Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes
Offert par un professeur (merci à lui), ce livre m'a passionnée. J'ai donc décidé de le présenter en cours d'anglais, ce qui explique que ce qui suit soit dans la langue de Shakespeare. En projet, car dans la langue de Molière c'est toujours mieux, je le traduirai.
NB: Il faut quand même noter l'ampleur de mes progrès en anglais depuis mon voyage en Syrie!
Avec la bénédiction et le coup d'oeil d'une professeur d'anglais. Merci!
I’m going speak about the book « Flowers for Algernon ». It was published for the first time in 1959, and for the second time in 1966. The author is Daniel Keyes. I read this masterpiece during the holidays. It was a choc for me, I find it’s like a revolution of the mind.
To start with, it’s a must to introduce this book by quoting Platon's Republic: “I said, 'will remember that the eyes may be unsighted in two ways, by a transition either from light to darkness or from darkness to light, and that the same distinction applies to the mind.”. This sentence admirably sums up the story.
Let’s start by summing up. Charlie Gordon is a young man with an IQ of 68 who has a job in a bakery. He attends night classes to improve himself. One day, his teacher Alice Kinnian puts him in relation with scientists who promise to triple his intelligence. This experimental brain has already realised with a mouse named Algernon. Charlie is very enthusiastically, accepted. The surgery succeeds and we assist to the progress of Charlie. His increased intelligence opens him up to some new things. He becomes aware that two of his co-workers have regularly taken advantage of his retarded state to make fun of him.
He soars to the level of genius, and finds flaws in the scientific work of the two scientists who developed the operation he has undergone, and he destroys their careers. He falls in love with Alice Kinnian, this woman discovers an other Charlie, a new Charlie, a Charlie she loves. But, yes, like every story, this sweet dream doesn’t last. The mouse, Algernon begins to behave strangely, she becomes crazy and she dies. Charlie understands that he will fall back to his original level of intelligence and may continue to decline. He knows that he will become the old Charlie, and he must prepare that. alice, the two scientists see him to regress and they can’t do anything. This powerlessness is unbearable for them. At the end, Charlie has only a dim memory of having done something important.
The story consists solely of Charlie's diary entries from the time he hears about the operation through the operation and his dramatic increase, and subsequent decrease, of IQ.
Oui, je vais arrêter de parler de Platon à toutes les sauces, mes parents commencent à s'inquiéter...
PS: La prof m'a donné entre 16 et 17 à l'oral pour ce travail.