Another brilliant book I must say. The story is quite simple. Charlie Gordon who was born as a retarded [or mentally challenged, for want a better words], was challenged to be a genius with the help of brain surgery. Not a difficult task for the scientist to conjure him from a retarded to a real Einstein-like genius. The difficult part is when Charlie had to struggle to accept the real truth of life [his life] in a short time. He wasn’t mentally prepared for the truth since many of them are unpleasant. He felt upset, angry, confused and sad. And at the same time, everyone who used to be friends with him and fond of him are also felt the same way. They were confused with the new Charlie, upset because he was no longer an idiot they can joke around and sad because they could not found the same touching sincerity with the new Charlie that used to be easily found with the old Charlie.

Charlie came to realize that when he was a retarded, even though it seems like he live at the moment but as a matter of fact he lived in a separated world but parallel with the world we’re living. But that don’t make him [and other retarded person] to be less human than we [the so-called normal person] are. And as well, it doesn’t make the normal person becomes a better person than the retarded person

One time he discovered the flaw in the method that the scientist employed to fix up his brain. And he knew that his brain could rapidly be deteriorated as it rapidly improved. Well, nothing is last forever indeed. He was so devastated when he found this out.Once he comes to realize that whining won’t resolve anything except giving you less time to have what you can have at the moment, he started to fight. Somehow I see the story as the metaphor to our life. We knew that one day every single cell in our body will degenerate then stop functioning. And there is nothing we can do to stop that from happening. So while we have everything well function, don’t waste it. Do something. Something good, better yet something useful, and something you can be proud of one day [if you had a chance to recall it].

Labels: Books