Kevin's Watch

This isn't a cinema movie - it's a tv movie adaption of Daniel Keyes' great book. I watched it late last night and thought it was fantastic. Of course the book is better, but the film really captured the 'soul' of the book. Has anybody seen it?

Thanks for the recommendation, Ur-Vile. I wonder if the States will re-air it any time soon. <research time>

Ugh. Sorry to be a grinch, Ur-Vile, but I'm not exactly thrilled to learn that one of my most cherished books has been turned into a TV Movie-of-the-Week. But you say it's fantastic, so I'll take your word for it.

I was in tears at the end.

It became a movie a long time ago: 1968-called Charly with Cliff Robertson-very moving preformance-I think he even may have won an Oscar for it. However many people felt that it missed the point of the book...

I know of that film. I'd still like to see it.

The novella's terribly sad. I'm sure the movie is too.

I read the book awhile ago so I only remember it vaguely, but if given the chance would you get the surgery (or whatever it was) done that he did?

Is The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind anything like it?

The Leper Fairy wrote:I read the book awhile ago so I only remember it vaguely, but if given the chance would you get the surgery (or whatever it was) done that he did?

No, because once you reach the heights of intellect you regress below to what you were when you received the operation. In essence, Charly became dumber at the end.

But for some time you get to expirience being a genius... wouldn't that be worth it?

I can't overstate the impact the book had on me all those years ago. The story of Charly moved me deeply: it scared me and haunted me, more surely than any horror movie ever could, because to me, losing my intellect and my memory--my sense of who I am, would be the ultimate horror. Reading Charly's journal as he helplessly regresses back into his imbecilic state puts me in a very bleak mood. And it should.

Flowers For Algernon also provides me a measure of insight into the horrible plight of people who suffer from Alzheimer's disease, because Charly's regression can be seen as a metaphor for the damage Alzheimer's inflicts. Whenever I picture victims of Alzheimer's, I imagine that they feel as Charly felt, helpless to stop the erosion of their minds--their sense of self.

Just last week I watched a special on PBS entitled The Forgetting--Alzheimer's: Portrait of an Epidemic, based on the book by David Shenk. Very sad and sobering to see fellow human beings reduced to such oblivious states, lost to themselves.

Anyway, Flowers For Algernon makes me think of such things. Did Daniel Keyes receive any awards for writing this amazing novel?

...and my answer to Leper Fairy's query: yes, experiencing a state of genius must be wonderful, but is it not also pointless if you can't retain the knowledge and insight gained from that experience?

Hmmm... maybe it's kind of like the old phrase it better to have loved and lost...etc... I would definately want to expirience it, even for just a short time. It'd be kinda like going on vacation

I love that old book, but I saw it in the complete opposite way LF did. I saw a man who was essentially happy with himself at the beginning, but in the end, when he returned to what he was at the beginning, he was miserable.

dANdeLION wrote:I love that old book, but I saw it in the complete opposite way LF did. I saw a man who was essentially happy with himself at the beginning, but in the end, when he returned to what he was at the beginning, he was miserable.

I agree, dAN. However, he also was happy that he did something, made someone happy and made a statement to the scientiests.

Daniel Keyes (1927-) first published the story Flowers for Algernon as a novella in Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1959, it received a Hugo award in 1960. The story was later expanded into a novel of its own published 1966 and won a Nebula for the same year. Since this was one of the texts in my recent comm college lit class I did some research on the topic. AFAIK, Cliff Robertson won an Oscar for his protrayal of Charlie Gordon, in the movie. The movie was made in 1968.

FYI, the recent book by Elizabeth Moon The Speed of dark, winner of 2003 Nebula award, deals with very similar subject matter.

Yeah, the short was one of the those had to read in my HS Short Stories class (best class my pathetic high school ever offered).

Cliff Robertson was amazing in that movie. I highly recommend it.

Caer Sylvanus wrote:Yeah, the short was one of the those had to read in my HS Short Stories class (best class my pathetic high school ever offered).

Oh, wow. I just realized that I have only read that short. I'm getting that book ASAP.

How is it, Mr Fixit?