A Clockwork Orange - Part Three

[Alana]

Please discuss Part Three here. Remember to put spoiler brackets and to post how far along you are in your reading.

[Irene]

Finished and did not like this book. I read the author's notes and he said that he was dismayed that this became the book he has become known for.

I think I saw two themes emerging. The first is that to act apart from free choice is not moral action. This is not exactly a startling insight. I think that most every religious system assigns culpibility to those creatures that can act apart from instinct. Animals are not culpible for virtue or vice when they follow instinctual patterns. Robots are not considered moral agents because they are not free agents. OK, so if our narrator is compelled to avoid evil because he is physically nausiated by violence, he has not become a virtuous creature.

But, the next theme that surfaced in the final chapter seems to say that adolescents are compelled to blindly swerve from one mindless destructive act after the next until they mature and leave it all behind. When our narrator starts to think about fatherhood after meeting Pete in the bar, he makes this predictive observation about watching his future son repeat his own pattern. I disagree. Adolescents are not incapable of moral choice, self-discipline and sin/goodness. Anyone who has worked with teens, even as a parent, know that youth are more than victims of their impulses. It is certanly true that they have not fully developed the self-control or the ability to fully think through consequences that comes with the full maturation of the brain, but not being at peak performance does not mean they are not moral agents. Anyone who believed this could never leave their child in the care of a teen baby sitter.

I thik that the more accurate character is Dim. He is a brutal thug who likes to attach himself to strong authority figures. As a teen, he glums onto Alec and his little gang and validates his little violent power trips through the authority of this gang. As an adult, he repeats this same behavior, only transfering his allegence to a brutal authoritative police force. Rather than adulthood causing some dramatic shift from violent thug to self-respecting contributing member of society, I think we stay pretty true to our nature through out life, barring some dramatic conversion experience. Dim is the norm, not Pete.

[Irene]

Well, Did anyone love this book?
Does anyone know why it is considered a "must-read"?

[♪ Kim N]

Not finished, but I read as much as I'm going to.

I took this off my "try-again-later" shelf. The first time I tried it, I was 20 years younger and repelled by the violence. This time I stopped reading because I wasn't seeing anything particularly thought-provoking or insightful. In truth, I ran out of patience.

[Penny]

I am closely following you Kim - I'm still going but very slowly as I am really not getting anything from it.

[Penny]

I guess we need to ask the question - why is this book on this list? What is so outstanding about it that it would merit such a position? I wonder what criteria the person/s composing the list used.

[♪ Kim N]

Penny wrote: "I guess we need to ask the question - why is this book on this list? What is so outstanding about it that it would merit such a position? I wonder what criteria the person/s composing the list used."

A Clockwork Orange has an iconic status. It's controversial; a banned book in many places. Almost everyone has heard about it (or seen the movie based on it).

I do think the book is interesting as an artist’s conception. The language, the setting, the violence are all carefully crafted to make a specific impression and to reach people at a visceral level. I can appreciate all that, even if I don’t think there’s much depth in the way the themes are explored.

[Penny]

♪ Kim wrote: "Penny wrote: "I guess we need to ask the question - why is this book on this list? What is so outstanding about it that it would merit such a position? I wonder what criteria the person/s composin..."

yes I suppose I can appreciate the originality and what its attempting to do but its too off-beat for me - have given up!!!!

[Irene]

Interesting, in the author notes for my copy of the book, Burgess stated that he was surprised that this took on the fame it did. This was not the book he wanted to be known for. It almost sounded as if he was not all that proud of or excited by this book.

[Britany]

Wow, Irene that is very interesting... but it makes sense in a twisted way.

[Irene]

Has anyone read anything else by Anthony Burgess?

[♪ Kim N]

Irene wrote: "Has anyone read anything else by Anthony Burgess?"

I haven't. But given the information you shared, I'd like to read some of his other work to see what he did want to be remembered for.

[Britany]

Great point Kim! Let me know what you end up reading!! I'm interested to see how his other stuff measures up...

[Jennifer]

Interesting article by Anthony Burgess on A Clockwork Orangefound in the New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...

[Britany]

Thanks for sharing Jennifer.... interesting indeed!

[Alana]

Irene, I think you stated it very well. While I think some of it would be believable if the character and his group had merely done childish pranks such as vandalism, maybe a little petty theft,joyriding, and just bullying other kids (NONE of which is excusable, because, as stated, adolescents are moral creatures capable of understanding right and wrong as well) it might be believable that he "grew out of it" (at 18????), but let's remember he beat a man half to death, stole copiously, BRUTALLY RAPED A WOMAN TO DEATH, among other things. He's supposed to just "grow up" and put all that behind him? I don't buy it.

Did anyone read the "American version" that doesn't include the last chapter? It ends with Alex listening to music with pleasure for the first time since he's been "changed back" and his thinking "I've been cured" (of the cure). Is that a more realistic ending? What did you all think of that part?