Flowers for Algernon by Daniel KeyesMy rating: 1 of 5 stars
I cannot fathom how this made it onto anyone's "must read" list, ever.
Here's what happens. Charlie Gordon is a "functional" adult of limited mental capacity who has been invited to be the human guinea pig in an experiment to surgically raise I.Q. The surgery has already been successful on a laboratory rat named "Algernon". Charlie wants to be smart so he can have friends.
The novel is pieced together from Charlie's own "progress reports" and personal journal entries. His mind gradually ascends to genius I.Q. but, like an onion, the process exposes layer after layer after layer of pain. He observes his co-worker's dishonesty. He remembers teasing and abuse. He struggles with an awakening awareness of sexuality.
The book seems to be a reflection of the time in which it was written. Freud and psychoanalysis was taking the western world by storm. Old school sexuality was being shed like an old coat. All the characters are iconic -- the free-spirited woman (Fay), the repressed sympathetic woman (Alice), the domineering mother (Rose), and so on.
I couldn't help noticing the names of Charlie's family.
Matt (his doormat dad)
Rose (his thorny mother who cared only about appearances)
Norma (his "normal" sister)
Charlie (good old "Charlie")
As Charlie grew in intelligence he lost his charming innocence and became jaded, brusque, and hostile. Is the author suggesting that as our society becomes more sophisticated we too lose heart?
Charlie discovers an error in the hypothesis and knows that his change is only temporary so the final chapters explore his descent.
Brave New World by Aldous HuxleyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This "Brave New World" was imagined before WWII and yet predicts many of the questions and political experiments which have been employed through the ensuing eighty years. One might wonder how much we ourselves are the products of these transitions. What have we lost in our use of language alone -- how we are able to express ourselves, what we can understand? So many books, films, and television shows have explored the ideas suggested in this landmark work. So many questions of ethics and practicality are raised.
Can science go too far? What is man's prime desire, and what would happen if the majority got to decide and then assure it? What should be the prime political directive? How close are we now to this "Brave New World"?
For me, this work is chilling and the end evokes a certain hopelessness. For me it is a directive to this generation and the next and the next to either re-direct the trajectory of our scientific and moral choices or to at least throw a cog in the works to give us a chance to evaluate our direction.
A Room With a View by E.M. ForsterMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
The author introduces most of the Edwardian Era cast of English characters in an upscale hotel in Venice, Italy. Lucy is a young woman on her first journey abroad and she is attended by her aunt, who complains while dining that their room has no view. An elderly gentleman seated at a nearby table insists that he and his son George exchange rooms as they do have a view and don't care about it. She declines, thinking how ill-bred the man must be, but he insists and the change is made. And thus are Lucy and George thrown into one another's paths.
The various characters are icons of British society at the turn of the last century, making this story more a social commentary than a simple romance. George's father, Mr. Emerson, is a dissenting voice to the accepted manners, conduct, and even religion of the day. He takes on a one-man crusade to save the British (or those he personally encounters) from the shackles of superstition and repressed passions. He is one of the most likable characters in the story.
Reading this story more than a century after it was written is frustrating because you want to reach into the story and shake the characters. "Wake up!" you want to shout. I can imagine that the story must have been most shocking when it was written. Like Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, Forster forced his contemporaries to take a good long look at themselves and thus be accountable for the havoc they created in their own and other's lives.
Logan's Run by William F. NolanMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Have no idea how this crossed my radar. I hadn't even heard of the film, let alone seen it. I even went to the trouble to request the book through inter-library-loan! Now, having read some of the reviews made by other readers I think the book is everything it was intended to be. It doesn't need character development. It is okay to have "jump cuts" throughout. It is simply a first person narration, something like Catcher in the Rye. (Perhaps a bad comparison, but there it is).
It is surprising how contemporary this novel feels, considering it was published in 1967. The authors brilliantly used invented terminology, thus salvaging it from being "dated". Comprised of less that 150 pages, many of them with just a splash of words, it is a very quick read and in fact has the feel of a screenplay. A film was made in 1976 but I think the industry could now pump out something much more representative of the spirit of the book.
It is set in the year 2116 and its underpinnings are that the world became unsustainably overpopulated. Technology had advanced to the point of utilizing ocean real estate for cities and harvesting ocean organic matter for consumption but even that was not enough. An infrastructure was put into place using a huge computer-like system called the Thinker which took over the role that adults filled.
At birth children are deposited into nurseries operated by robots and machinery where they are fed and schooled until age 7 at which time they are launched into a "pleasure island" sort of world. There is no religion or value system and the idea is to get as much "living" squeezed into this seven-year segment as is possible. They travel, pick up skills, join gangs, etc.
When they turn 14 they are considered to be full-fledged adults. At birth their palms are stamped with a symbol which is time-sensitive, changing color at each life stage. On the eve of the 21st birthday the stamp flashes red to black to red to black as a warning.
When the stamp is black you can elect to be put to sleep or run. If you run you will be tracked down and assassinated.
This story takes place during the last two days of Logan's life. Logan, a tracker (or Sandman) comes near to assassinating a runner the day before his hand starts flashing. The runner is taken out by a gang, but Logan is there for his dying word -- "Sanctuary". He retrieves a key from the victim. The key and the final word are most unusual and so he wonders if there is actually some truth to the stories of such a place and someone who has survived to get there.
Logan decides to find this place and destroy it, thus bringing himself fame and rendering his world a safer place. And so he runs.
Initially I read the book to satisfy my curiosity about this book perhaps inspiring James Dashner, author of The Maze Runner. I'm not sure if there is any connection, but it certainly would be at home with the current wave of dystopian fiction.
The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan HolidayMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Now I want to read more / learn more about Stoicism.
I really liked this quick read -- fleshed out by many examples from life experiences of people from many walks of life and all through recorded history. I'm recommending it to my husband and children.
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