Thinking about the book
This was a very different kind of book. There was a new format in first person stories that had been created, a sort of diary, which has led to several modern books being written with a similar format, with entries replacing chapters. This is also a very realistic, yet unrealistic book. In that the science is unlikely and the relationship between Mr. Gordon and Algernon the Mouse are much less likely, sometimes seeming to have conversations, and even to root for sports teams together. The treatment, if it were real, would probably require a more intense monitoring, and anyway doctors of the time this novel was written would probably not even be able to inject chemical into a human brain, let alone something so delicate as a mouse. In addition, if the treatment were to decline in effect, the doctors would not simply reject the experiments as failure, but rather keep dosing to find out if the time between dosage and decline changed.
However, I believe the story is very realistic in how the characters act, Charlie, after finding out that Ms. Kinnian is not the absolute deity of education as was believed, begins to become depressed, resigning to running Algernon through a maze, day after day, time after time, until the mouse goes absolutely insane. Charlie brings in another mouse to comfort him, represented in CHarlie's world as another woman living in the apartment complex that Charlie lives in, and Algernon kills the new mouse. The other woman no longer would stay with Mr. Gordon. The doctors, although not realistic in their remedies, are realistic in that they want to defend their honour, parading Charlie about when he is successful and intelligent, but hiding him away when he (and Algernon) find a fault in the program. Ms. KInnian is devoted to Charlie, staying away but always there, just in case.
I did not expect this book to be so vivid. In Eighth grade, we had a textbook that contained excerpts and speeches and abridged stories, and there was an abriged version of Flowers for Algernon, and it was a well held together story. However, it did not offer the whole picture, squeezing the actual, hundreds of pages thick book into a 13 page bit that got across whatever comprehension question we were supposed to be answering, and then the teacher would milk some skim out of that so he could teach us all the ins and outs of all the little literaturial bits. I suspected that the book was truncated, and wanted the full story. Now that I have read the whole story, I do not wish to read it again. Now that I have read the whole, uncensored, undignified, horrifying, and depressing bits that they hid from us when we were even younger, I find myself wishing I had not chosen this book, however good it may be.
However, I believe the story is very realistic in how the characters act, Charlie, after finding out that Ms. Kinnian is not the absolute deity of education as was believed, begins to become depressed, resigning to running Algernon through a maze, day after day, time after time, until the mouse goes absolutely insane. Charlie brings in another mouse to comfort him, represented in CHarlie's world as another woman living in the apartment complex that Charlie lives in, and Algernon kills the new mouse. The other woman no longer would stay with Mr. Gordon. The doctors, although not realistic in their remedies, are realistic in that they want to defend their honour, parading Charlie about when he is successful and intelligent, but hiding him away when he (and Algernon) find a fault in the program. Ms. KInnian is devoted to Charlie, staying away but always there, just in case.
I did not expect this book to be so vivid. In Eighth grade, we had a textbook that contained excerpts and speeches and abridged stories, and there was an abriged version of Flowers for Algernon, and it was a well held together story. However, it did not offer the whole picture, squeezing the actual, hundreds of pages thick book into a 13 page bit that got across whatever comprehension question we were supposed to be answering, and then the teacher would milk some skim out of that so he could teach us all the ins and outs of all the little literaturial bits. I suspected that the book was truncated, and wanted the full story. Now that I have read the whole story, I do not wish to read it again. Now that I have read the whole, uncensored, undignified, horrifying, and depressing bits that they hid from us when we were even younger, I find myself wishing I had not chosen this book, however good it may be.