Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Charlie Gordon, IQ 68, is a floor sweeper and the gentle butt of everyone’s jokes – until an experiment in the enhancement of human intelligence turns him into a genius.

But then Algernon, the mouse whose triumphal experimental transformation preceded his, fades and dies, and Charlie has to face the possibility that his salvation was only temporary.

Technically sci-fi but set in a familiar environment of 1960s New York, Flowers for Algernon examines the benefits and risks of high intelligence.

Charlie lives his life in a repetitive routine, blissfully unaware and uncurious of what else might be out there. Some people laugh at him and play tricks on him but he laughs along and moves on to the next part of his routine. Things change when he is selected to participate in a mind experiment following success when it was tested on Algernon. Charlie undergoes the operation and his IQ sky-rockets.

The book is written in the form of a diary by Charlie which he has been asked to keep by the nurses in the hospital running the experiment. I thought this was a very clever piece of writing – initially the entries are short and riddled with spelling and grammatical errors but the standard of Charlie’s writing improves drastically along with his increasing intelligence and curiosity about the world around him.

Keyes juxtaposes self-awareness and happiness. As Charlie’s IQ rises, he becomes socially self-conscious, realising that the laughter he previously invoked in others was often directed unkindly at him. He devours information from books and academic papers, becoming increasingly aware of all the things he does not know – worlds away from his previous unawareness of even the notion of being curious – but this leaves him with an unsatisfied yearning for more and more information.

The book also touches on the medical ethics of the experiment. On the face of it, an operation to improve intelligence could be a wonderful idea but the emotional downsides Charlie experiences are overlooked by the scientists in favour of the experiment’s technological advancements. It becomes clear that a higher IQ does not automatically bring about a better life and, in fact, it can do the opposite.

Flowers for Algernon is one of those books with an ideal balance between a style that is easy and engaging to read whilst covering some serious and thought-provoking topics. The book highlights that academic intelligence is not the be all and end all – it is our feelings that make us truly human.