love, read, write

(Wow I haven't blogged in so long that my greetings are as awkward as uh awkward)

I've recently (today, actually) finished Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. (I never really knew how to indicate book titles--some teachers told me to underline it in both writing and when typing, and some told me it was italicized on the Internet, and some never really specified, and I've never really bothered to consult the wise, grey-bearded Google about it. Maybe I will, because it definitely takes less time than writing all of this out.)

First of all, Flowers for Algernon has been on my to-read list on GoodReads for quite a while. I believe I read an excerpt from Flowers for Algernon in--ninth grade? Eighth grade? Nevertheless, the small piece of the novel really touched me in some way or other, because it made it to my to-read list and has finally gotten off it (for good reasons, obviously).

So first of all, to stick to all conventions of book reviews and comments, I'll provide you a small summary of the book. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes is basically about a man named Charlie Gordon.

And that's the summary.

To add to that summary, I will also tell you that Charlie is a man with an IQ in the sixties? seventies? Nevertheless he is a mentally impaired adult who has lived his life as such, until the day he is confronted by a group of doctors/scientists who have discovered a way to enhance his intelligence. He agrees to undergo the operation ("for science") and slowly realizes the affects of the treatment. As his intelligence grows he realizes that all was not as they seemed to him before the operation.

(That closing is very inviting, isn't it.)

I tried my best not to put spoilers in it, but I'm afraid that if I'm going to talk about the book that means I'm going to be spoiling the book, because really, talking about the book is spoiling it for you. So if you haven't read it, you might want to hold off on the reading. Of this blog post, I mean. Don't hold off on reading the book.

- - -

This book, to be quite honest, wasn't the sort of book that touched me so dearly and made me emotionally moved to the other side of the world. It was good, yes, but it wasn't mind-blowingly amazing, is my point. Of course, I understand why it is such an acclaimed book with "MORE THAN 5 MILLION COPIES SOLD" (as claimed decoratively on the cover of my library book), but it wasn't, how do you say it, my book.

Because sometimes, I read a book and it automatically becomes mine, a book I don't want anyone else to read because it's just so dear to me-- a book I want to treasure in my own mind and polish by myself without the interruption of others.

This book was, to be extremely repetitive, a notch below that.

It was heartbreaking to read the last few entries in the book, though, because Charlie was back to being his childish self, and he had walked into his night school to see Miss Kinnian as a teacher. I would say that was the saddest part of the book--to imagine Alice? Miss Kinnian? run out of the classroom in tears. The change in name shows how his mind had changed--from Miss Kinnian, to Alice Kinnian, to Alice, to Miss Kinnian again. 

(Which actually reminds me of when in The Fault in our Stars, Hazel calls Augustus Augustus in some parts and Gus in others; I feel like there's some sort of connection in that as well.)

I was thinking about what Daniel Keyes was trying to get across to the readers--and I can't come up with anything other than that intelligence should not be always valued so highly and that intelligence shouldn't be associated with happiness--which seems to me a very obvious thought. Nevertheless I'll try to expand on that. Maybe a super justification of ignorance is bliss? Not too sure.

Charlie was so much happier before the operation than he was afterwards. Even though his bakery friends were making fun of him all of the time, he still felt happy, and in the end, happiness isn't an objective feeling. It's what you make of it. Happiness is created by yourself, in yourself, and it never really matters what the truth is, because if you're happy, there's nothing people can really do about it. Because you're happy. The end.

And I guess that's what Keyes was trying to say--being smart doesn't make anything better. If anything, it makes you more unhappy, because you're prone to noticing so much more about life, meaning so much more flaws and cracks and crevices that have ugly little germs of unhappiness. If you know enough about everything you know there's too much to fuss over and worry about.

Charlie was living a simple and easy life before that. After the operation, as went up "the elevator," a good analogy Keyes put in the book, he "passed" his friends, Alice Kinnian, and eventually even the doctors and the scientists who did the operation on him. It didn't do anything good to him.

Which brings me to an idea that Charlie's life is almost a paradox. If you think about it. Charlie worked so hard and tried his best to become "smarter"--because of his mother, of course, but it was still something he truly wanted. It made him unhappy, to some degree, (or rather dissatisfied) to know that he wasn't as smart as the people around him.

And yet, after the operation, he became smart and he began to look down on the people around him and realize that these people aren't so great after all; he realized that looking up to them as he did before was something foolish, which in turn brought him unhappiness again. Intelligence didn't do him any good--it only made him realize more flaws about life.

And in the end he returns back to his initial state, and he's back to sulking about not being smart anymore--thinking he didn't try hard enough to make the operation succeed.

So it's an incomplete life of never ending unhappiness. A paradox, almost. He'll never be fully happy either way.

Perhaps that's how it is with life. The things we covet the most are sometimes what brings us unhappiness when we reach them--we realize that some of the materialistic dreams we strive for are often the shallowest and the least rewarding. I consider intelligence a materialistic dream--only if it's intelligence for the sake of intelligence. I guess what makes a dream truly a full dream is when it has a reason, something that affects others. Because once we get to a certain level of intelligence, or once we get to a certain college, or make it to a certain company, things level out to normalcy again and we suddenly realize the things we had put on a three-mile-high pedestal never really deserved to be there from the beginning.

When thinking about life on a selfish level (and I don't mean the bad sort, I just mean when thinking about life for yourself) (which automatically seems to latch a bad connotation to its belt)--

living life happy is the best you can do for yourself.

Because who cares if we're famous? We're going to die anyways. Who cares if we have a lot of money? Who cares if we've discovered something? If you're not happy there's really nothing in it for you.

I mean, if you think about it, even all of these dreams are created because it makes you feel good about yourself-- it makes you happy. So in the end, in some way or another, directly or indirectly, we all hope for happiness in our life.

Which, I guess, is some sliver of what Daniel Keyes was trying to say.

Open for arguments, but I feel I should end the post here.

Long time no ramble.

Happy reading!