“Charly” / “Awakenings”‏

by richibi

“Flowers for Algernon“, a book that was
written in 1966, back when I was already
reading everything, was not a book that
I expected could ever be made into a film,
it had been written from the point of view
of a mentally challenged person who’d
been asked to keep a diary of his
progress in an experiment to make him
smarter, eventually seriously smart, the
style therefore follows the infelicities of 
the main character’s misspellings as he 
tries to write proper English  
 
his name is Charly, Charly Gordon 
 
Algernon is the mouse whose promising
treatment Charly would hopefully as
successfully follow 
 
the book is still irresistible, as confirmed
recently again by my mom, who couldn’t
put it down 
 
 
two years later the  movie was made, to
my delight, of course, and surprise,
called, whatever for, instead of “Flowers
 
this one’s therefore for you, Mom
   
 
that year’s Oscar went to the man who
played the lead role, Cliff Robertson
   
  
“Awakenings“, with Robert De Niro playing
a parallel role in the fictionalized true story
of an essentially, however improbably, 
identical case, has Robin Williams playing
Oliver Sacks, who co-wrote the script, and
has also fully acknowledged himself as the 
doctor in the touched-up representation 
 
but more significantly Oliver Sacks is a
very highly regarded scientist for his
penetrating work in especially neurology,
though his writings veer easily towards
more philosophical speculation, as does,
for instance, also the work of Freud  
on that interdisciplinary account
 
Oliver Sacks most famously wrote “The
 
 
the science in “Flowers for Algernon“, or
“Charly“, a fiction, has become with
“Awakenings“,  it appears, fact 
 
well be I’ll flummoxed 
  
 
Robert De Niro didn’t get the Oscar for
that year’s counterpart Charly Gordon
incidentally, to still my dismay,
dissatisfaction and astonishment  
 
what do you think
 
 
Richard