Now THIS is a good book. It was about a retarded man (book's words not mine) named Charlie Gordon. He undergoes a surgery to make him intelligent, and the book is written from the perspective of reading his progress reports throughout the time the surgery is affecting him.
The book had a very interesting writing style, at the beginning of the book, when Charlie is still stupid, the writing is filled with so many spelling and grammar errors that it is almost illegible.
After the surgery there is a noticeable difference in the writing, the errors become fewer and less severe gradually, until the writing is of excellent quality. This shows more than anything how Charlie is becoming more and more intelligent.
I found this gradual change in quality very impressive, an author not as experienced or talented as this one would likely have written the whole thing perfectly, or went from horrible to perfect in the course of a single page, as if the surgery made Charlie a genius instantly, which is far from the truth.
The gradual change shows incredible skill by the author, and it is something that even I, an aspiring author myself, would have never thought to do.
The book itself made me think about the people who I consider to be slackers because they act stupidly often. Seeing how Charlie so desperately wanted to become smart makes me think that maybe those people aren't slackers, maybe that's the best they can do.
Thinking about this makes me think about the people who get good grades and so I consider them hardworking, even if they get these grades effortlessly. These grades don't mean they work hard, they just mean that they were born with a high level of intelligence. In some cases they may work hard, I can't make a generalized statement about this, but it seriously made me think about how I view other people.
To those people who I thought were slackers, I can tolerate them better now that I think they are just not that smart, which sounds strange, but knowing that they are doing their best makes me accept them more.
The converse applies to the people I thought were hard workers, now I view them with a more fair perspective and see that many of them are actually slackers, which makes their grades not reflect as well on them as they did before.
This book was a true classic, I loved it.
I'm so glad you loved this one. I notice that you've also paid more attention to grammar and content of your blog. Nice job, applying the text to your life.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that after reading this book you are more willing to judge people on different standards than before. Does the book offer a better standard on which to judge a person's character? If you could determine how someone judged you on which scale would you prefer to be judged? Why? Would being judged on an alternate scale change the way you behave?
Do you think when Charlie's intelligence reverts, he is again oblivious to how people in the world treat him or do you think that the understanding he gained while intelligent will leave him permanently altered even if he no longer understands why? If his awareness is forever changed how might this change his life?
If you could step into Charlie's life at any point, when would you choose? Why?
For your first question, the book did not present a new way of judging people, but it made me think about the main criteria of my own judgement process and caused me to change my own way.
ReplyDeleteAs for the second question in that paragraph, I would not care how people judged me, and how they judged me would not alter my behavior. I am my own person, and other people can think what they want of me, that is none of my concern.
Also, I purposely left out the part about the part about Charlie's intelligence reverting because there are people who may want to read this book after reading my blog!!!! I don't want to spoil it for them!!!
To answer your question, Charlie is permanently affected by his temporary gain in intelligence. He still remembers being smart at one point, and at the end of the book he uses the phrase the people at the bakery used at the beginning of the book. "Pulling a Charlie Gordon" was something Charlie didn't understand at the beginning of the book, so his using it proves he has been altered by his experience.
Finally, I would step into Charlie's life at the peak of his intellectual growth, early in the book it was said he had an IQ of over 150, so by the point his growth turned to degradation he must have exceeded an IQ of 200!
I don't exactly know the maximum IQ level, but I DO know that 200 is nearly inhumanly smart, and I want to know how it feels to be that smart. What would my thoughts be like? Would they be like my thoughts now? or would they be different? I know I am smart already, but I still wonder what it would be like to be in a league of my own, second to none in my intellectual superiority.
Doh, Maybe we should now edit our comments to remove spoilers.
ReplyDeleteDo you think you would choose the pinnacle of his life if you would have to live with it for the rest of yours? What are the downsides of being so much smarter than everyone else?
Very interesting observations. I am the type to consider the decisions the author makes as I am reading, too. While it adds another layer of excitement to reading a "writer's writer" I occasionally wonder if I would get more into (and out of) a story if I took it at page-level first and saved the writer-think for the end. Maybe I (and you) don't have that choice. Luckily I know much of what you have in store this year is from authors that will blow your mind. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
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