Hasn't anybody read "Flowers for Algernon"?

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That reminds of me of a Twilight Zone where a kid gets orphaned. She comes from a culture where they don't talk, only use telepathy. A really mean teacher, who used to be from that culture forces her to talk. It's painful for her but after the teacher keeps bullying her to talk, she finally stumbles, crying, getting out the words "My name is Ilsa."

When relatives from her culture come to get it, it's too late. They know that the teacher ruined her so they let her stay with the do gooders.

Actually, she finds out that the teacher is right and they were trying to have her communicate with spirits http://www.twilightzonemuseum.com/show/04.php (Look for MUTE)

Here's the Wikipedia entry for "Flowers For Algernon". It's quite thorough (the list of adaptations is a tad questionable, in my opinion, however).

I read it. I remember it bothering me . . . but I'd have to reread it now to remember why it did so much.

I guess it's up to the viewer to decide. I, personally, thought that the teacher was hateful and the girl had nobody to advocate for her.

Snow Cake or Snowcake.
Liked it a lot (I'm AS) & so did my (NT) bf. Recommended it to my counselors, too.

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Yes, read the book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_Algernon (a fiction book)

Enjoyed reading the book.

At the time I read the book, I appreciated the author's (Daniel Keyes) ability to create characters based on the idea of intelligence on a sliding scale from dumb to smart. The storytelling involves a character change based on a (dumb) person having a brain operation which immensely boosts his intelligence where he goes from being ignored to being sought after (smart).

Good stories often involve the idea of a character transformation, example, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

Flowers for Algernon is a story (fiction).

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Today - 2010 - I prefer other types of books such as:

A Remarkable Medicine book by Jack Dreyfus about the epilepsy medicine - Dilantin (not a cure) - Topic: Epilepsy

A How To (understand) book by C. Thomas Wild about a medicine for ADHD Inattentive - Tirend (contains caffeine - 100 mg/other ingredients)(not a cure) - Topic: ADHD - Attention Deficit Disorder

The story of Jack Dreyfus is a true story - Dilantin is a real medicine.

The story of C. Thomas Wild is a true story - Tirend is a real medicine.

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The story of Flowers for Algernon is fiction (not a true story).

Today I lean toward true stories as being more helpful than ~ fairytales (fiction).

I love this book so much! I think it might be my favourite, and I don't have favourite anythings.

I've read the book or part of it in a text book (not sure if it was all of it or not). I cried (I cry easily at sad movies or stories even not so sad ones). Poor little mouse.

I also like the old twilight zone series and have the episode Mute on one of my DVDs. I hate that episode. I also felt for Ilsa and was upset with her teacher. Yes the teacher claimed she had been raised like Ilsa was (it was not shown the viewers just had her word to on as to if she really was or not). The teacher said Ilsa was being trained to talk to the dead because that was what she(the teacher) had been trained for but it was never shown that talking to the dead was what Ilsa was being trained for. I only watched the episode once willingly and I like hearing it playing when others are watching it. My sister also likes the series and borrows my DVDs sometimes. She doesn't understand why I don't like that episode. In my opinion the adoptive family were trying to do the right thing but ended up doing it the wrong way and hurt Ilsa more than they could ever realize.

I'm not sure which interpretation was meant by the director of the episode but I think the one where the teacher is wrong and mean is the scarier of the two that have been talked about.

I've seen that movie... the actress Elizabeth Shue played "Molly".

It was cute...but quite an inaccurate potrayal of most autistic people I think.

The "Molly" character was seemingly MR prior to having the experimental operation.


This may be very politically incorrect and i'm quite reluctant to say it, but I don't think there's too many MR women who look like Elizabeth Shue.

I know it well. The expansion and the movie lose a lot compared to the original story. I used to get upset when certain NT types got what to me seems a totally off message from the thing.

I'm the opposite - I have so many favourites when it comes to sci-fi and music - everything I like is a favourite in some way, but this book is definitely on the short list of "when I read it as a kid it had a tremendous impact on me". A real classic.


Lawnmower Man (1992) and Phenomenon (1996) are a couple of films which used the theme of getting smarter. Interesting moral to all these stories - you'll become a freak to other people and pay a price. Funny how gaining intelligence/wisdom is portrayed as something negative, yet desiring wealth and ending up stonking rich is usually seen as such a great thing.

Elizabeth Moon's Speed of Dark is the book which takes Flowers for Algernon and applies it to the Autism cure idea.
Interesting book, ok but not great - a bit lightweight and slick in places, but also realistic enough or disturbing at times. It does touch nerves, both good and bad, but not in depth.

I don't know if I liked it or not, and there were moments when I tried to imagine what a non-autistic would make of it, but couldn't guess. My affinity has always been with the underdog or outsider and I don't want to not be me.

Funny thing is, there have been times when I thought life might be easier if I was dumber, but then it turned out that it's the thing that I am dumb at - understanding other people's motives - which caused most of the problems. I didn't need a cure to realise that, just more information. I needed something to provide a perception that I was lacking.

Another thing: when I was a kid I was told I was very stupid (a lot), so I believed it.
It was quite confusing to find that Charlie became more like me, so I actually ended up thinking that everyone else in the world must be so much smarter, and that was why I didn't fit - and I went on thinking that until I was in my teens, when a couple of teachers recognised my misunderstanding and realised why I was always trying to do better. I guess I'd somehow assumed that most people had an IQ of around 300.

"the tall poppy is cut down."

Yeah, it's weird isn't it. I'm not sure, but I think non obvious kinds of smart are accepted. Socially smart people are prized. Book smart people can seem to go around making everyone else feel bad for not knowing enough. Applicable intelligence is another thing, using your intelligence to improve the lives of those around you, instead of learning to read Greek or something. Not that there's anything wrong (in my view) with learning Greek just for the sake of it, and it can be useful.



Heh. I had the same thing, I thought I was too smart for the people around me, but then was confused when people told me I was stupid, and also when I mostly failed school.

Did anybody notice how very much Charlie's unhappiness depends not on his mental retardation, but on the way his parents constantly told him that being abnormal was bad, that being ret*d was bad, that he was defective and that this made him inferior--to the point that he was convinced his life would be perfect if he were smarter, and was willing to risk his life for a chance at it? His unhappiness had nothing to do with his mental retardation and everything to do with being rejected by society--as borne out by the fact that when he was rejected for being too smart, he became even more unhappy. It's a fascinating book, and really ahead of its time if you consider when it was written.

I read in in 7th or eighth grade for a class, but i can't remember much.