It's been 5 years and 10 months since I originally read this book. I expected the reread to affirm the book's greatness, but that did not happen. It's an okay book, but this time around I noticed at least the following things which diminished my enjoyment:

First of all, the moralizing viewpoint in which the book is written. "Thou shalt not mess with nature" and all that really does not jibe with the scientific worldview which I happen to possess. The book also makes it clear that stupid people are somehow better than intelligent people, which is not only annoying, but dangerous. All mass movements throughout history have been possible only because a large proportion of people are not capable of thinking on their own and as such are capable of being manipulated easily.

Second, having just read Pinker's "Blank Slate", and in the process having crystallized my thoughts about the relative importance of nature versus nurture in determining people's personalities in adulthood, and in general the difference, if any, between body/mind, the book just seems false. Charlie is somehow portrayed as having the retarded Charlie still inside himself even he's intelligent, and that is clearly impossible if you accept that the mind is just a function of the brain. If the brain is physically modified, there is no way for the old mind to hang around in the background. Another falsity is the great importance his mother's behavior still has on him in his adulthood. Only people who have never met other people and their parents can really think that children are shaped that much by what their parents want them to be like.