so while the book is incredebly ive and honestly pretty ahead of it's time, there are still certain or missconceptions that could be seen as either a little bit offensive or just plain wrong, however you can clearly see the author's intent so that really doesn't matter
the writting style is also very interesting as this book is written in first person, and since charlie barely knew how to write, you can see the actual writting style and vocabulary improve as the book goes on.
I think this book is also very cruel in the way it depicted society, as even if they dont tell you explicitly, you can clearly see all the ways they were exploting charlie, in the bakery with the 10$ a week salary, the non-consensual experiments, and then in the last part of the book how charlie became very sexist
my only real complain with the book is that I wish that it was longer and actually explored tose concepts more, I wanted to see smart charlie opinion on the fact that he was being exploited, but IO guess that in the book he kinda just internalized that and just moved on?, this could also just be a case of the author not really trying to really talk about those stuff or thinking it wasn't quite needed, as I said, the original short story was made in 1959
however, I feel that even if not acknowledged that this book still really allows to see how mentally disabled people were perceived back in the day
yeah this book is really good, and honestly even if it may seem a little bit logical the "you are not superior to anyone for knowing math", some people still need to learn it, and the character developement and things it said about society is also very interesting
also, question for dementedduck, how did you even find this book?, this feels like it could be the type of book that they make you read in school, but if not, where did you find it?, I really want to read more books, have wanted to do so for a long while, but i just dont know any resource to find actually good books like this one, so if you could share anything, it would be helpful
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updates:
watched the first chapter of gilgamesh, it was nice
I kinda have a stellaris run going??? I think????
next: Shinka no Mi
the story is simple, there is this guy who has intellectual disability, and due to certain experiments, they manage to rise their IQ to incredibly high levels. The book is mainly focused on that character developement on how this change affects their person and in what ways
the thing is, while the experiments raised their book intelligence to maximum levels, they really didn't do that for their emotional intelligence, moving on from being a lovable idiot to a arrogant, narcissistic redditor and quora . You really feel that slow change too, in the last part of the book, some scenes really hurt emotionally as the book really made you like charlie
the book is also in a way about ableism, but we got to that the original short story was written in 1959, the full novel being released in 1966, so while the book is incredebly ive and honestly pretty ahead of it's time, there are still certain or missconceptions that could be seen as either a little bit offensive or just plain wrong, however you can clearly see the author's intent so that really doesn't matter
the writting style is also very interesting as this book is written in first person, and since charlie barely knew how to write, you can see the actual writting style and vocabulary improve as the book goes on.
I think this book is also very cruel in the way it depicted society, as even if they dont tell you explicitly, you can clearly see all the ways they were exploting charlie, in the bakery with the 10$ a week salary, the non-consensual experiments, and then in the last part of the book how charlie became very sexist
my only real complain with the book is that I wish that it was longer and actually explored tose concepts more, I wanted to see smart charlie opinion on the fact that he was being exploited, but IO guess that in the book he kinda just internalized that and just moved on?, this could also just be a case of the author not really trying to really talk about those stuff or thinking it wasn't quite needed, as I said, the original short story was made in 1959
however, I feel that even if not acknowledged that this book still really allows to see how mentally disabled people were perceived back in the day
yeah this book is really good, and honestly even if it may seem a little bit logical the "you are not superior to anyone for knowing math", some people still need to learn it, and the character developement and things it said about society is also very interesting
also, question for dementedduck, how did you even find this book?, this feels like it could be the type of book that they make you read in school, but if not, where did you find it?, I really want to read more books, have wanted to do so for a long while, but i just dont know any resource to find actually good books like this one, so if you could share anything, it would be helpful
------------
updates:
watched the first chapter of gilgamesh, it was nice
I kinda have a stellaris run going??? I think????
next: Shinka no Mi