[HN Gopher] Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]
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Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]
Author : vagab0nd
Score : 229 points
Date : 2022-06-25 14:43 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sdfo.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sdfo.org)
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| Space Needle did the music for this,
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO1XhVV61ck.
|
| Which is weird because I don't really consider them to be a 60's
| band.
| djsavvy wrote:
| This story hit me hard when I read it as a kid.
|
| When I was young, I read another story with a similar emotional
| texture that I've been trying to find again for years now. It had
| a mentally challenged boy who worked in a restaurant with a
| lobster tank in the front, and the boy loved the lobster as a pet
| and stopped the restaurant staff from killing and serving the
| lobster. But one day when the boy was gone the lobster was
| killed.
|
| I don't remember much but I've been looking for it for ages. I
| hope I can find it and read it again someday.
| _tom_ wrote:
| Reddit tip of my tongue is also good for IDing old stories.
| ginnungagap wrote:
| This is probably enough information for the folks at the
| Science Fiction & Fantasy Stackexchange
| (https://scifi.stackexchange.com/) to identify the story, they
| get similar story identification requests all the time and are
| crazy good at it.
|
| If you do ask make sure to include approximately when you read
| it and please let me know, I'm curious about your story too
| now!
| openbrian wrote:
| See also the 1992 film
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lawnmower_Man_(film)
| the_af wrote:
| Interesting that this movie bears no relation at all to the
| Stephen King short story of the same title on which it claimed
| to be based.
|
| (In the short story, the titular lawnmower man is a faun-likely
| creature, working for the god Pan, who literally eats the
| lawn's grass with his own mouth)
| floehopper wrote:
| I first heard this as a radio play on BBC Radio4 back in 1991!
|
| * Metadata:
| https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/05b414af4bfa4923b9c9c3bc2257d5ef *
| Audio: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=602882533671599
| radicalbyte wrote:
| I read this book as part of me GCSE English in the UK. It's the
| only book they had which I enjoyed and, like many others, it had
| a big impact on me.
|
| It's up there with being taught about the evils of modern
| history: Nazi's, Chile, Yemen, Slavery, Thatcher, Rand,
| Holodomor, Leopald II, various Chinese genocide, European
| genocides in both Americas..
|
| That should be a part of the education of everyone living in free
| and democratic societies.
| dontbenebby wrote:
| >That should be a part of the education of everyone living in
| free and democratic societies.
|
| This _and_ Cat 's Cradle:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%27s_Cradle
| [deleted]
| Banana699 wrote:
| One of the few books (perhaps the only) that made me cry against
| my will. It almost made me cry uncontrollably again now when one
| comment quoted a section with the protoganist writing.
|
| I think it was one key building block that made me an anti-
| natalist. It made me hate existence, it filled me with rage about
| how unfair genetics and evolution in general are.
| fairity wrote:
| I think too many of us believe that intelligence is valuable, in
| and of itself. Instead, I think we should value personal
| excellence. That is, making the most of the intelligence you're
| given.
|
| The arc of intelligence in Flowers of Algernon is the same arc
| that we'll all experience over our lifetime. With old age, we,
| too, will lose our intelligence. If we value intelligence, in and
| of itself, we'll eventually face a crisis of sorts. But, if we
| value making the most of our intelligence, we are resilient.
|
| Applying this framework to Charlie, there's much less to be sad
| about. He made the most of the intelligence he was gifted, and
| that's what really matters.
| erybodyknows wrote:
| I just read this story for the first time and gathered similar
| insights on character, intelligence, and personal excellence.
|
| What stood out to me most was that he consistently tried to
| excel with what he was given. To do better for himself, and to
| help those around him.
|
| Another point that stood out to me is that from his most gifted
| vantage point, he correctly identifies the all too human
| fallibility of his Scientific Observers. Jealousy, greed, and
| feelings of inferiority.
| blader wrote:
| Ted Chiang wrote a short story inspired by Flowers for Algernon
| ("Understand") that explores what might happen if a guy just
| never stopped getting smarter:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20140527121332/http://www.infini...
|
| I love Flowers for Algernon, but Understand is my favorite short
| story of all time.
| SamBam wrote:
| I adore most of Chiang's work, but _Understand_ is one of my
| least favorites. Fun premise, yes, but it reads to me like much
| less mature sci-fi, like something written by a teen about what
| being super-smart would feel like.
| gwern wrote:
| That's the problem with any superintelligence story; they are
| by definition hard to write without being superintelligent.
| As Vinge was famously told, "you can't write this story. No
| one can." If a chimpanzee could write a story about a human
| expert of any sort, the other chimpanzees wouldn't understand
| it: it would either be gibberish, or dumbed down to
| superficial analogies that give an illusion of understanding.
| ("Then he used his rifle -" "what's a rifle?" "it's a stick
| which is like throwing a rock. Anyway, he traded some bananas
| for it with another monkey off the Internet." "What's an
| Internet?" "uh...")
|
| 'Flowers' gets around it by starting with a mentally retarded
| protagonist and specifically trying to avoid any consequences
| of superintelligence beyond the emotional & social journey,
| so most of the story is accomplished 'on the runway', as it
| were, and is about everything _but_ what he learns & does
| with his intelligence which is pushed into the background.
| You can see how it starts getting handwavy as soon as the
| protagonist takes off to smarter than Keys himself, and he
| starts having to show the progress by him simply doing
| ordinary-human things but much faster than a dimmer human,
| like rearranging the bakery for more efficiency or learning
| Sanskrit in a week. While it's nice to be able to read German
| or Sanskrit, it's not particularly useful, especially if you
| are interested in neuroscience; a real protagonist would be
| doing things Keys can't even imagine, which sound like
| gibberish like 'ordinary differential equations' or
| 'symplectic manifold'. Any societal implications are simply
| ignored.
|
| With 'Understand', Chiang starts with an intelligent
| protagonist, in a strictly realistic universe other than the
| superintelligence, where he's well aware there would be major
| societal consequences and military implications and the
| protagonist can't simply sit around and play with his lab
| mouse. So his back is against the narrative wall from the
| start. He cannot do his usual world-building tricks because
| he's both ruled out the world mechanics he is usually in a
| privileged position to understand impossibly well because he
| made them up in the first place, and because he's not smart
| enough to write the superintelligent character he's assigned
| himself. It's an interesting story, but I agree that it can't
| be considered his best. Because he can't write that story as
| well as he wants to, and no one can.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| _" the other chimpanzees wouldn't understand it: it would
| either be gibberish, or dumbed down"_
|
| This is kind of how "Excession" by Iain M Banks is. Much of
| the dialogue in the book is supposed to be between the
| hyperintelligent AI "Minds" that are the ships in his
| Culture universe. It's supposed to be in a form similar to
| how they talk to each other. It's quite hard to read. I can
| never decide which of the two (gibberish or dumbed down) it
| is. Probably both.
| bgroat wrote:
| That's wild because it's my exact opposite take.
|
| I found it to be one of the most thoughtful explorations of
| super-intelligence and how it becomes qualitatively different
| than conventional intelligence.
|
| I came away from it thinking, "This is Limitless if it were
| written by a grownup"
| notahacker wrote:
| It would have felt much more plausible with a twist at the
| end where his "superintelligence" was revealed to be a set of
| delusions related to his cognitive impairment...
| darkerside wrote:
| You probably just didn't get it.
|
| Just kidding
| cwillu wrote:
| "You're not good at <game>, you just do random things for
| an hour and then you randomly win." --words I've heard
| mati365 wrote:
| Mine too but I was always wondering why haven't the main
| character mind been used by scientist to improving method used
| in book?
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Chiang is great. His collection of short stories - exhalation -
| is a ton of fun.
| nine_k wrote:
| Of Chiang's works, I think "72 Letters" is the most impressive:
| it unfolds events and ideas worth a 1000-page novel in like 120
| KB of text.
| dontbenebby wrote:
| I tire of seeing this book stanned, and I'm gonna take a pause
| from working on this Beamer presentation to say why.
|
| I wrote an essay about being twice exceptional a while back[0,1],
| and no one has ever made any substantial effort to make up for
| the wrongs from that period, instead treating a string of
| precarious, low paying, but "prestigous" roles as some kind of
| reward instead of a series of scams to enrich folks richer and
| whiter than I am.
|
| I see the same circular discussions around it every time it comes
| up, and we need to break that cycle, ASAP.
|
| I discovered Keyes around the time I used to get book
| recommendations from an anarchist I'd run into in the smoker's
| pit at a Catholic liberal arts college in the suburbs of
| Pittsburgh, because I was being handed a slew of medications
| rather than autonomy and respect for my dignity, so I'd smoke a
| bunch to offset the effects of medications I should have never
| been prescribed so I could study enough to pass my more
| quanitative classes, since I'd never taken things like geometry
| in a room free from being beaten bloody.
|
| On my end, due to COVID and a general feeling of hopelessness, I
| used up the last of my social capital getting section 231[2]
| passed, in homage to the anarchist who told me student government
| and voting are useless when if we could just solve this issuer
| that for many folks, they become radicalized by the fact that no
| amount of learning will overcome algorithmic bias.
|
| I worry when I see the same discussions repeated over and over
| that privileged folks do not understand how precarious their
| positions are, and how bad things can get if you do not learn
| from past mistakes and/or adjust to new opinion polling data if
| it's accurate but doesn't mesh with your views on what should be
| the foundations of geopolitics or whatever.
|
| Back around the time of the G20, I knew lots of people who'd say
| don't do government, student or otherwise don't vote, none of it
| matters. Then they'd do things like be so stern about being
| antinuclear, the only "progressive" candidate is really just a
| pro-fracking, pro-policing populist riding the coattails of those
| who rose to prominence after Woodstock or whatever with
| "libertarian" policies that often seem structured to ensure some
| set of folks is forever precarious and thus, forever beholden to
| some weird weed with ties to the Boys from Brazil or
| whatever[3,4], as supposedly smart supposedly privileged autists
| like myself sit waiting to be "discovered" like one of Jean Luc
| Brunel's models[9].
|
| I cannot emphasize enough how utterly infuriating it is to sit
| with latex open in one window, a script you wrote in the second,
| and a set of pdfs in the other that the intersection of few
| people on the planet could parse in the 3rd through Nth, and an
| inbox full of suggestions on things like which minimum wage
| location might be willing to pay a fair wage for a dishwasher
| while you learn to control your anxiety through some crack PsyD
| when the core issue you have is the same you've had since the
| last recession -- lack of reoccuring income paired with the
| perpetual trauma of always being the wrong type of special to be
| given stability and freedom.
|
| As always, I'm happy to send a CV and code samples to anyone
| sincerely looking to interview candidates, but I make posts like
| this because a string of people interviewed me in good faith, and
| either ignored the advice and got angry when I pointed out their
| systems suffered breaches[5,6], disasters[7], or (wo)man made
| catastrophes[8] after they ignored what I said after they asked
| for my thoughts... or took it, ran with it, and enriched
| themselves without ever actually hiring me, but I won't cite them
| -- I'll settle for backing their opponents in private until I can
| remind them I told them about Metcalfe's law[9] years ago.
|
| (The era of treating interviews like free consulting sessions is
| over, I'll sell every stock in my IRA and move to a bunker in
| Bologna before I let this pattern continue another year -- but
| thanks for the PDF and the discussion space, let's see if folks
| seize this opportunity to engage in lateral thinking rather than
| reply like robots. ;-) )
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twice_exceptional
|
| [1]
| https://boingboing.net/2013/01/05/pedagogyofthedepressed.htm...
|
| [2]
| https://ballotpedia.org/Pittsburgh,_Pennsylvania,_Independen...
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fetterman#Policing
|
| [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fetterman#Israel
|
| [5]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management...
|
| [6]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SolarWinds#2019%E2%80%932020_s...
|
| [7]
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210316185708/https://www.bbvau...
|
| [8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_headquarters_shooting
|
| [9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law
|
| [9] https://www.npr.org/2022/02/19/1081961087/jeffrey-epstein-
| je...
| bhouston wrote:
| How does this compare to the experience of taking focus drugs for
| those that have problems focusing? Is the film "Limitless" a
| modern retelling of this in some aspects?
| pmoriarty wrote:
| If you liked the story don't ever read the book.
|
| The author apparently felt the story didn't have enough sex in
| it, so he added a bunch of it to the book, along with a big
| helping of Freudian analysis. Ugh...
| awinter-py wrote:
| with perks of being a wallflower, belongs to a very strong
| subgenre of epistolary novels by narrators named charlie
| sslapec wrote:
| My elder brother is mentally challenged due to lack of oxygen
| when he was born. I had this idea a few years ago of how would he
| experience the world if he'd suddenly become healthy. How would
| he deal with his previous life, etc. I once mentioned my thoughts
| to my boss during a lunch and he told me there's already a novel
| about it. That's how I've discovered Flowers for Algernon.
| rayiner wrote:
| Awakenings with Robin Williams (in a serious role) is another
| exploration of that issue. Incredibly touching movie.
| dontbenebby wrote:
| Sorry about your brother, I had a friend die waiting on an
| organ transplant when I was in single digits and I have no
| siblings.
|
| People focus a lot of things like being nice regardless of race
| or social class, but trauma holds you back and no algorithm
| takes it into account that I've seen, just measures things to
| the side.
|
| I'm glad you had a supportive leader who gave you something
| enriching for the soul to read.
| sslapec wrote:
| That's kind, thank you. I'm sorry for your friend. I hope you
| did cope with the trauma somehow.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Compare Wilmar Shiras, "in Hiding" (1948) and David Palmer,
| "Emergence" (1981).
| johnny_reilly wrote:
| This book changed me. I was an idle eight year old, and my school
| didn't give us homework to do. So my father decided to set me
| homework of his own devising, which on one occasion was reading
| Flowers for Algernon.
|
| I was moved by the story of a man who had little natural ability,
| straining to make the best of what he had. Then becoming smarter
| than everyone around him, and then what follows.
|
| There's many things to take from this story. I took away that we
| should make the best of what we have. To do otherwise is to miss
| out. Never take what you have for granted. Everything is a
| blessing; don't waste it.
| psbp wrote:
| I was always insecure about my intelligence and I remember
| coming away with this same idea from the book. Life is really
| just a series of experiences. You don't need to meet a certain
| standard or qualify yourself in order to have positive
| experiences or to have an impact. We often place so much
| emphasis on comparison and measuring our success/potential that
| we miss the whole process of living.
| swayvil wrote:
| Vipassana meditation makes you smarter. There seems to be no
| ceiling. But it's also weird. For what that's worth.
|
| I wonder if Mr Keyes meditated.
| tanseydavid wrote:
| I was first exposed to it in movie form, called Charly and
| starring Cliff Robertson.
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062794/
|
| It had a big impact on me and I immediately wanted it in book
| form after seeing the movie.
| Asparagirl wrote:
| There was a musical version of the story too, "Charlie and
| Algernon" -- though it never got to Broadway. The music was by
| Charles Strouse, who also wrote the music for "Bye Bye Birdie"
| and "Annie".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_and_Algernon
| icedchai wrote:
| I remember reading the book back in the late 80's. I was
| probably in 7th grade? Enjoyable book. I'll check out the
| movie.
| adroitboss wrote:
| This book was on my reading list in 9th grade! I cried at the
| end. I felt for the main character all throughout the book.
| travelling_54 wrote:
| I guess Flowers for Algernon might be considered science fiction,
| but in any case it was set in the future (1965). The original
| short story was published in 1959. Maybe should change the title
| of this entry?
| dekhn wrote:
| Speculative fiction.
| gramie wrote:
| I learned about the book after several famous SF authors said
| that it contained their favourite last line.
| ms4720 wrote:
| That was one of the most tragic Greek tragedies I saw or read
| dc-programmer wrote:
| This was a formative read for me many years ago but only recently
| realized there is also a novel version. Has anyone here read
| both?
| tyrust wrote:
| The novel is short enough that I'd recommend it. If you really
| don't read much, though, the short story gets the point across.
|
| Either way, highly recommended.
| nathell wrote:
| I have. I started with the novel, in a Polish translation, when
| I was maybe 13, and it had resonated with me so much that to
| this day I consider it _the_ most important book I've ever
| read. A formative read, indeed.
|
| I read the short story a few years after that. I think it's the
| essence; I perceive it as a distillation of the novel (rather
| than the novel a dilution of the story, though I'm aware the
| story was first.) I guess had I started with it, I'd be
| considering it _the_ most important short story I've ever read
| today.
| remoquete wrote:
| It's commonly agreed that the short version is way better.
| ghaff wrote:
| The novel and film are "fine" as I recall but the short story
| is the real classic.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Indeed. And it wasn't written in 1965, despite this title.
| solardev wrote:
| (For anyone wondering, Wikipedia says it was written in
| 1958 and first published in 1959.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_Algernon)
| solardev wrote:
| I've only read the novel... didn't realize there was a short
| story version of it until just now. The short story reads a lot
| like, well, a short version of how I remember the novel to be.
|
| FWIW the novel was also excellent and is one of my all-time
| favorite books. As someone who is smart but not that smart, in
| a culture (software/tech) where intelligence is fetishly
| worshipped to the detriment of other personality traits, this
| was a very humbling, humanizing, and deeply touching read.
|
| EDIT: Actually, I just read the short story version. The story
| is essentially the same, as you'd expect, but the pacing
| suffered a little bit IMO. It was more believable in the longer
| form, where plot developments happened more gradually and the
| characters were fleshed out more. The novelization has more
| emotional impact because it was a smoother journey (at least as
| I remembered it) vs the rapid progression of the short story
| version. But, granted, it didn't help that I already knew the
| basic premise before reading the shorter version, so YMMV.
| Still, if you have time, why not go for the full thing? It's
| the sort of story that invites quiet contemplation instead of
| quick digestion.
| quanto wrote:
| She said dont be scared Charlie you done so much with so
| little I think you deserv it most of all.
|
| Charlie was a man with a good heart, motivation, and self-
| awareness, and yet the world was not so kind to him. The story
| reminds me of something I read somewhere: be kind to less
| intelligent people -- the world is already not so kind to them.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Not just intelligence. We can easily find reasons to feel that
| people should be shunned/excluded/shut out.
|
| I think there was a posting here, a couple of days ago, about
| the pleasure folks get, from bullying members of an "outgroup."
| Heck, I had an exchange with someone on this very platform,
| earlier today, who ended up "going there" (I left them
| screeching into the void. It seemed to make them feel better).
| It's really quite difficult to resist getting drawn into that
| kind of stuff. Really visceral. Takes real effort to tear
| myself away.
|
| It's _very_ primitive. The desire to shun "other" is embedded
| into our BIOS. Difficult to counter. Also, the desire to fight,
| when we perceive that "other" is somehow encroaching on "our"
| turf.
|
| I've had to do a lot of personal navel-gazing in the last
| couple of years. Had to face some rather unpleasant personal
| truths. I have had to let go of a lot of cherished little turd
| dolls that I've been clutching to my bosom.
|
| Fortunately, I have a framework for that kind of work.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| > It's really quite difficult to resist getting drawn into
| that kind of stuff.
|
| Yes.
|
| This took me back to my middle twenties and disengaging
| myself from an argument with someone who had parked blocking
| my driveway. As I was discussing it later with the friend I
| was renting the apartment from, I said pretty much those
| words, "it's hard not letting yourself be drawn into someone
| else's anger." He agreed and we had a pretty good
| conversation about that.
|
| Nothing to add other than you reminded me of an interesting
| afternoon long ago :-)
| throwaway879080 wrote:
| jl6 wrote:
| Also: we are all less intelligent than someone, so treat people
| right because soon it will be your turn.
| swayvil wrote:
| Also, smart and stupid look much alike (in that both
| experience a state of few unsolved riddles). So beware.
|
| Frankly, I think the desire (I want to crush somebody) comes
| first and the justification (he's a fool so it's only just
| that I crush him) comes second.
| exysle wrote:
| I like to think that the gods mankind and corporations create,
| artilects, will see mentally disabled and geniuses the same way
| - it will only care whether or not they are good people, since
| their intelligence is incomparable to the artilect.
| ta8645 wrote:
| There is a prevailing contempt these days for less intelligent
| and less educated people, that is very unseemly and
| disheartening.
| swayvil wrote:
| In the past our stories had "the wise fool" and "the noble
| pauper". We don't really do that now. All of our heros are
| rich, smart and beautiful. It's a crassification no doubt.
| Maybe a shift in the target demographic is to blame.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Such contempt is not unique to "these days". And for what
| it's worth, there is no less contempt for the educated, never
| mind the intelligent, among those subcultures who praise and
| harvest ignorance.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >Such contempt is not unique to "these days"
|
| It certainly is among otherwise self-declared tolerant
| people. The Atlantic wrote a great piece a few years ago
| called 'The War on Stupid people', pointing out that in
| communities that have strict rules of conduct concerning
| just about any form of discrimination, you'll find people
| casually joking about 'darwin awards' when some stupid
| person dies a grueling death. Imagine you'd introduce one
| for obese people in a tolerant, young internet community.
|
| Intelligence is increasingly conflated with human worth,
| and people who scoff at every form of inequality these days
| will gladly make an exception for intelligence, calling it
| meritocratic. The word itself is a good indicator of the
| change in attitude, given that Michael Young who coined it
| did so for satirical purposes, describing a future British
| society that is governed by an undemocratic elite selected
| through IQ tests.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| No, I don't buy it. What defines "smart" in those
| communities in the first place?
| dvt wrote:
| > be kind to less intelligent people -- the world is already
| not so kind to them.
|
| This feels weirdly patronizing. Why not just treat every person
| with humanity and respect and be kind to them regardless of any
| particular trait or lack thereof?
| basilgohar wrote:
| I see it as more of a reminder and to pay attention. We all
| have ranges/spectrums at which we operate. You can say,
| "shouldn't you just be kind to everyone", and the answer is,
| "yes, of course". But then, how that kindness is shaped and
| applied - for example, kindness can be offering help, or
| waiting to be asked for help (but being prepared to help). I
| think it's ultimately about awareness of how you can be kind
| in different ways.
|
| For those that are deemed less intelligent, that kindness can
| take the shape of increased patience with things that seem
| obvious or easy to others, whereas for folks operating at a
| level more similar to you, you might behave differently
| justifiably. This is just one example that crossed my mind in
| this case.
|
| We understand that dealing with children and dealing with
| adults is frequently different, and we wouldn't call that
| patronizing, we'd call it operating at the level appropriate
| for them. We might tolerate something from a children, and
| deem acceptable for their level, while tolerating the same
| thing for an adult in the same context would be considered
| unacceptable. There are all kinds of different ways to behave
| differently in different context.
|
| So, yes, "choose kindness", but I took the statement beyond
| its face value to mean "exert yourself to be kind" and find
| out what that means in the most appropriate way based on the
| situation.
| Banana699 wrote:
| It is not patronizing, unless any differential kindness
| whatsoever is patronizing. But this is clearly not the case :
| being overly kind to war refugees more than other immigrants
| is not patronizing, it's acceptance of the empirical fact
| that they are (with high probability) the least fortunate
| type of immigrants and a rational moral reaction to that
| fact. Similarly, being overly kind to your one friend who had
| just lost a family member is not patronizing. And so on. Off
| course you shouldn't _appear_ to be more kind to them,
| because this is really just showing off\virtue signalling and
| it 's insulting to them, but you should _be_ more kind to
| them, without appearing to be so. It 's difficult, but
| doable.
|
| Less intelligent people lost a genetic lottery (like a lot of
| us with varying degrees), but the particular round they lost
| on is one of the worst, in practical terms. They deserve more
| kindness and help. No patronization in that.
| DrTung wrote:
| Long time ago I read a novel called Brain Wave by Paul Anderson
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_Wave (it predates Flowers for
| Algernon by about 10 years).
|
| It has a similar theme of suddenly acquired intelligence but for
| the whole planet. I you like Flowers for Algernon you'll like
| Brain Wave.
| binbag wrote:
| What a great novel.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| A Canticle For Leibowitz (1959) [pdf]
|
| https://d-pdf.com/book/3997/read
| jcadam wrote:
| Excellent novel, had to buy it in hardcopy because it wasn't
| available on kindle.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Despite all my rational efforts; all the maths and research -
| there is a speck of insight that only poetry and literature can
| reach. It's irritating and comforting at the same time.
| vagab0nd wrote:
| Thank you for this. This is exactly how I felt but could not
| articulate.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Thanks, that makes me happy.
|
| You might also like this phrase I adore, which expresses the
| same sentiment in a more general way:
|
| "And the words slide into the slots ordained by syntax, and
| glitter as with atmospheric dust with those impurities which
| we call meaning."
|
| Of course, Anthony Burgess is much more of a poet than I am.
| sydthrowaway wrote:
| All the world's combined poetry and literature won't get you to
| the moon, or solve the world's energy crisis. It's all a bunch
| of tosh - don't stop building.
| bcbrown wrote:
| To get to the moon, you first have to want to get to the
| moon. Literature excels at disseminating dreams and desires.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| I never said that poetry gets you to the moon.
|
| But when you're there - how do you cope with the heat death
| of the universe, or the loss of your close ones, or how do
| you justify being there? How do you find joy in your
| mornings, and how do you empathise with others, the living
| and the once-living?
| messe wrote:
| No, but it might make you just as happy or fulfilled.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| All the mathematics in the world can't tell you why you would
| want to go to the moon.
| objectivetruth wrote:
| virtualwhys wrote:
| Odd, was just having lunch with a friend and asked if he'd ever
| read this book -- low and behold, here it is on HN.
|
| This is the short story version, but I've read the book several
| times. It's not Tolstoy level literature, but I find myself drawn
| into this beautiful story of life, death, and compassion again
| and again.
| gHA5 wrote:
| See also "Flowers for Charlie", S9E8 of It's Always Sunny in
| Philadelphia
|
| https://m.imdb.com/title/tt2999352/
| abcanthur wrote:
| For a very similar but different up and down story arc that
| both makes one appreciate the value of one's own mental
| faculties, and stirs compassion for those with diminished
| abilities, I highly recommend the movie "Awakenings."
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awakenings De Niro and Robin
| Williams, based on an Oliver Sacks book, which I haven't read
| but it probably great.
| jcadam wrote:
| Too sad to watch more than once.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| It's fine, I'm the next episode Charlie goes back to
| bashing rats.
| amai wrote:
| It is the story of growing up as a kid, then becoming a smart
| adult, and then growing old and stupid again condensed to a much
| shorter time frame. That is why everyone can relate to it in some
| way.
| WaffleIronMaker wrote:
| I read this so long ago, but nothing else I've read has used the
| very medium of language to communicate character development so
| effectively.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| One of my very favorite books. Read at a young age; it would be
| hard to say what parts of myself are me and what parts came from
| this book and became me.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| There's something curiously American about Flowers for
| Algernon... our general popular culture tends to value physical
| achievement (the athlete) more than mental achievement (the
| nerd/geek). So here's the story of how the co-workers/peers of a
| mentally disabled individual, Charlie, (who they ridicule
| initially) react to the reversal of that disability (with
| suspicion and distrust) and then the re-imposition of that
| disability (with protective behavior, and a degree of guilt and
| shame). The whole story is really more illustrative of the co-
| worker's behavior & values than anything else.
|
| Other cultures seem to have a more balanced view (i.e. mental
| development and physical development should go hand-in-hand, and
| an either-or approach is considered unhealthy). American culture
| in contrast developed the stereotypes of 'dumb jock' and 'scrawny
| nerd' - Hollywood's fault, maybe?
| narag wrote:
| That's, more or less, one of the first questions I asked in
| this site. Paul Graham answered with photos of the football
| team and the chess club. It seems there is a physical
| difference bigger than what I've observed in Spain and more on
| the side of athletes. I don't see that kind of massive teens
| over here in campuses.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| To be honest, a USA football team is as unfair a comparison
| as you can get -- they need to be physically bulky to be good
| at the sport. Baseball or basketball players would be a more
| useful comparison.
| solardev wrote:
| One layer deeper, it was also illustrative of how the
| supposedly smarter people (the researchers and teacher) also
| reacted to his journey, and of who's "allowed" to be smart
| without being perceived as threatening. It's not as
| straightforward as just "jocks vs nerds", but how the
| scientists work with each other, how the teacher treats him vs
| the researchers, how the lab mouse is alternately thought of
| either disposable or a beloved pet, the many different degrees
| and directions of otherization between all the characters, etc.
|
| It's social commentary, sure, but a relatively nuanced one at
| that :) By my reading/IMHO, the isolation, loneliness, and
| insecurity/otherization of all the characters in the story were
| heavier than any overt comparison of athleticism vs
| intellectualism.
|
| American culture isn't just athletic, it's also quite shallow:
| everyone projects success and happiness but suffer deeper down
| and are afraid to introspect, share vulnerabilities, or form
| meaningful communities. The invisible individualism causes
| suffering both for the characters in the book and real people
| in our society. It's an interesting thing to think about, no?
| Hollywood these days doesn't celebrate raw martial athleticism
| as much anymore, but the rugged individualist hero (who's both
| smart and physically somewhat capable, like Marvel or DC
| heroes) is typically also socially dysfunctional and
| emotionally underdeveloped. The indie and foreign films are a
| lot better at capturing nuance... our blockbusters are mostly
| still just broken-men-blowing-things-up kinda deals.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" American culture isn't just athletic, it's also quite
| shallow: everyone projects success and happiness but suffer
| deeper down and are afraid to introspect, share
| vulnerabilities, or form meaningful communities."_
|
| There isn't just one American culture, there are many... with
| people not infrequently belonging to many subcultures. We
| should be wary of painting America (or any other country)
| with one broad brush.
| solardev wrote:
| Sure, but you can group and subdivide cultures however you
| like. There are subcultures within subcultures, yet at the
| same time there is a broadly American culture and maybe a
| broadly Western one, etc. Like species, there's no precise
| test for a unit of culture, it's just different zoom
| levels... each level of grouping or subdivision has its
| uses.
|
| Relative to other national identities I've had experience
| with, I believe that Americans in particular are quite
| obsessed with aesthetics, everything from hair color to
| deodorants to artificially aligning and whitening teeth, to
| identifying with musical subgenres as a method of personal
| belonging and appearance. If there is no American culture
| then there is no Americana, which I don't believe, and
| would be a great loss to the cultural richness of the
| modern era... everything from Blues to bluegrass to Blue's
| Clues to blue jeans.
|
| American culture has a richness that's hard to appreciate
| or even recognize these days, when it's so embroiled in
| modern culture wars, but it's definitely there and
| definitely distinct from, say, Japanese culture of the
| postwar years or 1800s France.
| red_admiral wrote:
| > our general popular culture tends to value physical
| achievement (the athlete) more than mental achievement (the
| nerd/geek)
|
| Isn't that changing, possibly for the worse - don't you now
| need a college degree for almost anything above the lowest
| tiers?
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I think there's been significant recent pushback on that
| trend, with more widespread recognition that skilled trades,
| vocational school, and non-college routes don't automatically
| imply second-class status (particularly considering the high
| costs and debt college grads get saddled with).
|
| However, as far as 'elite colleges', there is this unhealthy
| trend towards a more 19th-century British posh/prole divide
| in the educational system, but that's been going on for some
| time. That's not about quality of education so much as elite
| networking schemes and the creation of an American
| aristocracy.
| taeric wrote:
| I'm curious. I've never seen anything to make me think other
| cultures are that different in this regard. Would be interested
| in learning more.
| frostburg wrote:
| Well, terrible recent developments notwithstanding, Russians
| revere the authors of their literary canon. Arguing that a
| successful athlete is more important than Tolstoj or Pushkin
| would generally be ridiculed.
|
| Even here in Italy, despite an unhealthy national obsession
| with association football, if considering the whole body of
| society nobody is held in higher public regard than esteemed
| painters, poets, writers etc. (athletes are loved but not
| believed to be particularly bright).
| taeric wrote:
| That doesn't seem too off to USA. Famous authors are still
| respected. Most authors aren't.
|
| I also feel that modern authors aren't given the same
| treatment.
| solardev wrote:
| In some East Asian cultures, there isn't really a concept for
| a "nerd" (or conversely, a "jock"). People just learn what
| they can, and exercise in whatever ways they can. It's
| recognized that there are different ability levels in both,
| but they're not considered opposite parts of a spectrum.
|
| If you try to translate "nerd" to Chinese, for example
| (https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4505), there isn't
| really a neat translation... one of the closer translations
| would be something akin to a "bookworm", but even in that
| meaning, it's more to describe someone who's deeply
| interested in a very esoteric topic (say, the springtime
| dietary preferences of Han dynasty peasants), rather than
| someone who's smart but socially and physically inept. If you
| just sit at home all day and study, people will tell you to
| get more exercise, but there's not really a term for that
| beyond "you should exercise more". It's not a taunt or a
| pejorative.
|
| It's just not assumed that these are exclusionary spheres of
| being; you are expected to gradually develop your mental,
| physical, emotional, and social skills altogether, and a lot
| of the cultural development is in finessing out when to use
| which skills, whether you're a warrior or politician or
| emperor.
| taeric wrote:
| I don't know. This feels like it is leaning too heavily on
| single words. Translate aunt, and see that that is
| similarly difficult.
|
| Still, I can't and don't reject the idea. Would love to see
| a comprehensive study. At a personal level, I don't
| remember these things in school, either. They were
| archetypes, but nobody was a solid archetype. Such that I
| find it hard to believe you don't see folks through some of
| these lenses.
| solardev wrote:
| Words (or in their case, characters & the concepts)
| partially define culture, though. If you don't have an
| easy word for something, whether it's a personality or a
| color, it's a foreign idea to you. Sure, someone can
| translate it for you and tell you what it means, but it's
| not the same as having it be a part of your culture.
| Someone can explain "tea time" to me, but as an American,
| it will always be a Britishism even though I understand
| the concepts of tea and gathering and hours. It's just
| not a part of my cultural existence.
|
| FWIW, anecdotally, I grew up in a culture much like what
| I described, and it wasn't until I moved to America that
| I learned what "nerd" meant. Nobody around me in
| childhood ever made that distinction. Similarly, I found
| it odd that Americans identified by musical genres in
| high school. But sure, these things would be fascinating
| thing to ethnographically!
| taeric wrote:
| I think that has been fairly heavily disproven. That
| language defines culture.
|
| I meant my anecdote to be that I grew up in America, and
| didn't see this behavior at large. Outside of movies.
|
| Completely agreed that it is an interesting topic.
| rayiner wrote:
| That's a different point--you can't conceptualize an
| orange if you don't have a word for orange. OP is making
| the opposite point: you don't have a word for orange if
| you don't have oranges. The absence of a clear word (much
| less several) for a "nerd" stereotype might reflect a
| culture that doesn't create that categorization.
|
| Coming from south Asian culture, for example, we don't
| really have a similar concept either.
| darkerside wrote:
| Disproven is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Is there
| a study you are citing?
| taeric wrote:
| Fair. I meant my claim there more as a question. I only
| have vague memories of the Sapir Whorf hypothesis.
| Quickly scanning, I can't find anything definitive.
| Probably the criticism from Pinker, is what I remember?
| dekhn wrote:
| Not exactly a direct response, but see
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron which imho is
| the best statement for gifted education that I have ever seen.
| It anticipates the current situation better than any
| speculative fiction.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Why do you think that? Exceptional people are highly valued
| in today's society... Examples don't even need to be
| mentioned.. we all know their names.
|
| Harrison Bergeron still seems to be firmly in the realm of
| science fiction.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| People hate intelligence, but they respect power more.
| Money is a form of power.
|
| So when the intelligent people get rich today, they are
| respected. But as kids, they are often bullied.
|
| The opposition to gifted education has the same source. If
| the gifted kids come from a rich family, they can get all
| the tutors they need anyway. And if they come from a poor
| family, screw them.
| kurthr wrote:
| Why is it banned? Graphic sexual content! /s
|
| https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Flowers-for-Algernon-banned-in-...
| shrx wrote:
| It's funny how the top-voted comment doesn't even answer the
| question.
| ricardolopes wrote:
| I remember reading this book in my teenage years and being moved
| by its story. I still think about it, and it's one I'd definitely
| recommend.
|
| I wonder how it got to the top of hn all of a sudden though.
| eranation wrote:
| Is this a short story that predated the full novel? Flowers for
| Algernon that I read was 300 pages or so... what am I missing?
| _tom_ wrote:
| Yes. It was later expanded to a novel. And then a movie.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Absolutely my favorite story and my favorite reply to anyone who
| says that ignorance is bliss. It is only so if you have never
| tried the other alternative - knowing. After knowing, ignorance
| is not bliss. Knowing poisons happiness forever.
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