Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
311 pages
Published 1966
Read from October 24 to October 28
Rating: ★★★★ out of 5
I'll write this review as soon as I finish crying...
I'm glad I read the short story version first. The novel takes the same amount of storytelling power and gut-punching emotional impact and spreads it thin with a bunch of Freudian mumbo-jumbo and repressed memories and dissociative complexes and out of body experiences, all things that, I felt, didn't contribute much to the pre-existing perfection of the short story. Recovering Charlie's memories and discovering emotional and sexual hangups is a logical extension of the storyline, but having read the short story first, I guess I never felt it was at all necessary.
That last line, though. It doesn't matter that I read it a month ago. It still gets me. Right in the heart. Right in the everything. I don't know how such a straightforward line can pack in so much sadness, so much meaning, so many layers of feeling. That's real skill and artistry right there.
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