Introducing the Poking the Bruise Book Club

On Wednesdays we talk about BOOKS.

I watched TV well into the night on November 4, 2024. Then, at some point on Wednesday I turned off the news and knew it would be a long time before I would turn it on again. I also knew I had a pretty bad case of TikTok brain. I used to be able to sit and read a book for hours on end, which, over time, turned into a chapter here and there in between kid activities or work, which turned into blog posts or the occasional article, and by last year, I couldn’t concentrate for much more than a one minute TikTok video. And while I follow some fantastic creators, and still love to laugh at dogs eating pup cups, I knew that I needed to do some endurance training for my brain. I needed to be able to sit and read again, and I needed to be able to read a paragraph and retain it, instead of reading the same page over and over until I gave up and picked up my phone.

So I started building a list of banned and controversial books so I could build a library that maybe my kids or grandson might read from one day.

I think because it was on a Wednesday that I turned off MSNBC for the last time (full transparency – I still listen to Lawrence and Rachel on my podcast app) that it is appropriate to make Wednesday our Book Club day. And I’m calling it the Poking the Bruise Book Club because I have largely chosen books to read that don’t allow me to turn away from what’s happening to our country.

So join me on Wednesdays and I’ll share something about what I’m reading, and maybe you’ll decide to dust off your library card or head down to your favorite independent bookstore and pick up something interesting to read as well.

*******************************

FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON is a book by Daniel Keyes, and why that is the first one I picked up I couldn’t really tell you. Had I realized that it was considered SciFi I probably never would have picked it up because I tell myself I don’t like SciFi, but I LOVED this book. The most basic explanation of the plot is that a man named Charlie Gordon has a pretty major intellectual disability. He becomes a candidate for an experimental surgery to increase his intelligence, and transforms – albeit briefly – into a genius. We are there with him as his relationships change, as he falls in love, as he pursues a sexual relationship, and as he begins to figure out who he was before this miraculous surgery.

And then we are with him throughout the inevitable decline back to his original state.

When I posted on Facebook that I was reading this, one of my friends asked why this would be a banned book. I really can only think it would be so because it basically demands us to question pretty much everything we think we know, both intellectually and from a human perspective. I think it’s probably controversial in 2025 because it focuses so heavily on the importance of empathy, and that perceived genius is not more important that human affection and kindness. But the Google says it’s because of sexual content and profanity.

I was really taken by the places in the book where Charlie begins having realizations about who he was, and who others were in relation to him; him realizing that he was mistreated by people he thought were friends just broke my heart, and left me thinking a lot about whether I’d rather know the truth about things. I have reflected on the podcast with my bestie a number of times about people telling me things I didn’t need to know, and how challenging that is for me because I want clarity, yes. But I also don’t want unnecessary pain.

I’m sure there is much to be said about the role “science” plays in the book, but it was the less interesting element, for ME. But I can see that being a major theme and my dearly departed high school English teacher, Mrs. Parks, would probably be disappointed in my disinterest in analyzing that particular arc.

The tears I cried reading this book were probably as much for me as they were for Charlie. November 2024 was a pretty fitting time to read a book about enlightenment and the human experience. At one point Charlie realizes (and I’m paraphrasing) that an important reason to go to college to get an education is to learn that things you’ve believed all your life aren’t true. I spent a lot of time debating MAGA leading up to the election and realized that education is no match for that frenetic, right wing energy that borrows from the concept of faith the ability to vehemently believe in something without tangible proof. While this book, I think, was ultimately saying that intelligence doesn’t in and of itself make you a better person; what does that statement mean in Trump’s America?

Have you read Flowers for Algernon? Recently or back in school? What do you take from Charlie’s evolution? Is it a stretch to apply some of the themes of the book to the current political climate of the US?