Flowers for Algernon
8 hrs. 35 min.
Description
Charlie Gordon is an idiot. Literally, too: ever since childhood he has been ill with phenylketonuria, a condition where intellectual disability is almost unavoidable. Now he’s about thirty—he works as a janitor at a bakery and attends classes for the intellectually disabled. And it was he who became the first person in the world to undergo an experimental operation to eliminate this disease—roughly speaking, the surgeons removed the damaged parts of his brain and replaced them with healthy tissue. So what was the result? A lot of different things, I should say...
Thirty years ago it was considered science fiction.
Thirty years ago it was read like science fiction—an exploration that pushes and expands the boundaries of the genre, greedily absorbing every new trend, trying on a face for all humanity, boldly ignoring Cain’s stamp of the “genre ghetto.”
Now it is perceived as one of the most human works of recent times: a novel of piercing psychological power, a masterful development of the theme of love and responsibility.
Thirty years ago it was considered science fiction.
Thirty years ago it was read like science fiction—an exploration that pushes and expands the boundaries of the genre, greedily absorbing every new trend, trying on a face for all humanity, boldly ignoring Cain’s stamp of the “genre ghetto.”
Now it is perceived as one of the most human works of recent times: a novel of piercing psychological power, a masterful development of the theme of love and responsibility.
