A Clockwork Orange in The Alternative Worlds

Dec 21, 2009 Brad rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classic, ethics, faves, notorious, the-best, political, dystopian, one-of-the-greats

'What's it going to be then, eh?'

That was me, that is your humble commentator, sitting down to pass my glazzies over a book eemyaed A Clockwork Orange I'd sobirated from the biblio. I was ready to be tolchocked in my litso, to have my mozg pried out of my gulliver, to feel that sickening drop in the yarbles when falling from a great tower block; I expected to be preached to by that nadmenny veck A. Burgess in all his high goloss; I expected to loathe Alex and all his malenky malchick droogs. But ...more

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Jun 23, 2008 Sandi rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2008, sci-fi

Well, what can I say about "A Clockwork Orange"? Maybe I should first suggest that anyone who wants to read it should print out this glossary: A Nadsat Glossary. I will be eternally grateful to Matt (Tadpole316) for sending me that link. My printout is looking a little rough.

I had seen the movie about 15 years ago. It was disturbing and many of the images were already so much a part of our cultural consciousness that it was at once familiar, yet disturbing. Many of the images are permanently et Well, what can I say about "A Clockwork Orange"? Maybe I should first suggest that anyone who wants to read it should print out this glossary: A Nadsat Glossary. I will be eternally grateful to Matt (Tadpole316) for sending me that link. My printout is looking a little rough.

I had seen the movie about 15 years ago. It was disturbing and many of the images were already so much a part of our cultural consciousness that it was at once familiar, yet disturbing. Many of the images are permanently etched in my brain. I recently realized that I had never read the original novel, so I picked up a copy. As most books written before the age of user-friendly word processors, it's very short, only about 200 pages. But, it's not a quick read. The first of the three parts is rather difficult to get through. The language really slows down reading and there are so many disturbing scenes that I just had to stop when I finished one and go back later. The movie actually changed some of the scenes to make them more palatable. For example, in the movie there is a scene where Alex takes two women back to his room and they have some rather raucous consensual sex to the tune of the William Tell Overture. In the book, Alex takes two ten-year-old girls to his room, gets them drunk, and rapes them. It was horrific, but it illustrated just how amoral Alex and his fellow malchicks were. The real surprise is the last sentence where you find out just how young Alex is for someone who has been doing the things he does for as long as he's been doing them.

The book gets easier to read in part two and part three is very comprehensible. According to the author's introduction, the original American edition of "A Clockwork Orange" left out the last chapter. It was put back in with the 1986 edition. I'm glad the last chapter is included now. I think the book would have been very dissatisfying without it.

The themes of "A Clockwork Orange" are pretty clear. What is the role of society in the morality of youth? How far should government go to rehabilitate criminals? What is the nature of violence and what is its effect on the perpetrators? Can anyone truly be redeemed?

I can't say I'd recommend "A Clockwork Orange" to everyone. It is a tough book to read. It's extremely violent and disturbing. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect is that the reader is in Alex's head as he's committing the most atrocious acts and, somehow, Burgess manages to write the scenes in a way that the read feels the adrenaline rush that comes from ultra-violence. It made me feel dirty and voyeuristic. But, I like literature that puts me in someone's head and feel what they feel, even if it's ugly. To me, that's the mark of great writing. ...more

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Oct 18, 2011 Nicky rated it liked it

Shelves: speculative-fiction, dystopia

I don't think I can exactly say I "liked" A Clockwork Orange. It was difficult to parse the language without careful attention, and I didn't really want to pay close attention to a story about hurting, raping and eventually killing people. Maybe I've had Ludovico's Technique used on me, because that kind of thing just makes me feel sick.

Still, "Nadsat" is pretty amazing as a made-up language, and especially the way that it is understandable if you pay attention. And the narrator's voice is disti ...more

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Jul 10, 2008 Terence rated it liked it

Shelves: audio-books, speculative-fiction

Oddly enough, o, my little brothers, I first learned of A Clockwork Orange in the pages of Mad magazine when I was a youth – not as nihilistic and vicious as Alex but of that age, and I can still conjure some of the panels of the magazine’s parody. I didn’t read the actual book or watch Stanley Kubrick’s film until my undergraduate days. I enjoyed the film and liked the book well enough but it was (and is) the Mad version that sticks with me.

Recently, I took it into my head to watch the movie ag ...more

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Apr 28, 2011 Suz rated it it was ok

Shelves: dystopian, audiobook, science-fiction, horror, classic, because-it-s-a-movie

So, in the somewhat future, some fine young youth does a lot of violence, goes to prison, gets "rehabbed" by a technique to be only good (and therefore has no freewill and is not really a "man") and is then used by anti-government propaganda, resulting in his near death and is then "rehabilitated" to his "normal" self by the state trying to propaganda back at the other guy... then later on, he sees a friend and decides to have a kid...

I will admit I was probably jaded by the author's forward sta ...more

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Dec 03, 2009 Meg rated it really liked it

Shelves: prose-skilled, style-voicey, 20th-century, narrator-unreliable, attr-weird, i-laughed, characters-lifelike, literature-of-britain, style-dialect-slang-venacular, movement-postmodernism

I don't know, I thought this book was funny. Yes, Alex is terrible but this book is funny. Or I'm just crazy. Interesting language play as well. ...more

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