Transcript for:
Flowers for Algernon Summary and Analysis

before this video starts I want to say that now you can actually go to the description of any of the times I cover a book and you can actually buy the book right from my description i actually get a commission for that thanks bye on this channel we mostly do creepy/disturbing content i tend to focus on horror or at the very least absurdest content because generally that is what interests me among those books are some of my most viewed videos and I tend to read a good amount and mostly it is in the vein of disturbing or extreme and those are the types of books I read however before all of that I read a few different books here and there that were not in the realm of horror and among those that I read that were not horror my favorite that had nothing to do with it was Flowers for Aldron by Daniel Keys this is probably one of if not the most famous books I've ever covered and although it's not horror it's disturbing in a very different type of way it is just very depressing probably the most depressing piece of media I've probably ever consumed a lot of you seem to want to see this book covered at least in a poll which over a thousand of you voted on at least said that keep in mind that this book is not horror or extreme at all so if that's what you're looking for I would urge you to take a look at one of my other book coverages like Playground or House of Leaves this is an excellent and beautiful story but it is not horror real quick before we get into it I also want to make it clear that in this book the word [ __ ] is said a lot although it's not said in the like bad kind of way it's more said in the medical sense at least around the time this book was written so I am going to say it out loud when he says it but no I don't mean any offense on it obviously but without rambling anymore let's talk about how we do things around here on the Pugser channel we usually start with an intro to the work which you are listening to right now then we go into the summary which is usually the bulk of the video and then finally we get into the analysis at the end to discuss themes and such so that's how we're going to do it today so without rambling any longer let's get into the next entry in the Extreme Book Club Flowers for Alenon by Daniel Keys starting out this book is strange as you will notice something almost immediately the name of the first quote chapter is progress report 1 March 3rd which as you see on screen is spelled wrong pretty heavily this is because of our main character Charlie Gordon is actually intellectually disabled having an IQ of 68 this book is sort of in the style of a diary or progress reports by him charlie Gordon is going to write his daily life down through this diary so although it is much better to read the book yourself I will do my best to convey the writing by showing text on screen when applicable anyway let's get into it charlie says that he is a 32-year-old man and a doctor named Strauss wants him to write his thoughts down in this diary or journal to show his progress for what you may ask well Charlie doesn't really know he says that Strauss told him to do it to see if they can use him a woman named Miss Kenan who is his teacher at the quote Beakman's College for [ __ ] adults also encourages him to write his accomplishments another man named Professor Nemer agrees even though Charlie says and I quote "He doesn't write good." He also has a job at a bakery where he makes $11 a week and he can have any food he wants which to him he seems to like he signs off the page as yours truly Charlie Gordon the next day on March 4th Charlie says he went to Professor Nemer's office and he's afraid that he failed the test he says he went into a room and a man named Bert who they said was a doctor told him to just relax which worries Charlie because that usually means it's going to hurt he showed him ink blot tests and Charlie says he sees the cards and it looks like someone spilled ink on it brett says yes but what does he imagine in these cards charlie doesn't understand though he says well he imagines someone spilled ink on the card he said Bert said it was a quote raw shark test but he says he doesn't remember good so he's not sure charlie says he's worried because Bert broke his pencil tip and seemed angry at the end of the test and he's worried he won't be able to be used but he's still not sure what he's going to be used for the next day Charlie says he saw two doctors Strauss and Neur and they said the ink blot test didn't matter but Charlie said he's sorry he didn't spill ink on the paper but he says that Miss Kenyan his teacher says that he reads and writes real good the professor asks why he goes to school at his age of 32 charlie says "Well he doesn't want to be dumb he wants to be smart for his mama." He tries his hardest because he wants to learn more than even smarter people than him the professors say that's good actually they say that they have an experiment they're going to do on him they don't even know how it's going to work out though as they've only done it on animals charlie says he really wants to be smart if they let him on the next entry he says he wants to write better because he stays up late writing these journals and his job suffers in the morning because of it he keeps messing up a guy named Gimpy has been yelling at him for messing up lately but he says Gimpy likes him anyway won't Gimpy be surprised if he gets smart Charlie says the next day he says he has another test and he asked the lady who was administering it how to spell the test he was getting and he wrote it down it was a thematic apperception test charlie says he doesn't know what that means and [ __ ] Charlie I don't know what that means either but it involved him looking at pictures of people and the proctor told him to just make up stories about the people he sees in these pictures charlie says that'd be like lying he doesn't like lying because when he was a kid he did that and people hit him for it he then randomly says "Well he has a sister named Norma and an uncle who got him his job at the bakery before he died." He then says the woman got frustrated because he wouldn't make up stories about the people so he guesses he failed that test too he said Bert the guy from yesterday then took him and showed him the entire laboratory charlie says he doesn't understand what laboratory means and Bert says it was for games and tests and stuff charlie says he tried a game in this laboratory called an amazed which is a maze and several others tests as well but he got frustrated because they were broken and they didn't work now obviously Charlie just doesn't understand how they worked they weren't broken but to him that makes sense he was then shown the animal labs where Bert shows him a white mouse named Alurnon bird says that Algrenon can do the maze that Charlie just did charlie doesn't believe that at first but sure enough Alenon does it flawlessly charlie thinks "Wow what a smart mouse." Bert then asks Charlie if he would like to race the mouse on the maze charlie says "Sure but he says he kept getting stuck and Aldron beat him several times after a minute or two but he wasn't mad because he learned how to finish the amaze even if it took him a while." The next day he sits with those two doctors again who said they contacted Charlie's sister in Brooklyn who says to go ahead with the operation they say he's the perfect fit because he has good motivation at least that's what his teacher Miss Kenyan says about him something him and Alon have in common charlie is so excited and it's very sweet to read this chapter because he's so full of hope the doctors warn him though they say there's a chance after this operation it might not work at all or even worse it might make him even dumber than he is now charlie says that's fine because he's lucky he's got this lucky rabbit's foot and he's never broken a mirror they tell him that this could go wrong as they've only done this operation on animals before he could end up worse than he is and end up in a home for assisted living but Charlie says he's brave he'll go through with it nemer confides in him that even if this fails Charlie will be doing a great contribution to science but Charlie says he doesn't know what science even is the next day Charlie says he's kind of scared lots of people from his college and the labs brought him flowers and wished him luck with the operation lots of people which makes him scared miss Kenyan came to wish him luck as well and she fixed his pillow and everything for him charlie says that she likes him because he actually tries unlike some adults of the college nemer says that he can't receive any more visitors now though he has to rest and wait for the operation nemer says that he will go down in history for this though and Charlie says he doesn't want to be famous he just wants to be like everyone else he just wants to be smart so people will like him and he'll have more friends he asks if he'll be able to beat Alon after this in a race and Nemer says maybe charlie then says he's hungry because he learned that he can't eat before an operation which I agree Charlie that sucks the next report is actually spelled right in the title as he says a nurse showed him how to spell progress and report and march however he's had bandages on his head and eyes for 3 days so he couldn't write any of the reports charlie says the operation didn't hurt at all though as when they did it he was asleep he says he says he has a lot of trouble spelling and stuff but he said when he started the operation he went into a room and told Dr nemer that he was really scared but Neber told him "Don't be afraid." But Charlie still peed himself a little he said he got this bag over his mouth and they just told him to breathe in deep and he said he got a little tired and then it just went dark he spoke out loud afterwards and asked if they had to do the operation in the dark and they laughed and said "It's over already Charlie." They then tell him that he has to write all these things down so they can have a journal in case this operation works and they'll be able to see progress through his writing he says he cannot wait to be smart so he can talk to Joe Karp and Gimpy and Frank and his other co-workers about all the smart stuff they talk about he says when you're smart you'll never be lonely nemer tells him just to keep writing about everything it'll help him get smarter nemer says the next day Charlie writes that the nurse named Hilda said he was a brave man for letting the doctors do that to his head she says she wouldn't have done that for all the tea in China but Charlie corrects her it wasn't for tea it was to make him smarter he says not understanding the expression hilda then gets angry and says that the doctors were committing a sin because if God had wanted Charlie to be smart he would have made him that way in the first place she tells Charlie to pray for forgiveness for letting them do that to him charlie then gets scared and signs off the journal miss Kenyon comes to visit him the next day and Charlie says that he thought he would be smart immediately after the bandages came off his eyes but Miss Kenan says "No it doesn't work like that and he'd have to work hard to get smart." Which Charlie doesn't understand he says he works hard anyway what was the operation for miss Kenan just pats his hand and says she knows he will work hard just try his best but he can't go back to work yet charlie says he says he's been doing tests with Aldron all day every day and he hates that stupid mouse now he hates those quote stupid amazes too miss Kenyan tells him that he won't even notice that he's getting smarter and just to keep with this and Nemer says he's doing just fine but he's tired of these tests and Aldronon charlie and Bert go to lunch at the college the next day and Bert introduces him to a lot of students and they look at him funny bert says that they talk about politics and science and religion charlie says that his mom tried to teach him about religion when he was really young and forced him to pray something about him being sick but he can't remember he said he thinks it has something to do with his smarts he says bert also tells him don't tell anyone about the experiments because Nemer says that he can't have any publicity charlie doesn't understand though he says that people laugh at Charlie all the time but Bert says Nemer doesn't so much care about him as he doesn't want people to laugh at him charlie doesn't understand because Neur is smart a scientist at that how could anyone not like Professor Nemer charlie then says that every morning he wakes up and thinks he's going to be smart but he never is but he gets a lot of headaches now and he's getting frustrated he doesn't want to write any more reports he says before he never knew he was dumber than a mouse and now he does and that kind of makes him feel bad the next day Charlie is happy because he gets to go back to work at the bakery he was at least getting paid as a part-time job for the experiment though but he tells Nemer that he's getting discouraged because of it and Nemer says "Don't get discouraged because it'll take time for him to get smart." He says that Aldron had the same operation and now he is three times smarter and he's stayed three times smarter than he was charlie didn't seem to know that Aldron had the same operation as him before this nemer says that there's a good chance that because they had the same operation Charlie could also permanently become three times smarter maybe charlie goes to the bakery the day after and he sees Joe Karp and Joe Karp says "Hey look Charlie has a head scar did they put some brains in him?" as a joke and Charlie almost immediately agreed with this joke but he remembered he wasn't supposed to tell anyone the owner Mr donner said that while Charlie was gone they hired a new guy named Ernie who took over for Charlie and Charlie gets worried because he didn't want to lose his job but Mr donner said it's okay he promised Charlie's uncle his former guardian that he would always have a job for him here to keep him out of the assisted living home charlie says he doesn't understand why they still need him then if they hired Ernie mr donner says he's going to keep Ernie but they're going to make him an assistant and Charlie can still do his job or something later Ernie drops a bunch of stuff on accident and Joe Cararb says "Hey were you trying to pull a Charlie Gordon?" Charlie says he doesn't understand cuz he doesn't mess up like that or anything he then asks Mr donner if he can become an assistant like Ernie as well but Frank one of his co-workers laughs at him from the other room mr donner says that maybe someday he can become an assistant he wishes that he could tell them about the operation though a couple days later Nemer goes to ask Charlie why he hasn't been at the labs recently and Charlie says he doesn't want to race the stupid mouse anymore he's tired of it he's not getting any smarter he says "Oh but he is he just doesn't notice it yet." And it's true at the beginning of the book literally every other word is misspelled but now only a few per sentence are misspelled nemer says "Actually he has a gift for Charlie if Charlie goes back to the labs a machine he can put on before bed like a TV screen for your face that teaches you things while you're asleep." Charlie can't even believe it but he accepts and he goes back to the lab though he asks when he can go back to Miss Kenyan's class emmer says actually soon Miss Kenyan will privately tutor him and Charlie's happy about that charlie says that he can hardly sleep with that TV screen on his face how can anyone sleep with stuff like that on and several days pass charlie remembers one day that he asked Joe Karp how to read and write a long time ago and he just laughed at Charlie saying "Charlie don't bother they can't put brains in somewhere where there ain't any a female coworker named Franny tells Joe Karp to shove it and she tells him the name of a college and that's the college he's currently at and how he started there he just remembered that out of nowhere though he then strangely says "Man him and Joe Karp sure have good times together they're such good friends." Which obviously Charlie doesn't understand but Joe Karp isn't really his friend he's making fun of him laughing at him and not with him he wrote down the name of the school and he went there and that's how he got into Miss Kenyan's class and that's how he met her joe Karp told him the next day while laughing "Don't get so smart you won't talk to us." Making fun of Charlie but of course Charlie doesn't understand the next day Charlie went to something called therapy he says Strauss would talk to him as he lied down on a couch charlie says he doesn't get it he asked if he could sleep to make up for lost sleep because of the TV screen and Strauss said it doesn't really work that way he has to talk to him about his feelings charlie doesn't understand what he just goes with it the day after Joe Karp and Frank take him out for drinks in which Charlie danced on the bar with a lampshade on his head while Joe and Frank laughed at him they said "Give him a mop he's really good at cleaning." Charlie doesn't understand obviously but they're making fun of him charlie says that Miss Kenyon actually says he does good work all the time and then Joe Karp makes fun of him and asks if does you make out with her too but they just kept buying Charlie drinks and more drinks charlie says he loves going out with his best friends Joe Karp and Frank he says he can't remember how the night ended though but he does remember that Joe Karp told him to go outside to see if it was raining around the corner but when he came back to the bar they were gone they left him charlie doesn't understand but he says maybe they got lost but then he beats himself up thinking that Algrenon wouldn't have gotten lost the next day it happens it finally happens charlie beats Alenon in a race in the maze he was so excited that he lost the second race but then he won eight more after that nem says "Look at this it's proof it's working." He let Charlie hold Aldronon after as a reward as well charlie says he's soft he tells Nemer that he had a dream about his mom and dad too their faces were blurry but he could remember them almost he got lost in a department store and he had to cry to a worker for help nemer says "Actually that's great these aren't dreams he's remembering things he's recalling memories and getting smarter." Charlie says he's so excited that he can't even sleep he remembers one time where he told his mom that he wanted to be a painter and his sister made fun of him saying "Yeah he could be the artist of the family but in a mean way." And Charlie didn't know that but Charlie's dad hits his sister after he always felt bad when his sister got hit because of him miss Kenyan begins teaching him as well how to read and write he has trouble with words like enough or through and the other form of through which don't worry Charlie of all the scripts I write I still mess up through and through but he's getting better at reading and writing you can tell he only misspells one or two words every paragraph now the next day Charlie went into work and I guess the dough mixer quit the day before all the workers tease Charlie and says "Go ahead Charlie try to work the machine." thinking he'd break it and they'd all get the day off or something that female coworker Franny said "Leave the poor man alone." to Frank and Joe Karp but they yell back "Shove it Franny it's April Fool's Day they deserve to laugh." However to their surprise Charlie gets on the machine and works it they were all laughing at first but slowly they stop "what's happening?" They said "charlie's working the machine and he's doing it better than the guy who quit they were all so surprised and Franny says he shut them up real quick huh Charlie franny is like the only good person in the store by the way gimpy another one of his co-workers comes back and gets mad at first because he was the head baker and he didn't want Charlie to mess up the machine but Franny shows him that he could in fact work the dough mixer gimpy says he sees it but he can't believe it this has to be an April Fool's joke right mr donner comes by next and he's equally surprised and he says he's going to promote Charlie to the station because he needs a new dough mixer with a $5 raise joe Karp and Frank sulk angrily in the back charlie asked what's wrong with them and what was that joke earlier and they just tell him to kill himself pretty much charlie says later he finished the book he was reading and wanted to know what happened after the story but Miss Kenyan said that that's all there was charlie's mad about this because he wants to learn what happened after the book ended me too buddy me too miss Kenyan says Charlie is progressing so fast and soon he'll show everybody charlie asks who who will he show everyone he knows is so smart and nice to him miss Kenyan then has to go to the bathroom because she had something in her eye Charlie said charlie then recounts another memory when his baby sister was first born she cried a lot and woke him up and once he went over to try to rock her back to sleep but his mother came in and smacked him so hard that he fell down she yelled at him to never touch her again at the time he didn't understand but now he thinks that maybe she thought he was so dumb he'd hurt her but he said he'd never hurt his sister the next day Charlie learns about punctuation and then this paragraph ensues she said "You got to mix them up." She showed me how to mix them up and now I can mix up all kinds of punctuation in my writing there are lots of rules to learn but I'm getting them in my head one thing I like about Dear Miss Kenyon that's the way it goes in a business letter if I ever go into business is that she always gives me a reason when I ask she's a genius i wish I could be smart like her punctuation is fun that was a pain to type out by the way but despite the billions of punctuation marks used incorrect in this paragraph it's very sweet of Charlie to say that about Miss Kenyon he's learning the next day he calls himself a dope he didn't get punctuation at all he said Miss Kenyan explained it to him but he gets it now he said he just wants to go back to the old journals and fix the spelling and punctuation but Miss Kenyan says no this way he can see his progress the next chapter is kind of hard to read it's not splatterpunky or anything it's just kind of sad today Charlie stayed home from work because last night he Joe Karp and Frankie went to a party where there are tons of girls and stuff there they gave him a Coke which tasted funny according to him and they asked a girl named Eileene to dance with him she tells them to knock it off and be nice to Charlie but they say "Hey what's the problem he just got promoted i want you to dance with him what's wrong with that he says to her with a wink she starts dancing and Charlie does too and he just feels funny he looks around and no one else is dancing every once in a while a stray foot from Joe Karp or Frank would come out and trip him and everybody would laugh joe laughs and laughs and says he's a riot just like the other day when they left him outside the rain after the bar then it clicks for Charlie they aren't laughing with him they're laughing at him he remembers a time when he was a kid playing hideand- seek when kids did the same thing and he looked all day and night until he had to go home cold charlie's face turns red and everyone starts making fun of him even runs away and gets lost for a bit and then he gets home and goes to bed he wakes up after a dream about Eileen with his sheets messy he says he says he never thought about it but he guesses Joe and Frank like to have him around just to make fun of him charlie still hasn't gone back to the bakery after but he remembers a story from when he was young and it was cold outside with a bunch of kids circling around him and bullying him when his uncle comes out and threatens them and they go into the bakery to rest it's a hard memory but Dr strauss says it's good to keep remembering these things it means he's learning and getting smarter dr strauss says he's progressing at an amazing rate and his intelligence is outpacing his emotional intelligence and to come see him whenever he has questions about that and he will help out this is a safe space he says he asks him about women and what the feeling like throwing up was about when he danced with Eileen and why he woke up messy and Dr strauss just says nicely "It was a wet dream." It happens to everybody side note at this point there is no more spelling or grammatical errors almost at all in his writing he's truly getting smart miss Kenyan says he should be learning college level stuff in a couple weeks even nemer says that's great but do not read any psychology books or anything because it might mess up his emotional intelligence and feelings because he is still a child in that aspect he agrees and reads high school level books like The Great Gatsby he said he's never knew men and women think and do that kind of thing and I'm assuming he's talking about love and sex the next day he asks Professor Nemer about IQ and they go back and forth about what it means and if it's a good measure of an intelligence or not and everyone disagrees with everybody however they say Charlie's IQ right now is about 100 which is average but if things continue down this path it could very well get up to 150 however he says tomorrow he's going to take a Roar Shark test he wonders what that is i guess he didn't remember he took one earlier but he called it something else then so the next day he says he has a blurry memory then he recalls it in full after a lot of effort in this memory he's a kid at elementary school and Miss Kenyan is there too but she's younger and her name isn't Miss Kenyan yet all the other boys in class love Kenyan to death so Charlie does too because he wants to fit in and on top of that she's very nice to him and she doesn't make fun of him like everybody else in the school he fidgets with a little heart-shaped locket he has and Valentine's Day is coming up people make fun of him but he says he's going to give Kenan the best Valentine's Day gift ever he gets that locket and asks another boy to write in it a note that says "Dear Kenyan I think you are the prettiest girl in the world i like you very much and love you and I want you to be my Valentine your friend Charlie Gordon." Charlie doesn't know this yet but that is not what the kid writes in there he takes advantage of him and writes something else the next day he gives it to her and the day after she comes to school and he's all excited but she doesn't even look at him a high school boy comes up and beats him up and says never to write dirty stuff like that to his sister again him and his friends beat up Charlie Moore until a teacher comes by and sends him home for the day he only remembered this dream because of another one where he wrote his progress reports and Miss Kenyan and the doctors hurt him because he wrote dirty stuff in there but he then remembers "Hey he never got that heart-shaped locket back." The next day he has the roar shark test and he says he remembered it now it was that ink blot test he took a long time ago charlie said he went in there when he noticed that it was the same and immediately got upset he remembered how there were pictures in the ink blot and how Bert shoved them in his face last time bert comes up to him and shows him the ink blots and Charlie immediately gets defensive he says there are no pictures hidden in the inklots bert Bert says last time he didn't say that there were he asked him to imagine what he saw in the ink blotss charlie gets angry now and says just because Bert went to college doesn't mean he gets to make fun of him nemer who was walking nearby in the hallway comes in and gently grabs Charlie's arm he says all the sessions are recorded if he wants to hear exactly what Bert said last time charlie says "Yes good do that." He listens and sure enough Bert did not say that or make fun of him last time charlie feels embarrassed did he actually misunderstand it that bad last time he calmed down and did the test and this time he saw stuff like men fencing or two bears high-fiving and other things in the ink blotss things that didn't make sense charlie found himself looking at the back of the cards to see if Bert was trying to pull something on him even looking at his notes which were all in code anyway and nothing charlie says he still doesn't understand this test maybe when he studies psychology after this whole experiment's over he'll get it but as of right now he feels embarrassed still he says he wishes people didn't read these reports as he feels he can't write his true feelings in them if he knows people are reading them he's going to ask Nemer and Strauss tomorrow if he can keep them private for a bit the next day he has another memory back when Gimpy and Frank tried to show him how to make rolls frank was the one to suggest it but as a joke a joke to make fun of Charlie but Gimpy says "Leave Charlie alone Frank." But Frank doesn't back down he says "No seriously maybe something simple like that would be good for Charlie." Gimpy thinks about it and agrees maybe it would work charlie thinks back about himself but he sees himself in almost third person he sees himself as if he wasn't that person anymore he sees himself struggling to make the rolls and Gimpy offering him a shiny trinket if he can do it they talk down to him and show him step by step and Charlie does it and then they think "Hey maybe he can do this." And they say "Okay Charlie now do it all by yourself." Charlie starts with the first step and then blank he can't remember gimpy says "See it don't stick in his mind." But the other Charlie thinks it will stick just give him some time everyone always tries to rush him he just needs time they say "It's okay Charlie it's not your job anyway just go sit down and read your comic book." Charlie's upset but he gets over it quickly gimpy walks over to him and gives him the trinket anyway charlie wonders how they feel about him getting smarter now he says people in the bakery don't even talk to him though almost as if the only reason they did was to make fun of him it makes his job kind of lonely when he goes into the bakery now there is not just silence but almost a tension in the air hostility mr donner is trying to get him into the baker's union though and everyone just avoids him or grumbles when he's near he wants to tell them about the surgery that made him smarter but he can't legally so they all treat him like [ __ ] but he got a $10 a week raise to celebrate he wants to ask Miss Kenyan to a movie he doesn't know why though he wanted to go to the lab and ask Nemer and Strauss if it was a good idea but when he got there he heard them yelling at each other inside he listened in and heard them talk about how there was a conference in Chicago in 6 weeks and there was no way that Charlie would regress now nemer has seen the studies and the way that things are going they talk about who was using whose work more and stuff like that and for the first time Charlie notices that these two scientists aren't gods they're just men men like any other who are scared about the research not working he felt bad about eavesdropping and left charlie thinks that maybe when he didn't know any better it was okay to do that but now he feels horrible about it he sticks around the college though and listens to other students talk about Plato and Freud he wishes he could join in the conversations even though he's a bit older than them he starts to smoke a pipe now for some reason too i'm not sure why that's included i I think he thinks it makes him look smarter but I really don't know why they say that a day or two later he did talk to a group of college students and they argued back and forth about if Shakespeare really existed or not i don't think he did by the way and they also argue if God exists or not charlie never really thought about if God existed or not he was always just matter of fact that he did the thought that he maybe didn't exist didn't even cross his mind and it scares him and that night he has another memory he's in the principal's office of his elementary school and someone is telling his mom and dad that he isn't normal he can't learn things like the other kids and they suggest the Warren stayed home his mother is scratching the lady calling her a [ __ ] and a [ __ ] and when they get home he once again sees himself in third person he's in the corner with a fidget spinner and his parents argue he hated when they did that as it made him feel weird they argue back and forth whether or not to make him repeat a grade or not matt his father whose name he now remembers says Charlie's not normal making him repeat things only will make it worse his mother Rose is screaming saying "Charlie is normal he's just a little slow but he can learn like everyone else." Charlie is scared as they scream at each other and he pulls out his mom's shirt he really needs to go to the bathroom his mom screams at him that he better not use the bathroom right here in the kitchen he's a big boy he can go and do it himself matt says "Can't you see he's scared he wants you to go with him." His mom yells more at Matt and before Charlie knows it he soiled himself his mother spanks him for this and he wonders why he remembers his parents' names now he never forgot his sister Norma's the next night he and Alice Kenyan go out to a movie the first one was a war movie and the second was a psychological thriller that Charlie said was corny and fake during the movie he realizes how beautiful Alice Kinan actually was he never noticed it before and he tries to put her arm around her back but he couldn't work up the nerve as they walk out of the movie theater Charlie goes on and on about how the world doesn't work like it did in that movie alice Kenyan says "Of course not it's makebelieve it's a story." Charlie says that's no excuse the director or producer or editor or someone did something wrong along the line somewhere in that movie and the movie was made worse for it he starts to get angry and people start to stare at him alice shushes him and they go to a cafe charlie apologizes and says he shouldn't have gotten worked up like that about the movie alice says it's okay he's learning stuff in a few weeks that people usually learn in 20 years he's almost like a genius she takes his hand and he feels some sort of way about it he says he likes her and she says she likes him too he says no it's more than that but he can't find the right words and he just embarrasses himself they go home in a taxi and Charlie tries to speak his feelings again and Alice says "It's okay this probably wasn't a great idea this thing they were doing was not good getting wrapped up in Charlie's emotions might hurt him even more than help him like this and if the experiment fails she will only blame herself charlie says it's okay he overheard the doctor say nothing can go wrong now and Alice says she hopes so charlie tries to take her hand but she pulls away she says this isn't a good idea again he goes to Alice Kenan's apartment and he thinks that in the movies and in the books the guy kisses the girl good night and as Charlie moves closer to her she says "Let's not do this not yet." He wanted to kiss her but she moved too fast and went inside her apartment charlie says there's nowhere to actually learn how to act towards someone you like he says to himself "Next time he will kiss her good night though." That night he has more dreams but he cannot remember when this happened or even if it happened he said he's like a man who's half asleep trying to figure out what his life was like before he woke up he has a couple memories in his sleep a woman with red hair trying to stab him with a kitchen knife and then two clearer memories one where he was looking through a keyhole at Norma in the bath not for any sexual reason or anything but he notices she doesn't have something that he does something important and he wonders why when he hears a noise and a woman begins chasing him with a kitchen knife again then another memory where it's early in the morning and he's playing with his fidget spinner and he goes into the hamper to look for something and he notices Norah's underwear has dried blood on it oh no he thinks did Norah hurt herself he also mentions how he sees her dresses and he wants to try them on but last time he did that his mother heard him so he won't do that again he can't remember anything else though but he knows that these memories came up because of his date with Alice Kenyan the next day Charlie says how upset he was because of what happened at work today he realizes that Gimpy Mr donner's second in command was stealing from him he noticed when someone was buying an ice cream cake that usually went for 3.95 gimpy charged them $2.95 on the register and then pocketed the extra dollar this confuses Charlie but as the customer paid he notices that Gimpy took the right amount out and took the leftover for himself there had to be a mistake Charlie thought maybe Mr donner has some sort of agreement with that customer and that was a tip anything but Gimpy stealing mr donner was such a wonderful boss even inviting employees to his home for dinner there's no way Gimpy was exploiting him like this he notices him do the exact same thing later that day to another customer and he wanted to hit Gimpy so bad but he refrained he pondered over what to do for a while until he thought to go talk to Dr stasa Nemer about this this was sort of the thing that they could help him with you know emotional stuff like they said so Charlie goes there and Nemmer says "Don't get involved." He wasn't obligated to tell anyone it's no different from a knife not being at fault when a killer uses it to stab someone charlie then takes this the wrong way and then says "But he's not an object." Nemers laughs at him and says "Of course he's not but before the operation he meant." Charlie felt like hitting Nemers now because before the operation he wasn't an object either so he went to Strauss for therapy later where Strauss said something different he said that he has a moral obligation to tell his boss so now he was confused he thought he could only go to one person to ask now Alice he tries to call her in the middle of the night and he loses nerve four times until he finally dials the right number and said she was part of this too now and he needs her advice she must have sensed something was wrong so they went to the cafe in the early hours of the morning here Charlie tells her his problem and she laughs slightly after he told her she said "No one can tell him what to do there's no book or movie that can tell you what to do in this situation." Charlie then has a revelation he understands now he needs to trust himself alice says "If only he could see his face right now he's changing he's amazing." she says he then says he should have trusted himself last time they were at this cafe charlie grabs her hand and says last time he shouldn't have said that he liked her but he should have said he loved her alice stops him saying this is way too fast take things slow he's growing so much intellectually and she shouldn't get involved with him charlie says that even if he gets smarter he'll still love her she says no she's his teacher even if they are the same age every boy has a crush on his teacher at some point charlie then asks if she's calling his mind a boy's mind she says no then he blurts out loudly mind you so I'm emotionally [ __ ] then to you people start to look over at them and Charlie said he wanted to see her again he won't change his feelings she says "Well he can see her at the lab tomorrow." Charlie says "Obviously not at work like away from people away from tasks and intellectual work." He wants to go on another date she says "Fine but at a public place." Charlie agrees alice says that there's a concert in Central Park soon and they can go there they walk home and she kisses him on the cheek and says she's glad she called him and and then she goes inside the next day he decides to talk to Gimpy about what he saw a compromise he thought in his head he could ask MP for advice as if this was happening to his friend charlie says his friend noticed that his friend's coworker is cheating his boss and he doesn't know what to do about it gimpy says his friend should keep his nose out of it a boss is a boss and a coworker is a co-orker working folk have to stick together charlie says that's not how this works he says that if his friend's coworker stopped his friend wouldn't have to tell the boss that he would be doing that but if he doesn't stop then he would have to go to his boss gimpy says "Well I guess he doesn't have a choice." And he said "Maybe your friend wants a cut is that it?" Charlie says "No he doesn't." Kimi says he never should have stood up for him all those years before this something must be wrong with his head and Charlie will be sorry for this charlie says he goes to the library after college and it's now like a second home to him he can absorb a page of a book nearly in an instant his favorite topic right now is ancient Hinduism he says he wants to discuss topics about wartime spending with an economist and when he talked to the teacher at the college for economy it went way over his head the teacher said he was more interested in interest rates in 401ks he should talk to a student who did a wartime spending report in World War II charlie then thinks to himself that these people aren't intellectual giants like he thought these teachers are just people worried about the world finding out that they're not smart and Alice Kenyan isn't a goddess she's just a woman but he's still going to take her out tomorrow for a concert the morning after the concert Charlie says he hasn't slept because of what happened at it he said he and Alice find a nice spot under a tree where they could listen to the classical music deucy charlie says he hasn't listened much to this type of music so he has to think if he likes it or not alice disagrees and says "Don't think about it feel it." He tries to and as Alice closes her eyes and sways to the music Charlie tries to put his arms around her she shuddters and he puts his arm lower and asks if she's pretending he doesn't exist and she says "No she's pretending she doesn't exist." Then all of a sudden there's a buzzing in his ears he gets dizzy and feels sick then a sensation of someone watching him he looks up and sees a boy in the dark bushes watching with his pants down "hey!" Charlie screams and chases after him leaving Alice alone he chased but no matter what he couldn't find the boy he went back to Alice and she asked him if he found him and he said "No." Uh he'll be all right though just he has a buzzing in his ears alice says maybe they should go they do and they go back to her apartment and Charlie asks Frankly did she see the boy too and she said no but she's sure he was real he flashes and he gets a glimpse of what the kids saw for some reason them in each other's arms she then tries to pull him in close but that buzzing comes back and he feels sick she tells him he looks sick and he says he just has to go charlie says as he left he thought about it and he's sure that the boy was a hallucination he says every time sex or anything intimate comes up in his life this happens he feels sick and stuff like that happens he then calls himself and I quote sexually [ __ ] the next day he was fired from the bakery he walked into Mr donner's office and he was fiddling with stuff as if he was nervous he basically just said Charlie isn't the same Charlie as 17 years ago when he was hired here hell he wasn't the same Charlie as 4 months ago maybe it's a miracle he promised Charlie's uncle that he would always have a place to work or stay but all the employees have signed a petition to fire him he begs and pleads for him to reconsider mr donner trying to be nice says he doesn't need this job anymore he's smart a genius almost now he doesn't need to be a baker charlie says "At least let him try to talk to the other employees to get them to change their mind." Mr honor says "Okay but he's just going to get hurt if he does but you can if you want." He goes and talks to Joe Karp and Frank frank says Charlie is now a big shot always with a book with all these ideas and making everyone look bad joe Karp says it doesn't make him better than anyone else in fact it makes him worse franny was the only one who didn't sign the petition she said that he did change recently though but instead of reading all those books he should be reading his Bible adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge and now everyone has to die it's not right maybe he should pray to go back to the way he was charlie doesn't understand why it's bad to try to learn things he doesn't get it before they made fun of him for being stupid and now he's ostracized for being too smart his intelligence has driven a wedge between him and almost everyone he knows he wonders if Aldron is the same way with the other mice back at the lab a couple days later he went to Alice's house she let him in and he looked around it was the first time he'd been in a girl's apartment she offered him coffee and they talked he said that he feels so alone now he lost his job and it feels like he lost all of his friends too alice says it's not like that he just feels alone because of what happened with his parents kicking him out too that's got to be it but he says no that's not it either he's been afraid before he was afraid of his mother hurting him and the gangs that teased him on his way home from his job this is a more vague intangible fear and that makes it a lot worse fear of being alone alice says it's okay he's like a little kid that didn't have time to go through puberty or adjust to anything in life everything happened all at once for him he was thrown into the deep end of adulthood immediately she said "No matter what though do not be afraid of her." And she rested her head on his shoulder he hasn't been back to the lab since he was fired either but she just holds him in her arms but then he has a memory all of a sudden once at home he was getting beat by a belt by his mother his father yells in the distance "Stop Rose you're going to kill him." His mother blurts out that if he can't do math or reading but he can get an erection when a friend of his little sister comes over she'll beat the filth out of his mind his mother would always beat him whenever he got an erection he thought about it and maybe now since he's an adult he could go further with Alice he was an adult and then he just blurts out to Alice to hold him and they start kissing but before he knew it the buzzing was back he felt nauseous and he had to turn away and cry he fell asleep in her arms at night but he dreams of a princess with a sword nemer and Strauss tell Charlie that the Chicago conference is only a week away and he needs to write more reports as he hasn't written anything in 2 weeks that and now they're paying him a livable wage from the experiment because he no longer has a job charlie says he just wanders around at night now he has bad dreams if he doesn't he remembers ones where he goes to the bakery and looks inside and sees himself in there but things drag him back from his heels into somewhere else he also has a new memory return he remembers his sister coming home from school once and getting an A on a test they both go to the living room where Matt and Rose are and Charlie before Norah can say anything blurts out "She got an A." Excited for his little sister but Norah yells at him she wanted to be the one to tell her parents not him she then goes to her mom and says that she promised she could have a dog if she got an A she has a name picked out and everything for it matt tells her to go outside and play with Charlie while the parents discuss it but Norah says no she hates Charlie she doesn't want to go outside and play with him matt tells her "Young lady be nice to your bigger brother." Norah goes to her mother and begs for the dog again she says she'll clean it and walk it and play with it and Charlie says "Oh he can help too." And Norah says "No it's going to be her dog." Matt says "Don't be mean to Charlie you won't get a dog if you act this way." Norah says "But mom promised." And Rose says "Yeah she did in fact promise." Matt gets up and says "Do you not remember when you yelled at Charlie when he asked for a dog because there wasn't any room?" "No dog." Nora then gets up and tears her A+ test and throws it in Charlie's face saying she hates him she hates him so much for not being able to get a dog their parents try to go talk to Nora and Charlie pees himself in the kitchen he cries to himself that he doesn't know what he did wrong and he knows his mom is going to come back and beat him when she finds the pee he wakes up and wishes that memory was a photograph so he could rip it up and throw it in Norah's face he didn't mean to lose her the dog the next time Alice and Charlie talked again was at the center again charlie came to the center to visit Alice and see his old class his alma mater he says when he gets there he sees his old peers some that he feels bad for now like Francine a young woman with three children that because of her condition she has been taken advantage of several times a couple of the students who remember Charlie ask him how he was and if he was coming back alice slightly upset looking in a corner says "It's 8:00 p.m time to wrap up they did so and Alice and Charlie have a talk." Alice says that Charlie is different now he used to be so kind and open and since he's gotten smarter he's different charlie gets enraged and says "What does she expect him to be kind to all the people that took advantage of him for a quick laugh to keep licking the boot that kicks him they seemed the furthest they've ever been apart right now alice was just as low of an IQ as he was in comparison to how smart he is now with an IQ of 185 she sobs to herself that she can't keep up with all the socioeconomic talks and all the smart stuff he does now she's just a normal woman and he is extraordinary she tells him that she told Nemer this morning that she wasn't going to go to Chicago with them she just slowed them down charlie protests says that people loved having him around because anyone can look smart next to a [ __ ] right he knew as soon as he said that that he shouldn't have because she assumes that he meant her too he says no and they get to a bus and they go back to her apartment where once again she says she's not going to Chicago he asks why and he knows that she'll like it she's making this more of a thing than it needs to be she snaps back oh he knows her now huh he knows her feelings she says he's become insufferable he knows how she feels and why she feels it right they sit in silence and she just says she's upset she's sorry but she'll be here when he gets back from Chicago she then enters her apartment alone charlie wanders around at night when he can't sleep he goes to Central Park and just sits on the benches there he sat there one night and a woman came up with a big coat on despite it being really hot and just sat next to him and looked around she was very pretty maybe a little too much makeup but still very pretty she and him made small talk about where they're from and how she was from New Jersey and he was from New York she had been married to a sailor which once again it's very weird that this is mentioned because we just covered the HR a book where the main character is also married to a sailor but she wanted to talk to someone and he was happy to listen on the bench she said her father had given her everything she'd ever wanted in life except for forgiveness when she ran away and eloped with the sailor the night they were married she was a virgin and he took her without any lovemaking and beat her senseless they never had sex again after that charlie was uncomfortable with a stranger just telling him this and he starts trembling this was too extreme she gripped his hand tighter and said it's not that she isn't into men because most of them are tender and they make love wonderfully she's done it several times since she looks at him longfully and he knew what she wanted and what that meant this was just like in the books and the movies she wanted to go somewhere they could be alone and as they started to walk around he wondered when the anxiety in his child self wouldn't let him continue any further and they walked further and further and he felt nothing he thought maybe he could do this this time she then opened her coat it reminded him of a time when he was a child and an old lady flashed him only this time it was so much worse this woman was pregnant she says she hopes he doesn't mind it won't hurt the baby or anything without realizing why or how Charlie grips her shoulder really tight and says what she's doing right now is disgusting he realizes what he did and thought back to his mother pregnant with his sister and how she stopped paying attention to him and stopped even trying to care about him after she got pregnant charlie apologizes to the woman saying he would never hurt anyone but she was already screaming bloody murder after he grabbed her maniac rapist he ran away and around the park and circled back to hide behind a rock where the woman was telling a bunch of men to go chase him they did but no one could find him behind the rock he ran back home and sat in his bed he thought to himself "It's weird he wishes that those men found him and beat him and punished him for what he did even though he didn't technically do anything he wishes they caught him and beat him with an inch of his life but he doesn't know why." Later Charlie sits on a plane and talks to himself into a tape recorder so he can write down later what he's thinking about and he's thinking about death and the anxiety of flying which don't feel bad Charlie i don't like flying either he thinks about God and death and what happens if the plane crashes the flight attendant comes up to him and says that he has to put on a seat belt for during takeoff charlie dislikes this and asks "Is it necessary?" And she says "Yes of course it is." But he says he doesn't like being restrained but he puts on the seat belt anyway and he thinks to himself how stupid that was his seat belt didn't hurt him or anything so why was he scared he then has a memory out of nowhere his mother and father take him to a doctor to make him smart but Charlie doesn't understand as he's very young matt tells his wife that this won't work and Rose a birdlike woman Charlie now can see her says it will they argue back and forth and it scares young Charlie the parents see that Charlie is now frightened and then they argue who scared Charlie always fighting his parents they both say "Forget it." And they just get in the car they're going to a doctor named Guino a man who has developed an experimental treatment to make Charlie smart dr guino and Rose and Matt talk back and forth a bit until he says this might might be able to do something but they have to leave the room and keep with the treatment even if it doesn't seem like it's working at first he's a big man with the white mustache and he is very nice to Charlie he asked him to get on the table charlie won't do it and says he wants his ma borina says it's okay and he lifts Charlie up onto the table and straps him down with the leather straps charlie is confused why this is happening and he gets scared the man turns on a machine and it makes a loud noise and Charlie starts screaming but Guino stuffs a cloth into his mouth and tells him not to scream it's okay charlie cries and feels nauseous he wets and soils himself again and he's worried his mom will hurt him when she finds out but Guino is very kind with the boy and Charlie shows him after the treatment's over that look he can walk backwards guino says "Wow look at that that's something." Now side note I'm not sure if Corino is like a good guy or not to me at least he is but it's very unclear if he's scamming Charlie's parents for money or if he's actually trying to be nice to Charlie just to manipulate his parents but I'm inclined to believe he is trying to help at least a little bit afterwards he says that Charlie's a good kid better than other kids who come in here with parents trying to make them geniuses his parents come back in the room and Rose starts to yell at Charlie but Gino says stop he doesn't want Charlie to associate this place with punishment they offer him money but he pretends he's disgusted by the sight of the money and tells it to give it to his secretary instead charlie is ashamed about how bad he is and how he embarrassed his parents on the ride home Matt yells at Rose saying she's wasted tons of money trying to make Charlie quote unquote normal money that could have been used to let Matt start a real barber shop and make some real money for the family but Rose is too ashamed of her son the flight attendant then butts into the memory and says they'll be landing soon so put the seat belt back on but oh she's surprised because Charlie's had the seat belt on the whole time actually the whole 2-hour flight look at that he then says he should be mad at Corino for taking advantage of his parents but he's not mad at him corino treated him nicely and treated him like a human when no one else did even Nem and Strauss didn't treat him like a human until their treatment worked in his head they act like they made Charlie into a person as if people like him before the treatment weren't really people and that made Charlie mad when they get to Chicago they get their hotels mixed up and they're forced to go to the Independence Hotel which wasn't all bad because that's where all the conferences were so they wouldn't have to go anywhere when they got there that night people came up to Charlie and asked him questions about geology and languages and for once he felt like he could be an authority on something intellectual and he could flex his muscle he went up to Nemer and listened to him talk about the process of how he made Charlie smart and he let Nemer answer all the questions and he mentions a ton of stuff that I have no idea what he's saying charlie butts into Nemer's smart talk and asks "What about the new study in India that butts heads with the theory that he just said?" Nemer asks "What are you saying Charlie?" He has no idea about any study in India he says he has to wait for the translation because he doesn't speak that language if it's not translated yet charlie's dumbfounded he couldn't speak it he goes up to Strauss nearby and he asks if Strauss knew about the new theory in India and Strauss says he has no idea he told Charlie "Remember that psychology has kept both Neurmer and Tim busy they don't have time to learn all these languages like him." Charlie says "Wait you can't speak that language either what language can you speak Strauss?" He says "Well French German Swedish Spanish Italian and English." Charlie says "That's it." No Portuguese or ancient Asian languages charlie can't believe it strauss and Nemer don't know anything about geology or any other fields of science beyond a basic understanding these two men he idolized weren't gods or even great men they were just men he storms off and Bert remember him comes up to him and tries to catch up to him he says "Give those two a break they are normal men trying to do great men's works while all the great minds are building bombs bert respects Nemer and Strauss even if he doesn't like them bert realizes he's lecturing Charlie but he ends it off with saying "Those two men never claimed to be gods to you Charlie they never even claimed to be great minds charlie's the genius he's absorbed knowledge in a few months that most men don't learn in a lifetime don't call Nemer and Strauss frauds because they never claimed to be gods he then asks if Charlie has ever met Nemmer's wife apparently she got him his whole position and her and her father now are pushing him to do this conference she's extremely dominating god what a woman who said that bert then says to Charlie "Unless you've had a woman like that figuratively and literally riding your ass don't judge Neur." Charlie leaves and goes back to his hotel room and thinks to himself "He's not a genius not yet anyway." He thinks about it and he guesses it's only natural for the master to not like when the student surpasses him thinking that he has now surpassed Strauss and Nemer easily but after all the work they did to make him smart in the first place he can't be impatient with them he says he'll go forward not looking down on Strauss or Nemer too much at least by the way this is the point where Charlie started to annoy me a little bit the next day Charlie says he left the convention right after he was shown off he couldn't take it and he goes through the events that put him in this situation back on the plane he says he woke up that day and went to the showcase and when he was there he was sure there were academic minds around beyond Nemmer and Strauss here he read a few things in pamphlets like how white mice act differently depending on cage shape and monkey psychology and these two studies made him angry but he thought at least Bert was right nemer and Strauss despite their ineptitudes were actually making a difference in psychology and not doing these safe animal experiments instead like white mice and chimps then the main event starts smoke and lights and stuff go out and it was like a sideshow and Charlie looked in Aldron's cage who was also there and he could see the smoke was irritating the little mouse bert was the speaker tonight and although he liked Bert more than Neur and Strauss the way Bert was talking as if Charlie was just an experiment kind of pissed him off charlie and Aldron as if they were a pair of animals to test then he said something ground shaking bird says that at the height of Aldron's intelligence sometimes he would be given a maze test and he would just not do it even if he was hungry or sometimes Aldron would do the maze and refuse the cheese and then slam himself into a wall to hurt himself charlie immediately knows what this means they withheld this information from him deliberately why do they withhold it from him though then film reels come out and they show early tests of Charlie where Bert says he looks vacant charlie gets more and more agitated at this and starts playing with the lock on Aldron's cage people were laughing at him in his early tests whenever he would get a shock for failing the maze the Nemer goes up to the podium and talks he said things that Charlie mostly agreed with until he said one paragraph that irked Charlie like never before and I will read it in full here we who have worked on this project at Beakman University have the satisfaction of knowing that we have taken one of nature's mistakes and by our new techniques created a superior human being it could be said that Charlie Gordon did not really exist before this experiment charlie wanted to get up and yell at him that he was a human being before he was experimented on too a human being with family members and love for life but he doesn't say it strauss then continues Nemer's speech and says that now this burden on society is ready to face the world with contributions to society damn him Charlie thought but something even worse caught his mind when Strauss was showing the data off the testing phase to see if this would stick was wrong charlie with the superior mind that he is realizes that the data they're showing although they say that they do they do not know if the intelligence will stick on either Aldron or Charlie a rage boiled inside of him as he was given the microphone and he lets Aldron out of his cage just then aldron scurries around and everyone starts to panic neymar and Strauss yell at people to grab the mouse charlie yells for him to run towards the back door as if Aldron could understand him and Charlie runs out as well and laughs neymar follows him and tells him "Yeah laugh all he wants but if they don't get Aldron back this whole experiment might be in danger." Charlie pretends to look for the mouse and he says to Nem "You don't even realize that you made a mistake this experiment might not matter at all." But before Nemore could respond a bunch of ladies run out of the lady's restroom and Charlie runs in it he finds Aldron and puts him in his suit jacket pocket he walks out and goes back to his hotel room grabs his things and gets on the next flight to New York he stays in a hotel room until he can find an apartment charlie is now officially on the run with Algeron in a shoe box he has only one thing on his mind though now he has to find his parents he might not have as much time as he thought he did with his intelligence charlie waited in the hotel and found a newspaper a few days later with a tabloid headline [ __ ] genius whereabouts unknown in the article it says that Strauss and Nemer said that he's been under a lot of stress and there's a $500 reward for Aldron they don't know they are together but the weirder thing about this article is Nora and Rose are also asked for a comment he sees what his sister and mother look like now it's all coming back to him his sister wasn't always horrible to him sometimes she was kind and soft but mostly she was like a raging storm like he originally remembered but in this article Norah says that she had no idea Charlie was even alive until this organization reached out for permission about the experiment she thought he died in the assisted living facility years ago charlie then gets a flash of a memory again he remembers his mother more what would she see now if she saw him what would she say but what would Charlie say to her hey Mom look I'm not a [ __ ] anymore i'm better than that i'm a genius he has a memory of his mother then arguing with his father about putting him in a home matt argues with Rose that she tried so hard to make him quote unquote normal and now that Norah is being born she doesn't even want Charlie anymore charlie wants to reach out to his past self in this memory and comfort him or be able to talk to his mom and tell her that look you're hurting his feelings but he can't days later he rents an apartment and takes Alenon with him he wants to call Alice but he doesn't he even called and hung up before she answered in this apartment there is four rooms and a piano for $96 a month what year is it in this book damn New York as he sits in there he thinks about building Aldron on a three-dimensional maze he gives the mouse a sip of beer while they watch baseball a couple days later he meets a woman named Fa he got groceries and realized he locked himself out of his apartment damn it he realizes that the fire escape connects their two apartments though so he knocks on Fay's door she yells at him just to come in and he does and he sees that she's only in her underwear he covers his eyes and apologizes profusely and closes the door she comes outside and says "Didn't you hear me say come in?" She is slender and blonde in a pink bra and panties he walks in and tries to avoid eye contact and there's just art supplies everywhere paints and canvases all over the apartment is messy and clothes are strewn about everywhere he thinks maybe she just forgot she was in her underwear but she didn't seem to care she says "Well you must be Mr gordon i've been meeting to take a peek at you." She then offers him a drink he tries not to stare at her but she goes to her kitchen and gets some beers and comes back with a coat with holes in it and it's a bit easier to look at her now he thinks she looks cat-like Charlie says but he says he can't stay he just needs to use the fire escape to get to his apartment she says "Tell me about it she locked herself out of her apartment all the time when she first moved in here." She keeps her door open now if someone wants to rob her they won't get anything valuable so she just keeps the door open as Charlie goes to the fire escape she asks if she can see his apartment he says "Sure but he doesn't have any beer." They go in and she is amazed at how clean Charlie's apartment is she goes on and on about how she loves dancing and does Charlie dance and how are the lines in this apartment so straight she needs to be drunk because the straight lines would be curvy and then and then and then she's a really interesting girl she says that she's heard the piano being played in here and he's very good she then runs over to the 3D maze for Algenon she says "Wow this is a great piece of art he should submit it to the Museum of Modern Art." Charlie says "No it's not an art piece it's for Alenon his mouse." She says "Wow a living sculpture that's amazing." She's not getting it she says she needs $5 for a week and asks if Charlie can give it to her and he does and she just leaves charlie is confused this woman is interesting she's full of life and beautiful and she's just a fire escape away the next day Charlie worked up the nerve to go and find Matt matt had walked out on Rose and Charlie admired him for that as Rose was always spending his money but after he walked out he bought his own barber shop charlie found it and walked in he recognized Matt immediately but Matt didn't recognize him no wait right now mister you're up charlie realizes his father doesn't recognize him and he doesn't blame him it's been nearly 15 years since they've seen each other charlie says he needs a good shave and a haircut and Matt gets to work it feels weird and Matt accidentally nicks his Adam's apple he apologizes and gets him a wet cloth and as he does it he remembers the day his parents gave him up he recalls Matt and Rose fighting in the other room and although this was a normal occurrence this time Charlie almost sensed something was different matt and Rose argued and Rose says that Charlie will not ruin his sister's life anymore she picks up a kitchen knife and Matt tells her to put it down she doesn't really want to hurt Charlie right rose says he'll be better off dead matt says "Okay we'll take Charlie to his uncle's tonight just put the knife down." Matt comes into Charlie's room and gets him dressed although Charlie doesn't know what's going on he's afraid as they leave the house Rose will not even look at him after the shave was over he got up and looked at Matt and asked if he recognized him now matt says "No he doesn't that'll be triffitty." He says he looked at him but his father didn't really recognize him he wanted to say "It's me your son that you left not that I blame you be proud of me i speak 20 languages and can write sheet music now i'm a genius." But as he was about to say that he felt sick he almost passes out and Matt concernedly gets him a drink of water charlie gets up and thinks about it some more matt was a father to a different Charlie not him intelligence had changed Charlie and Matt would just hate him like the guys from the bakery charlie apologizes and said he made a mistake he gave Matt his money with a tip and left never looked back the next day Fay comes to the fire escape and brings in a female white mouse named Minnie she gave her to Aldron's cage and told Charlie to leave the two alone for romantic reasons charlie didn't even want to argue and just agrees later that night Charlie heard Fay come home with a man charlie went out to see what was going on and Fay introduces them she says "Charlie you should come over and make it a party." This man named Leroy says he doesn't like that idea and Charlie just agrees with him and goes back to his apartment he imagines Fay and Leroy naked in bed together and he wishes it was him it's weird when he imagines Fay naked he can but when he imagines Alice naked it's cloudy he hears screaming and gets worried and Fay just comes through his fire escape window she comes in and asks if he has any jin he says no and she says Leroy was just too hungry she says charlie says "Well she went out dancing and brought this man home with her from a dance club what did she expect him not to try to sleep with her?" She said just because she brought a guy home doesn't mean she has to bed him but if it were Charlie that was the guy maybe it would be different charlie asks "What does that mean?" She says "You know what it means." They start kissing and he imagines or hallucinates or something a child version of himself in the corner of the room just watching them he says to Fay "Maybe they shouldn't do this he doesn't feel well." She asks if she can spend the night at least in case Leroy comes back and Charlie agrees they drink all night and he wakes up the next day with a bad hangover she's in bed next to him she wakes up too and says he's a funny drunk they didn't have sex or anything but she's seen guys get happy or sad or funny or horny when drunk but Charlie she said acted like a different person he said he wanted to go to school and learn to read and write and he was really silly when he was drunk she offered sex again last night and he said he couldn't because his mother would take away his peanuts charlie thinks old Charlie is still in his brain he guesses the drunkenness just broke down the barrier between the two or something young Charlie was still in him just covered with the knowledge in the books fa got up and said she wanted to leave but she didn't feel in danger or anything with the other Charlie she said she just kind of wanted to protect him she got up and got dressed charlie then has a revelation he is still Charlie or rather Charlie is still him and Charlie is just afraid of losing his peanuts soon after he went to a restaurant and they were getting a new dishwasher put in during this Charlie noticed that they had an employee like him like the old him simple as he calls him the boy messes up and looks scared but his boss or other employees say it's okay and he looks happy again everyone in the restaurant is laughing at this boy and he just looks eager to please charlie starts to laugh at him too when he catches himself he's literally laughing at his old self he gets unfathomably angry and gets up and makes a scene and yells "He's a human being too." Everyone stares at him and the boy and Charlie just leaves after not eating anything he hates himself that he became exactly like the people he hated laughing at someone like that laughing at his former self he thinks to himself he's had enough of being on the run he's going to contact Nemer's Foundation to see if he can do anything about independent studies by himself but first he wants to call Alice he went to Alice's house and said it was nice to see her he explains himself about the running away and everything and she understands he explains that before he was mad at Nemer for saying that he made Charlie as he is now but he now realizes that young Charlie never left him he's still in there and he's still afraid of women because of his mother he talked and talked to Alice on and on about everything that has happened he said she is a sounding board in this moment and he just breaks down into tears with her he then has a horrible idea young Charlie ignores him when he tries to make love to Fay but when he tries to make love to Alice young Charlie interferes what if they turn off the lights and Charlie imagines he's making love to Fay well they start doing this and it works but as he's about to start he screams in his head "It's Fay it's Fay it's not Alice it's Fay." He stops himself he pushes her away he can't do it he tells Fay he can't make love to her right now because if he does it this way he'll hate himself for the rest of his life she doesn't understand why but he says he can't explain or she'll hate him too but young Charlie will not let them be together this way right now he said he's going to go back to the labs tomorrow he left and bought a bottle of gin and drank it on the way home like he saw the bums do as he says he gets there and he waits for Fay he takes a shower and puts on a robe he hoped Fay wouldn't bring home some other guy tonight he waited until he heard her come home around 2:30 in the morning he looked through her window and saw her undress and thought it was wrong so he went to her door and asked just to come in he started fast and said he wanted to make love to her he said he knows he can do it this time b says she doesn't like the way he's acting right now she says she knows he can't do it she's a human too and if he gets her all riled up again and can't do anything she'll be mad they start doing stuff and he imagines Charlie looking at them through the window then a switch in perspective he tells young Charlie "Go ahead and watch you bastard go ahead and watch." Young Charlie's eyes widen he and Fay are now together in some weird way charlie has been doing independent research on Strauss and Nemer's analysis about his intelligence and if it will stay he says he doesn't actually love Fa but she's important to him they go dancing every night and it's exhausting but she's exciting and fun and a free spirit a couple days later something bad happens aldronon bit Fay as she tried to feed him that was weird the mouse was erratic soon after they found Minnie with a gash in her chest alive but wounded really bad why did Alenon do that it could be many reasons but the poor mouse hardly moves anymore charlie swallows his pride and calls Nemer they welcome him back with open arms or at least with a slight skepticism they put him on to work on experimental psychology projects that made him smart he was working on his own experiment now which seems like a conflict of interest to me but what do I know i barely passed fourth grade b said that everyone was at his disposal now they are all under him but there's bad news they've studied what happened to Alenon most of his higher functions and intelligence has gone away he's solving problems but much much slower and in much more primitive ways it doesn't look good bert shows him the incinerator in the freezer where they freeze specimens and burn them after they pass away charlie says "Not Alenon when it's time he'll take him." Bert says "It's not going to be long." Unfortunately the experiment was a failure for Alenon charlie asks Nemer and Bert the truth what is going to happen to him bird says "Well they still have high hopes it won't happen to him but there's a chance that Charlie will not only revert to the way he was but become even more primitive than he originally was." They made arrangements with Nora when getting permission with her that he'll go to the Warren State home if he can no longer take care of himself this upsets Charlie obviously and he runs away but before he goes he asks if he can visit the Warren State home while he's still in control of well himself bert says "Of course he can." So Charlie borrowed Bert's car and went to go visit the Warren State home he got there after an hour and a half drive in his car it's in Long Island he saw a guy on a tractor and asked him "Where's the director's office?" And the guy just smiles and gives him directions but there was a simple look on this man's face charlie drove away and didn't want to look back at him because that man reminded him of Charlie he got there and met the director who showed him around first was this main hallike area where this muscular woman was watching a bunch of boys something that caught Charlie's eyes immediately when he walked in was a large boy cradling a smaller one this woman says it's hard cleaning up after them with babies sure it's gross but you know you're helping them and they'll grow up and be self-sufficient soon but with adults like this there's just something different about it and not everyone can do it charlie says they're lucky to have a woman like her watching them she says "Well kids grow up so fast but these people are usually here for life they rely on her forever." Charlie asks the director when they came in why there was no gate outside the place the director says if they wander away generally they come back charlie asks "Well what happens if they don't?" The director says that they assume they made a change and acclimated to the life on the outside "this isn't a prison," he says they go into a woodworking classroom where a teacher is watching over a hundred or so patients and Chartley immediately notices that it's dead quiet in the room one of them comes up to the teacher to show them a wooden base for something and Charlie thinks in his head "That's not very good." But the teacher congratulates the student he says "It's wonderful." And he encourages him and the student looks so happy proud of his work he looked to Charlie to get his approval too but Charlie says "Yes it's it's very nice." He got choked up though he was then shown some of the rooms and a nurse said the patients are categorized into two groups tidy and untidy tidy patients are generally clean and if they're not they're generally easy to clean and they can do stuff like clean themselves and untidy patients are those well that defecate and pee all over the walls and can't take care of themselves charlie wonders if he comes back here which will he be to end off the tour they go to the director's office and Charlie asks about the psychologists on staff the director says that there's only one that comes in here once in a while charlie is confused they have money to hire more than that but suddenly out of nowhere a flash of anger from the director surprises Charlie he points to a baby bottle on a shelf nearby he says "Do you see that?" Charlie says "Yes." He was wondering about it when they came in the director said he could pay for several psychologists but not any of them would truly give themselves to this he sees Charlie's confused for patients like this you have to give yourself to them fully not many grown men are willing to nurse another grown man with a bottle or be defecated or peed on of course Charlie wouldn't know this in his ivory tower of scholars as the director puts it charlie smiles not out of any means spirits but out of pain the director gets angry and tells him it's time to leave charlie thinks that if he comes back here the director will learn the full story about him and forgive him he seems like a nice enough man to do that he went back to the lab and Alderon is no longer even eating at all he has to be force-fed while strapped down charlie then imagines himself strapped down and gets nauseous he takes the rest of the day off to go drinking he notices his apartment is getting messy fay is upset with him as he doesn't take her dancing anymore she's only interested in three things: painting dancing and sex and sex is the only thing her and Charlie have in common she told him that she had a dream where she went to his apartment and set fire to all of his books and notes so that's probably something to watch out for that night they met Alice alice came over when she heard about Aldron and what it implied for Charlie and she came over to comfort him she said she was concerned about his drinking but about 1:00 in the morning Fay came back she came over and Alice already knew who Fay was as Charlie told her all about her before she got there they drank from a bottle of gin and Fa said "All the world's problems could be solved by sunbathing." Alice found that funny and joyfully laughed at it and with her in the early hours Charlie walked Alice home after a nice night alice was worried she'd hate Fay she said half the reason she came here was according to her to save Charlie from that [ __ ] but although she hates this she can't bring herself to hate Fay she seems like a good person good for Charlie and she loves him charlie corrects her fa loves everybody alice asks if Charlie loves her though charlie thinks about it and says no he's never even told her about her his past alice breathes a sigh of relief charlie also says there's no love as young Charlie doesn't seem to interfere alice sheepishly asks if he thinks young Charlie would ever let them uh you know charlie says he doesn't know they leave on good terms and when Charlie gets back to his apartment he has sex with Fay but the whole time he thinks about Alice the coming days Charlie works more in the office and Fay hates it but he doesn't feel like his intelligence has waned any yet he has memories about monkeys though for some reason later though he went he goes to a cocktail party with Neurmer and Strauss and all of the foundation that funded all the research for his operation he needed to go there as he felt like he was killing himself with all of this research fay has a new boyfriend as well and he wants to get his mind off that too he goes and talks to people and starts drinking heavily and Nemer and Strauss notice nemer goes up to him and asks who he thinks he is he is indebted to these people and he's making a fool out of himself and them charlie says "Sense when is a guinea pig supposed to be indebted to those who experiment on him?" Nemer says that he's ruined half the research and Charlie says he's the one fixing it for them they say he's drunk and he says "Oh no he's not if he was drunk they'd see a different Charlie one like he was before." Charlie says that Nemer hates him because he thinks he made him and Charlie doesn't worship the ground he walks on but he was a human before the experiment and he's a human now not just something to parade around and Nemer hates that intelligence is a great gift Charlie says but intelligence without humanity will destroy everybody he then gives a speech which I will read in full because it's important to how Charlie truly feels don't misunderstand me I said intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts but all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love this is something else I've discovered for myself very recently i present this to you as a hypothesis intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown to neurosis and possibly even psychosis and I say that the mind absorbed in and involved itself as a self-centered end to exclusion of human relationships can only lead to violence and pain when I was [ __ ] I had a lot of friends now I have none oh I know lots of people lots and lots of people but I don't have any real friends not like I used to have in the bakery not a friend in the world who means anything to me no one I mean anything to i discovered that my speech was becoming slurred and there was a lightness in my head that can't be it right that can't be right can it i insisted i mean what do you think do you think that's that's right he drank more and more and slurred his speech more and more and he could feel the old Charlie coming back out he runs to the bathroom and looks in the mirror and sees old Charlie he asks himself what he wants but he doesn't reply charlie asks if he wants his body back because who's to say that his light is better than the former Charlie's darkness he's just waiting he leaves and goes home with Strauss's help he gets there and walks past Fay's room and he hears her giggle with another man and he laughed as well he wanted to knock and apologize to her but it was too late for that that night he couldn't sleep and he figured it out he had a revelation he figured out the answer to the experiment he writes up a report that has a lot of technical speak but the basics are that he discovered something called the Aldronon Gordon effect as he calls it which says that the more artificial intelligence one gains through this experiment the faster it will deteriorate so the fact that Charlie gained so much intelligence so fast doesn't bode well for him he tells Alice and shows her this discovery alice cries and knows what's going to happen and runs away for a while charlie knows that the longer he waits the faster he's going to deteriorate there's no effects yet but soon he figures out one thing he needs to do now is visit his mother and sister a couple days before that however he becomes slightly forgetful little things though like he forgot he turned on the light or where he put his keys but even worse Aldron passed away a couple days ago he died in his sleep and they found that his brain was significantly lighter even before the experiment charlie worries that the same thing is happening to him right now he didn't want them to incinerate his body so he took Alenon and put him in a little box and took him outside he buried him and put flowers on his little grave and wept days later he decided to visit his mother and sister he had to before he deteriorated any worse he got back to where the street he grew up on was and it looked more dead than he remembered no one was playing in the streets when there were no kids around he found his old house and sees Rose outside cleaning the windows ever the diligent mother and wife right he stops and stares at her for a second and she looks over at him and she doesn't recognize him what do you want she screams out but then a tang of memory comes back charlie?" she asked what are you doing here after all the languages and books that Charlie had read the only thing he could muster to say to his mother was "Ma." He ran up to her and she ran in the house screaming charlie screams "He's not here to hurt her or anything he just wants to talk." She locks the door and Charlie just breaks a window or something it's kind of unclear but he gets his hand in and cuts himself on something trying to open the door rose screams and Charlie just says he wants to explain himself so he goes into a whole monologue of everything he wants to say to his mom ma I whispered "I'm not going to do anything i just wanted to talk to you you've got to understand i'm not the same as I was i've changed i'm normal now don't you understand i'm not [ __ ] anymore i'm not a [ __ ] i'm just like everyone else i'm normal just like you Matt and Norma." I tried to keep talking babbling so she wouldn't close the door i tried to tell her the whole thing all at once they changed me performed an operation on me that made me different the way you always wanted me to be didn't you read about it in the newspapers a new scientific experiment that changes your capacity for intelligence and I am the first one they tried it on can't you understand why are you looking at me that way i'm smarter now smarter than normal or Uncle Herman or Matt i know things even college professors don't know about talk to me you can be proud of me now and tell the neighbors you don't have to hide me in the cellar when company comes just talk to me tell me about things the way it was when I was a little boy that's all I want i won't hurt you i don't hate you but I've got to know about myself to understand about myself before it's too late don't you see i can't be a complete person unless I understand myself and you're the only one in the world who can help me now let me come in and don't be afraid of me she looks at Charlie's wound and says "Uh-oh he's hurt come in and wash it off." They do so and she is kind and she says to be careful because her daughter's coming home soon confused Charlie asks if she has any other children she said "Oh yeah she once had this brilliant son and all the other people were jealous and they put an evil eye on him." if it's not clear she has dementia or something along those lines she then gasps and asks if Charlie's with the electric company just then Norah comes in and says "Who are you?" But she immediately notices Charlie she screams and hugs him she says she knew he would visit she didn't even know if he was alive until Neur visited her and asked permission 7 months ago she wanted to visit before the surgery but they said they weren't allowed to because it might mess Charlie up she says Rose is just scenile old she told Norah that Charlie was dead and she just learned that he wasn't she hugs him and says she missed him charlie tells her about his memories and she apologizes but she doesn't even remember being mean to him it was so long ago they talk and Norah says it wasn't easy for her actually and she was jealous of him she always was made fun of at school and he got to skip school most days past that he just went away one day and then Rose was horrible to Nora instead but it's okay though now norah says it's okay charlie's here he's back now he can take care of both of them right charlie says he has some stuff to do but he'll send money norah begs pleads him not to go she grabs him and breaks down and begs him not to go charlie gently tries to push her away and something reawakens in ropes get away from her you dirty mind she grabs a kitchen knife and said "How dare he look at his sister with sex on his mind." Norah pleaded for it to stop and she feels like this has happened before she said he squeezes Norah's hand and leaves napoleon the dog barks at him as he goes away days later he says it's been downhill since there is still no spelling mistakes or grammar issues but the tone of his emotions are much different he says he thinks about suicide often and when he goes to therapy he makes little jokes and jabs at Strauss strauss just listens though not getting angry but then Charlie says he feels younger Charlie is nearby watching very close now and then he hallucinates he says he feels a bright blue ball rising into the sky and then he is that ball and he expands and fills the universe he's merging with it but then something grabs him and pushes him back down into his body charlie is there and he's afraid too maybe of God maybe of nothingness he doesn't know he comes back too and Strauss says he was worried something happened he passed out or something charlie gets up and says he doesn't want to have to do therapy anymore he just wants to be alone now strauss tries to talk him out of it but he just takes his coat and leaves nemer called and asked for Charlie to come by the labs to do some tests like the ones at the beginning he figured it was only right as they were still paying him he hated writing these progress reports now it was hard to think clearly still no grammatical errors or spelling mistakes though he gets down to the lab and Bert is there and administering the test for him he could feel like he was going slower he knew it he gets angry and tears up the maze he told Bert "No more mazes." Bert says he knows it's hard but Charlie says "No he doesn't know no one in the world has gone through the same thing of what he is going through right now." Charlie then apologizes and they go over some small talk with Bert then they do the Roarshack test charlie says he knows all about them and what he's supposed to see and what everything means so this is easy but as he's doing it it's blank it's like he knows all of it it's written on a chalkboard in his mind but part of it is erased he starts to feel sick and says "That's enough he's done." He says to Bert it's like he's in an elevator of intelligence and he passed Bert going up and now he's passing Bert going back down an elevator he would never ride again he says goodbye to Bert and pleads with him to say goodbye to everyone else for him as he can't stand to face them a couple days later it was strange he picked up a book he read a couple months ago Paradise Lost and when he thought about it he couldn't remember it he looked at the book and the pages but he just couldn't make sense of it now sometimes at night he goes out in the town and wanders just to see people I guess once the man came up to him and asked if he wanted a girl and he said "Yeah not understanding." And he gives him $10 and the man just runs away then he remembers what a fool he is a police officer had to take him home because he couldn't remember where he lived he hates writing these reports but no one has ever experienced something like this so he does it anyway for science alice comes over the next day she says she waited for him but he never came to see her so she came to see him they talked for a while and she says "Well he's about at her level of intelligence again right?" He just agrees somberly he says he wants to be alone now though he only has enough time left for himself she says she doesn't believe that Charlie wants to be alone he says soon he's going to have to go to the Warren State home and she can't follow him there so there's no point she says no she won't follow him and she probably won't even visit she'll do everything she can to forget about Charlie Gordon but the time that they have they can spend it together they end up making love finally after this charlie is able to untangle the string that is love with Alice finally no wonder it had been so easy with Fay there was no love in it just physical contact he felt like he did that day with Strauss floating in space and becoming the universe only this time the thing that brought him back down was Alice the thing he holds on to he tells her after that she can stay but when the time comes and he says she has to leave days go on and some days he wakes up and doesn't realize where he is only when he sees Alice does he remember he thinks the downside of having her here now is he wants to fight this thing he thinks of the empty faces of the Warren and he tries to fight what's going on alice says some days he wakes up and he isn't even himself anymore he tries to fight with her and she doesn't even try to fight back she looks at him as if she pies him he spends most of his days watching TV now cartoons game shows anything he tries to go to a concert with Alice but he couldn't focus on the music and it's sad because he used to love that type of music days later motor skills have stopped doing what they've been supposed to do he drops things now he thought at first it was just a coincidence but then he realized it wasn't he fights with Alice and she cries in the bedroom he wishes he could control himself just enough to keep loving her but he cannot he tried to read his paper on the Aldron Gordon effect that he wrote a while ago and he couldn't get through it so he tried to read some psychological journals from Germany but when he tried to pick it up he realized he couldn't read or even understand German anymore he tried all the other languages too that he learned other than English all gone the day after Alice left he tries to remember how it happened he thinks it started when she tried to clean up after him and he told her to stop she said that before the experiment he wasn't like this he was happy his smile was warm a real smile charlie says "Yeah a real smile." because he didn't understand people were laughing at him but she kept going on and said he doesn't want to go out or do anything anymore he just wants to sit and watch TV and he says anything to make him think is now too much for him he doesn't want to remember anything she continues "And the thing that made him most mad is he couldn't understand why she was getting mad at him he didn't know he said for her to go away it was time." Her being here made it a lot worse she begged just for a bit more time but this was it they both knew it she cried and packed her things the last thing Charlie says to her is "He's not himself she's falling apart and he doesn't want her here to see it." So Alice Kenyan leaves soon after he gives up on using the typewriter to type out these reports and does it by hand the land lady brings him soup because she thinks he's sick but he knows that Alice or Fay is telling her to do this he tries to talk to Fay but she's scared of him and he can feel it she brought home another young guy the other day a week later Charlie says he's forgotten to write these past couple days every once in a while now the punctuation is bad or a word is misspelled but Charlie says he keeps going to the library to read a lot of books he gets are now too hard but one he got recently was about a knight who kept making mistakes like when he thought a windmill was a dragon it made Charlie feel strange because of course the windmill wasn't a dragon but something is weird there's something about this book he's not understanding there's a theme or a message or a metaphor that's not written anywhere on any page that he's supposed to be getting by reading the book and he knows it's there but he can't figure out the message the next day he says it's weird sometimes he sees this woman in an apartment near his fire escape and she keeps her blinds open she gets naked and takes showers and Charlie watches he says he likes to watch her do that and he can't remember if he knows her or not but when she finishes she turns out the light and it means the show's over for Charlie it makes him feel funny he lies down and feels lonely after and he can't remember why i don't know if this is actually Fay but it's somewhat implied it is but he also recognizes Fay a little later so I don't know who this is charlie now misspells a word every sentence or so but he says he hates writing it takes too long and the big words are harder and he hates having to look them up but it's okay he'll just use smaller words then he tries to go visit Fay but she yells at him to go away and never come back he doesn't know why he still puts flowers on Algeron's grave though the land lady thinks it's weird but he has to remind her that it was a special mouse a couple days later the land lady calls a doctor over and the doctor speaks to Charlie like a kid he knows he's making fun of him charlie tells him he used to be a genius you know the doctor just smiles at him and says "I know Charlie." Charlie talked up a storm and told him about the friend he used to have named Aldron and they used to run mazes together it was a lot of fun charlie thinks he's having bad luck now though because he lost his lucky rabbit's foot the next day Dr strauss and Alice try to come over but Charlie sends them away without even looking at them alice cries and the land lady says he needs to get a job to keep paying for this apartment charlie says he doesn't know any work except the work at the bakery but they'll laugh at him if he goes back alice comes by the next day and Charlie yells at her tells her he can't see her again but Charlie just doesn't want her to laugh at him and that's laugh spelled L A FF now by the way he goes to the drugstore and buys books with pictures of girls on them and they make him feel weird and he has weird dreams about them so he doesn't want to do that anymore he tries to read his old progress reports but he can't even get through them he doesn't understand any of the language the next day he went back to the bakery to talk to Mr donner and told him what happened he told him that Charlie had guts for doing that but he was scared that he'd be made fun of again but then he remembers that these people are not as smart as he once thought they were they were mean to him but they were also friends at some point Charlie went downstairs and a new guy went up to him and made fun of him charlie could understand that much he told Charlie "Hey I hear you're a real whiz kid say something smart Charlie." Charlie could tell he was making fun of him and kept silent he then grabs Charlie's arm and tells him to speak when spoken to understand charlie got really scared and his stomach hurt and he had to go to the bathroom something awful he wanted to cry but he didn't the man twisted his arm even harder and harder but Charlie couldn't hold it in any longer he started crying and wet and soiled himself the guy let go and said "Oh that's gross." He didn't mean anything by it just then Joe Karp comes up and grabs the new guy and he says if he ever does something like that to Charlie again he'll break his [ __ ] neck charlie's a good guy Joe Karp says and if anyone [ __ ] with him he's going to [ __ ] with Joe Karp and Frank as well charlie felt ashamed so he ran into the bathroom to clean up and when he got back Frank and Joe were there with Gimpy they said they were going to get that new guy fired for what he did to Charlie but Charlie said "No that's okay he remembers how sad he was when he got fired and this guy might have a family or a wife to support or something." Gimpy comes over and says "If anyone ever gives Charlie any trouble go to those three and they'll straighten him out." He thanks Gimpy that made him feel good at this point there's a misspelled word every few words and the last day report is just gut-wrenching so I'm going to read it in full and for the best effect I'm going to put it on screen as well so you can see how everything is spelled and it's only about a page so it's not too long i did a dumb thing today i forgot I wasn't in Miss Kenyan's class at the adult center anymore like I used to be i went in and sat down in my old seat in the back of the room and she looked at me funny and she said "Charles." I didn't remember she ever called me that before only Charlie so I said "Hello Miss Kinnyan i'm ready for my lesson today only I lost my reader that we were using." She started to cry and ran out of the room and everyone looked at me and I saw they wasn't the same people who used to be in my class then all of a sudden I remembered some things about the operation and me getting smart and I said "Holy smoke I really pulled a Charlie Gordon that time." I went away before she could come back to the room that's why I'm going away from New York for good i don't want nothing like that again i don't want Miss Kenan to feel sorry for me everybody feels sorry at the factory and I don't want that either so I'm going someplace where nobody knows that Charlie Gordon was once a genus and how he can't even read a book or write good i'm taking a couple of books along even if I can't read them I'll practice hard and maybe I won't forget everything I learned if I try real hard maybe I'll be a little bit smarter than when I was before the operation i got my rabbit's foot and my lucky penny and maybe they will help me if you ever read this Miss Kenyon don't be sorry for me i'm glad I got a second chance to be smart because I learned a lot of things I never knew were in this world and I'm grateful that I saw it all for a little bit i don't know why I'm dumb again or what I did wrong maybe it's because I didn't try hard enough but if I try and practice real hard and know what all the words are i remember a little bit about how nice I had a feeling with the blue book that has the torn cover when I read it that's why I'm going to keep trying to get smart so I can have that feeling again it's a good feeling to know things and be smart i wish I had it right now if I did I would sit down and read it all the time anyway I bet I'm the first dumb person in the world who ever found out something important for science i remember I did something but I don't remember what so I guess it's like I did it for all the dumb people like me goodbye Miss Kenyan and Dr strauss and everybody and PS please tell Dr nemer to stop being such a grouch when people laugh at him and he would have more friends it's easier to make friends if you let people laugh at you i'm going to have lots of friends where I go pps please if you get a chance put some flowers on Aldenon's grave in the backyard that's it that's Flowers for Aldron by Daniel Keys yesesh that's quite the ending right it's really hard to stomach it i remember the last day I read this book for the first time i read the last like 50 or so pages all in one sitting because I could physically see the decline in Charlie and it made me feel just sick i would call it a bittersweet ending but it's more like extremely bitter with the ever so slight silver lining this book made me feel more emotions than any other book probably maybe House of Leaves was a close second it's not my favorite book ever but it probably gave me the most gut-wrenching reaction it's weird because you go from liking Charlie to not liking him so much to feeling horrible forever not liking him it's a disgustingly gut-wrenching book but in the best way possible like always I want to go over the themes and messages of this book here though so let's get right into those the most obvious is how horribly treated all the disabled of all kinds are treated in this book mentally physically whatever there are several times in the book you hate what is happening to these people and it really makes you feel disgusted about how they were treated charlie goes from being mistreated without knowing it to mistreating those same people then right back to getting mistreated but something really interesting I find is that as we go through that journey with Charlie Joe Karp Frankie and Gimpy also sort of do by the end of the book because they're horrible to Charlie at first complete pieces of garbage but by the end I think they somewhat understand their mistakes does it fully make up for it no absolutely not but like Charlie it gave me a warm feeling when Joe Karp and Frank and Gimpy stand up for him at the end another theme that is pretty heavily covered is a relationship with intelligence and emotion intelligence by itself means nothing without emotion charlie goes into putting all of his eggs in the intellect basket and he's still a child emotionally halfway through the book and it shows he has trauma that he hasn't faced and he puts too much stock in being intelligent seeing those with less of intelligence than him so pretty much everyone around the midpoint as lower beings than him strauss and Nemer he completely looks down on in Chicago even though they helped him out sort of another is pride without pride and the thirst for knowledge none of this would have happened to Charlie at all and that's something very commendable in Charlie and I think that at least it's meant to be a thing that people can latch on to with an unfamiliar main character at first the desire to be better to be smarter though as Charlie gets smarter his pride also becomes exactly what [ __ ] him over in the end so it can lead him to fantastic heights and crushing depths there are times that Charlie feels worse off than when he wasn't smart in fact most of the book he's like that alice even says that near the end intelligence both raised Charlie up and crushed him down romance is also pretty relevant here charlie doesn't treat women like exactly great in this book but in the end the only morally like perfect character in this book is like Alice pretty much she accepts Charlie at his lowest lows and still supports him at his greatest heights even when he mistreats her however I think that's about it i want to hear your thoughts it's also ambiguous if Charlie got even worse after the book ends it's also even very possible that he died soon after as well but we'll never find out there's also a movie about this book that I've never seen so if you want to watch it I hear it's pretty good but I want to hear your thoughts on the book as well as your thoughts on Charlie how much do you like him or hate him at the end i do truly think this book is a masterpiece and I love it so much so after all of this video now we are done i love you all and I think you are all wonderful for supporting my dreams like this and I will see you next time bye