A Clockwork Orange in Around the Year in 52 Books

Oct 07, 2021 Blaine rated it liked it

Shelves: from-library, 2021, pc-100-essential-read

Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.
…
Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?
…
What's it going to be then, eh?

Regular readers of my reviews know that I’m always on the lookout for that rare situation: the movie that’s better than the book. I keep a running list of them on my profile page, but it’s still less than 10 movies long. But onto that list

Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.
…
Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?
…
What's it going to be then, eh?

Regular readers of my reviews know that I’m always on the lookout for that rare situation: the movie that’s better than the book. I keep a running list of them on my profile page, but it’s still less than 10 movies long. But onto that list I now add A Clockwork Orange, a flawed book that was turned by Stanley Kubrick into a better movie. There’s no real way to talk about the reasons why without spoilers so, if you’re trying to avoid spoilers about a 60-year-old novel (or a 50-year-old movie), please stop reading here.

A Clockwork Orange has a very formal construction. The novel is divided into three parts, each of which has seven chapters. The first part is 15-year-old Alex and his mates robbing, fighting, raping, and generally terrorizing the people around them. The second part is 17-year-old Alex after two years in prison, with the middle chapter of that part—and thus the entire novel—being the famous scene where Alex begins being conditioned to be incapable of violence. And the third part is Alex after he’s released from prison and trying to re-enter polite society.

So with that formal construction it is very interesting that the twenty-first and final chapter of A Clockwork Orange was not originally published in the United States. But after reading the novel, I completely agree with that original choice, and by extension with Stanley Kubrick’s decision to also end the movie with the 20th chapter. The 21st chapter feels like a cop out, with a now-18-year-old Alex feeling that he’s outgrowing violence and that he’s ready to settle down. I mean, of course people tend to outgrow violence (not a lot of gray hair or walkers in your typical street gang 😄). But the change in Alex here feels unearned, a false note of forced optimism in a dystopian satire.

The comparisons to 1984 are obvious, but this book lacks that one’s subtlety and complexity. At its core, A Clockwork Orange is a morality play with one idea: that part of being human is choosing whether to do good things or evil things, so an attempt to take that moral choice away from someone by forcing them to be incapable of doing ill strips that person of their humanity. Alex is a monster, but the conditioning done to force him to reject violence is equally monstrous, leaving him a pitiable creature who cannot choose to do good because he has no other choices. It’s a solid idea, but it’s depiction here is merely okay. For a book about violence so constant and irredeemable that it’s called “ultra-violence,” the novel is not particularly graphic, as if it’s shying away from the worst bits. The movie—with its willingness to show the violence and its ability to actually present the images combined with the classical music as described in the book—is ultimately more chilling and effective. Combine that fact with the movie’s wise exclusion of the disappointing final chapter, and that’s why A Clockwork Orange is one of those rare situations where the movie is better than the book. ...more

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Nov 23, 2012 Jim Townsend rated it really liked it

A classic but an acquired taste.

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Nov 17, 2015 Marie (UK) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015-reading-challenge

I enjoyed this book more than i thought i would when it was picked for our book group read. I am not sure it is classically dystopian but certainly it gives you an alternate look on life if LUdovico's technique had been a workable alternative to jail. The language is off putting at first but I don't hunk it is necessary to understand it all. The context and structure of the novel come through the action as well as the language ...more

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