The Gifts We Have
Book thoughts on Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
My mind is overflowing with thoughts for this book, and I don't know where to start without frightening a reader away with my excitement. But that's a gift too. I can't take that for granted.
I have ideas.
I have an audience who reads them.
I am a human being and others recognize me as such.
That last one sticks with me the most. I am a human being. You see my words and you know that I am a human.
Charlie Gordon wasn't seen as a human being until after the operation takes place in Flowers for Algernon, a book so famous that I hope I don't have to sell you on it, but if you haven't read it, I hope you do after this essay.
Charlie Gordon was always a human being. He always will have been a human being. His intelligence doesn't matter when stating that fact, but to the doctors and people in the world around him, Charlie isn't thought of in those basic terms. He's there, yes, but is he human?
Charlie Gordon is a 32 year old man with an IQ of 68. Mentally retarded in the parlance of the time that the book was written. A man with an intellectual disability in the language of today.
A man, though.
Flowers for Algernon is written in the first person, epistolary, as "Progress Reports" from Charlie in the days leading up to and following his operation. He's been chosen to be the first human study in a new combination operation and psychological routine to increase his intelligence. For the doctors in the novel, they are making this man a complete human. They are creating someone who can finally, after 32 years, contribute to society. We see this from Charlie's perspective. The first of the "progriss reports" are rough, spelling errors abound. They are hard to read and take work to understand, but they can be understood. There is thought in the words. Fear, anxiety, excitement and hope fill Charlie's entries as he hopes for the doctors to make him smarter.
Then we see it happen.
The spelling errors subside. Sentences become more complete. Charlie learns how to use commas and overuses them (much as I do) for an entry before learning their more proper place.
This intelligence is an amazing gift. Charlie recognizes that, acknowledges it and cherishes it, even as it grows within him without his first noticing.
The doctors see it as a much greater gift. They see it as the creation of a man, rather than the unearthing of a fossil, bringing forth the human who was already there. These men see their gift as that of a god. They created Charlie.
But Charlie was always there. He was always a human being. He did not complete research, nor write a piano concerto, nor publish a scientific study, but he swept up at the bakery and ran deliveries. Charlie was always contributing to the world.
The doctors gave him intelligence, but they did not give him humanity.
The intelligence cannot last, though. A study completed before Charlie's operation, on a mouse called Algernon, seemed to show that the increase in intelligence was permanent. But after Charlie ascends in IQ, they notice the mouse has begun a decline. The effects of the operation will not be permanent.
What do you do when you know your time with a gift is limited?
Charlie will not lose his humanity, but he will lose a lot. He knows this is coming and he and the readers face the immortal question: "What do you do before you cannot do it any longer?"
Memento Mori.
Charlie will not die soon, but a version of him will.
How do you face that?
How do we all face that?
Accept and enjoy the gifts that you have while you have them.
That's the best thesis I can come up with. That is the only way I can wrap my head around Flowers for Algernon and the only way I can think of it without being reminded of the final words of the piece and wanting to succumb to tears once more.
Charlie was gifted intelligence but only had it for a short time. He had to face that, accept it, and enjoy the moments with it while it lasts.
Charlie was also gifted humanity. Life. We don’t know where this gift came from, only that the doctors and the teachers weren’t the ones to give him this. It lasted quite a bit longer than his period of high intelligence, but it also won’t last forever. We all know that this is temporary, too. Charlie fought to keep his life, and to keep his intelligence, as the latter was dismantled before his eyes. He could not win that fight.
None of us can.
But for a while, we can enjoy what we have, how little or large it may be, for the time that we have it.
Flowers on a grave aren't much. They disappear with time. But they are a gift.
We all have gifts. Let us enjoy them while we can.
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Love ya!
Max