"ყვავილები ელჯერნონისთვის" დენიელ კიზი "Flowers for Algernon" Daniel Keyes

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards, the novel "Flowers for Algernon" belongs to the pen of American writer Daniel Keyes. The work explores profound and life-affirming themes that neither the passage of time nor the circular rotation of life can wear away. Adorned with brilliant artistic elements and the ornate screen characteristic of the writer's vision, the insight that a person is made a person not by their intellect and mental capabilities, but by humanity, nobility, virtue, and philanthropy, shines through from every corner of the book. The protagonist of the work, Charlie Gordon, is a 32-year-old man with limited mental capacities who desperately tries to learn proper reading and writing, become smart, resemble others, blend into the outside world, and establish himself in society. Unfortunately, this is the very ruthless society that, witnessing the hardships of others, intends to display its own superiority and strives to achieve fame through such malice. Charlie Gordon, working in a bakery, unknowingly becomes the subject of mockery and ridicule by people he considers close friends: "It's easy to have friends if you let people laugh at you."

Unfortunately or fortunately, Alice Kinnian, a teacher at the Beekman Center for retarded adults, urges Charlie, due to his persistent desire to learn to read and write and become intelligent, to participate in an experiment. The latter serves the artificial development and intelligence-boosting of mentally disabled beings. Until now, the experiment had only been performed on animals, and Charlie is the first human who, inspired by an indomitable thirst for development, immediately agrees to the operation, though this obviously is not enough. After the consent of his estranged mother and sister, Charlie becomes an official member of the experiment. Before the operation, he has to go through many tests: identify images under ink spilled on a sheet, make up stories about people depicted in pictures, and most importantly, compete in navigating a labyrinth with Algernon, a high-IQ experimental white mouse. Algernon defeats Charlie every time.

The operation passes. Over time, Charlie, with Alice's help, learns to read and write fluently and masters vast amounts of fiction. He drinks the wisdom woven into books like a miraculous medicine of joy, as greedily as a camel drinks water before setting out into the desert. Charlie's sensible advice on increasing the bakery's profitability endlessly astonishes the workers and fills them with the thorns of suspicion. Gordon also begins to recover fragmented, traumatic, shock-shrouded memories scattered here and there in the depths of his mind. Most of them are based on the ruthlessness, cruelty, and malice of his mother, Rose. The woman whom Charlie, despite everything, should have loved more than life, should have held his hand, caressed him, hugged him to her chest, and protected him from the whirlwind of mockery by small-minded people, paradoxically condemned her own child to be hanged by the noose of lovelessness and violence, pushed him away, and instantly killed any manifestation of human instincts and natural impulses in him.

Charlie, climbing the steep cliff of mental development, soon gets to know that inseparable part of life called moral dilemmas. At the bakery, he finds himself in the role of a witness to terrible injustice and, inspired by Alice, is forced to make his first important choice unaided. Like in real life, in this episode of the book we encounter a confrontation between heart and mind: to speak up or stay silent, to rat someone out or walk away from the situation, to save or to forget... Fortunately, Gordon makes a quite sensible decision and restores the split situation without any conflict, but all this costs him his job: his colleagues, overwhelmed by his mental abilities and intellect, unite into a common low consciousness and demand Charlie's firing. And no single person can ever stand against a crowd wrapped in crossfire. Moreover, the only bright ray of light and subject of love in Charlie's life, Alice, despite sharing the man's attitude, demands that their relationship remain purely professional and urges Charlie to suppress his feelings. She cites the latter's lightning-fast progress and grandiose mental rise as the reason. It is also worth noting that Charlie, possessed by childhood trauma and paranoia, cannot physically express his love. Thus and so, left unemployed, friendless, and loveless, he even begins to think about whether becoming smart was worth this price.

Not long after, the main executors of the experiment, Professor Nemur and Dr. Strauss, take Charlie and Algernon to Chicago, where they present their brilliant thoughts and practical work in front of many other highly qualified scientists. The stars of the presentation are, of course, the young genius and the exceptional mouse "created" by them. During the presentation of the project, Nemur's depressing suggestions follow one another, creating a picture that recognizes Charlie not as a free, independent, and sensing person, but as yet another experimental animal, degrading his individualism and human rights. Gordon learns during Nemur's speech that an error has been made in the experiment and that this flaw needs to be thoroughly studied. It is not surprising at all that this has a very negative impact on Charlie. This is the reason why the man returns to New York with Algernon and rents a house that these very honorable and respectable scientists cannot find. Here Charlie meets his glamorous and freedom-loving neighbor girl, artist Fay Lillman, with whom Charlie enters into an intimate relationship. This episode of the work creates a sharp contrast between Fay's charming, captivating appearance and Alice's pleasant, kind, and sincere nature, representing the opposition between worldly, carnal inclinations and elevated, spiritual aspirations. Charlie's persistent desire to study the nature of the operation's flaw will separate him and Fay. This once again shows that the spiritual is always superior to the carnal, and light always triumphs over darkness. It is also worth noting that in the meantime Charlie decides to visit his long-unseen father, the only champion of his childhood. Their meeting takes place in a barbershop, but despite Charlie's strong desire to remind his father of himself, the attempt is futile.

Algernon behaves strangely, and Charlie actively begins to observe the complete course of the procedure and work on the experiment. He is driven by an unquenchable urge to contribute to the development of science and help people with limited mental capacities. After many episodes of straining his mind and white sleepless nights, Charlie finally investigates the essence of the mistake made by Dr. Strauss and Professor Nemur and creates a document of reports named: "The Algernon-Gordon Effect." His conclusion was that the rate of decline of artificially enhanced intelligence was directly proportional to the scale of the enhancement. Not long after making this conclusion, Algernon dies. Terrified and sinking into the shadow of himself, Charlie tries not to waste a single second of the remaining time. His decision to visit his mother and tell her that he is now normal and no longer the feebleminded boy who was once a burden to his parents is firm, and although this bittersweet meeting does not turn out particularly successful, Charlie is finally freed from the black hole that appeared in his spirituality since childhood, which broke his heart and sucked away every spark of joy and happiness that flashed here and there.

Charlie continues his regression - growing more forgetful and emotionally unstable day by day. Alice stays with him until the man himself pushes her away and forbids her to come back. Back at the bakery, the dim-witted Charlie is greeted with great joy by his colleagues, who take it upon themselves to protect him. He unconsciously returns to Beekman University as well, despite not having studied there for a long time. This action greatly angers and upsets his former teacher, Miss Kinnian. After such a reaction, Charlie decides to go to the Warren State Asylum for adults with limited mental capacities and spend the rest of his life there. His last request is for the reader of this report to place new flowers on Algernon's grave in the backyard.

"Flowers for Algernon" is a wonderfully told, heart-rending work based on crucial themes that truly deserves the reader's attention.