A Clockwork Orange (Norton Paperback Fiction)

A Burgess

Don't judge a book by it's movie! If you're tired of reading the same ol' stories with a goody...more

Don't judge a book by it's movie! If you're tired of reading the same ol' stories with a goody two-shoes protagonist, who has some sort of dilemma then through a miraculous epiphany he finds his way and everyone holds hands and sings kumbaya, then this is the book for you! (Whatever you do, do not read the last chapter!!!!) This is a very dark and satirical novel with a very fresh dialogue. Burgess uses a language called Nadsat to alienate the main character and his "droogies" from the rest of the world. If you have the capacity to read at a slightly higher level (like Shakespeare or Dante), or are enamored by the challenge, then this story will have you quoting it months after you're finished with it. And if you're IQ is above average you might even recognize the author's sporadic humor and sarcasm. Alex suffers from some kind of psychopathic disorder, and the society he lives in has incubated all the malice that lives within him. He is very clever, brave, witty, articulate, and not exactly what you would call a delicate flower. After the government experiments with a highly effective and novel rehabilitation method, Alex becomes an ideal citizen, but he suffers every day and wants to kill himself. His life becomes "Clockwork" and loses its purpose (I don't know where the orange part comes from). As you read it you will be confused as to how you are cheering on this menace, which kills, robs, and does other horrific activities. However, this is where Burgess' genius becomes apparent and makes the book a classic. You the reader experience what Alex experiences when he goes through the rehabilitation process, he starts feeling and doing things that are contradictory to his natural state of being, and hence becomes mere "clockwork." Even though he is a malevolent character you yourself are in oppression of something greater and can't help liking him and hoping for his reincarnation so to speak. All of the characters are interesting and the encounters with one another are real. The only folly of the book is its 21st chapter. I don't know hat happened here but the book is pure magic until its last chapter, where it abandons its key premise and succumbs to social pressures and suddenly becomes politically correct. Nonetheless, the book is profound intelectual bliss-you can end with the 20th chapter and it makes complete sense. The movie has a completely different ambiance and misses the artistic brilliance of the author. The book is probably 5 times more interesting, more entertaining, and much better. It's a great read, and will have you scratching your head by the end of the book, not because it's confusing, but because you can't put it down and thus have no time to shower. In My Humble Onion    hide

Well, I *used* to own a first edition, first printing copy of this book until I loaned it to my...more

Well, I *used* to own a first edition, first printing copy of this book until I loaned it to my boyfriend from high school. I *used* to keep it in my purse/backpack/instrument case and read it during spare moments in waiting rooms, before class, between having to play in pep/marching band at our shitty football/basketball team's games. But yeah, I no longer have this book which I so lovingly carried with me throughout my last two years of high school. My only hope is that Dan read it, so help me if he hasn't and managed to "misplace" it. I gave him back his mixtapes/CDs. I just want my first edition, first printing copy back, damnit. I think I was more mad about not getting that back than him breaking up with me. So, what did that rant have to do with the book? Not really much, but just remembering that makes me feel like I could go for a little ultra-violence and some moloko with my droogs. I didn't even have a problem adjusting to the Nadsat. After the first chapter, I didn't even bother looking up words in the glossary. The "cultural" immersion was that intensive. I actually read the book before seeing the movie and still enjoyed the movie. I think Kubrick was the best choice as far as direction was concerned, Malcolm McDowell made for a convincing Alex (if a bit old for the part since Alex was supposed to be 15 or so). With reports from my hometown of young kids beating old women to death after they answer the door only to get $20, I wasn't that shocked/surprised by the violence in the book. It does say something that this concept of youth out of control and the rather drastic methods government/parents/authority will go through to attempt to curb such behavior is still relevant after at least thirty years. I'm not sure what it means, but it is a bit harrowing to think that now parents will just throw money and medication at the "problem," educators turn more into security guards, teenagers more like monsters. I admit, I partook of some particularly distasteful behavior as a teenager, but like the final chapter of the book, it turned out to be a phase. I mean "boys/girls will be boys/girls" is hardly an excuse for this sort of behavior, but it's hardly a call for reprogramming. Ok, enough preaching from me. I'm still mad at my ex for still having my copy after all these years, and I'll be madder if I find out he never even bothered to read it.   hide

One of my all-time favorites. Find me another author who can write a book starring a completely...more

One of my all-time favorites. Find me another author who can write a book starring a completely immoral, unrelatable narrator who lives in a world that speaks an invented futuristic language, and who still somehow manages to make us feel extreme pity for the narrator upon his punishment. What other dystopian novel has a bad-guy hero? I mean, why are we supposed to care if some asshole who rapes women and beats up homeless men for fun gets his eyes strapped open and is made to watch some violent videos? It would have been much easier for Burgess to make Alex an innocent, caught in a cruel world. But he didn't take the easy way out. And that is what makes this book pop. Some people cannot take the fact that the dialect of the book consists of a mesh of English and a bunch of made-up words. They say it detracts from the reading experience to have to constantly be looking in the glossary all the time. But I find that the context usually makes the meaning of these words readily apparent, and the glossary isn't needed (I looked at it, but only on my third reading, to better my understanding of how he came to choose these words). And the narrator is both deplorable and charming. He draws you into his story and, perversely, makes you root for him, even as you want to murder him! I felt more pity for Alex than I did for countless likeable characters in other stories. The implications of this book are scary enough on their own, like all dystopian novels (how far do we go to instill 'good morals' in people) but the unusual, twisted way that the story is told is what makes it for me.   hide

A terrifyingly delicious dystopia, complete with a created Russian/English slang that outdoes...more

A terrifyingly delicious dystopia, complete with a created Russian/English slang that outdoes Orwell's doublespeak. Doubleplusgood.   hide

The latest edition with the controversial lost chapter is the edition highly recommended,...more

The latest edition with the controversial lost chapter is the edition highly recommended, especially in this day and age when your Eli Roths and wannabe Tarantinos are ever pushing an envelope that no longer applies, let alone relevant. Especially when it was debuted on film, there seems to be this naive assumption that being all bad is somehow synonymous with being natural and human, when in fact, as Anthony Burgess' introduction suggests, it's a bit to a whole lot more complicated. That's what I love about this lost chapter edition, where Alex, in his early adult years, suddenly find his drooging ways rather... tiresome and irrelevant. For someone who spent most of his youthful life indulging in drugged milk, rape, ultra-violence and Beethoven, Alex becomes an even richer, multi-dimensional character by becoming more introspectively repentant. When one discovers that being irredeemably--or better yet, obtusely evil to the very end is just as dehumanizing as being forcibly "rehabilitated," that's when one finally understands what it really means to be human: to have the free will to choose either good or evil--NOT one without the other. And by ending this seminal Dystopian classic this way, it gives a lot more insight to what Burgess wanted to convey all along, unlike the past editions where most of us got the more dubious resolution, mostly remembered in Stanley Kubrick's film. I can't even begin to say how much I want to recommend, if not mandate reading, this more well-rounded edition, since we're living in the age of Columbines, Virginia Techs, and even worse (i.e. the ever-increasing trend of having newer generations of young adults, entering the world with little or no maturity, much less insight... kinda like a multiplying race of Bob Cranes--even without the grisly murder at a Scottsdale, AZ. motel room!). I would even suggest the same for any Judeo-Christian youths, entering collegiate age to read this complete edition, so as to better understand what it REALLY means to be human in God's eyes, especially with the real meaning behind free will, if not absolute freedom in itself! A faith-builder, even with sludging through the muck of rape and ultra-violence--with the soundtrack of Beethoven's last symphony? What do you think? One thing for sure is, one will never see or hear classical music the same way ever again! ;-)   hide