If I had not read A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess along with Danielle, I doubt I would have managed to finish it. It’s a book that is generally ranked among the classics and I have been wanting to read it for ages. It wasn’t the Nadsat slang that put me off, I admire Burgess for doing that, a very bold move on his part. I mean, there must have been, and are, so many people put off by a book that reads like this throughout:
Then, brothers, it came. Oh bliss, bliss and heaven. I lay all nagoy to the ceiling, my gulliver on my rookers on the pillow, glazzies closed, rot open in bliss, slooshying the sluice of lovely sounds. Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh.
Burgess created the slang himself using the Russian language as a base. Sometimes the language in the book can be rather poetic. At other times I was a bit baffled and just had to go with it. To Burgess’s credit, I was never lost and unable to figure out what was going on in the story because of the language.
In case you don’t know what the book is about, a quick synopsis. Alex is a teenager and lives in a not too distant future England. Alex is the leader of a gang and he and his “droogs” go out at night to drink and get high and do some “ultra-violence” (burglary, armed robbery, assault, rape and eventually murder). When Alex murders a woman in her home, his gang abandons him. Alex goes to prison and after a couple years he is offered a choice. He can serve out his fourteen-year sentence, or he can undergo a behavior modification treatment called the Ludovico Technique and be released from prison. Alex, not quite understanding what he is agreeing to, opts for the treatment. The results of the process make Alex become sick at even the thought of violence. Unfortunately, the treatment also leaves him unable to enjoy the classical music he so loves.
Once out of prison, Alex finds his parents have rented out his room and he has nowhere to go. His first day out is a harrowing one as he is assaulted by people he had beat up previously and one of his former droogs and a gang rival are police officers now who take Alex outside of town and pretty much beat the crap out of him. Eventually Alex tries to commit suicide. He fails to kill himself but the head injury he gets from it cures him of his “cure.”
There is a controversial final chapter that appears in the British version but not in the US version. In the UK version, the book has a “happy” ending: Alex “grows up” and decides he wants to get married and have a family. The US version ends with Alex being cured from his conditioning and thinking of all the violent fun he’ll be able to have again.
That synopsis did not go as quickly as I had hoped.
The book is broken up into three sections. The first section is unrelentingly violent. This is why I almost put the book down. It really made me feel sick as though I was the one who had gone through the Ludovico Treatment. The next section is Alex in prison and the aversion therapy. The final section is Alex after being released from prison.
I had a few problems with the book besides the violence. Alex is such an unsympathetic character with no remorse for his actions that I had a hard time feeling sorry for him going through the aversion therapy. Burgess clearly wants us to know the therapy is wrong; it takes away a person’s free will. It is also, of course, a slippery slope. First the state puts violent criminals through the therapy and next thing you know, anyone who doesn’t agree with the government is getting the treatment too. If Alex had been a more sympathetic character I would have felt the wrongness of the treatment more than just intellectually. As it was, I found myself pleased about Alex getting a taste of his own medicine, as it were.
The other problem I had is with the “happy” ending. Alex gathers together a new gang and continues in his old ways until suddenly one day, after meeting one of his old droogs who is now happily married, he decides he’d like to get married and have a family. But as he is thinking all this, he is also thinking that his son will probably be violent and his son, and so on and so on and there is nothing that can be done about it. This, to me seems like a boys-will-be-boys kind of thing as well as suggesting that violence is something they just have outgrow. I almost hurt myself grinding my teeth together.
Clockwork Orange is an interesting book and I am glad to have read it, but I can’t say I liked the book or the reading experience.
I didn’t know what the book/film was about, but I would like to read the book for the same thing you mentioned at the end: because it will be an interesting reading experience. For me, Season of Migration to the North (by Tayeb Salih) was like that.
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Alisa, I’ve not heard of the Salih book. I will have to look that one up to find out more. I hope when/if you read Clockwork Orange you get that interesting reading experience 🙂
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I’ve been wanting to read A Clockwork Orange for the longest time simply because it’s been talked of a lot and I’ve been curious. But I can’t stand violence and your synopsis of the book does make me wonder if it’s worth reading regardless of how interesting the experience it might be. I’m very skeptical of the word ‘interesting’ 🙂 It’s my safe word when I’m trying to be diplomatic.
Thank you for that very honest review. I am in the process of cleaning through my reading list and adding new books. This was very helpful to me.
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Geetanjali, thanks for your comment! If you can get through the first part of the book the violence in the rest of the book is not as bad, though I found my feelings about the first part greatly influenced how I saw the rest of the book. Ha! You are right to be wary of “interesting”! 🙂 I use it to be diplomatic too. In this case it serves as an easy out to trying to explain all the complexity of my experience. The book made me feel physically sick at the beginning but it moderated later. I was conflicted between knowing I should feel compassion for Alex getting this treatment given the political threat behind it and actually hoping Alex would get what he had coming to him. And a whole bunch of other things. Interesting 😉
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You know this book has been on my TBR for a very long time, and now after your review, I a putting it further down. While the use of language is interesting. I am kind of absolutely not impressed with the plot lines. Sometimes I wonder what makes a book a classic – plot, language, imagination?
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I haven’t read the book or seen the film…its one of those books that you think you have read when you haven’t. The Nadsat is pretty extraordinary and a brilliant piece of linguistic imagination. The violence does sound a bit OTT though perhaps justifiable in the context of what the book is saying. I wonder if you found the book’s “message” a bit schematic?
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Ian, the Nadsat is an extraordinary creation. Burgess was a linguist and he must have spent quite a lot of time working it all out. I wouldn’t have thought to call the message schematic, but it works. The fact that English teens were speaking a slang derived from Russian and given the book was published in 1962, it has a Cold War anti-totalitarian feeling to it. It’s is a book that was formed by a particular cultural and political time and it’s agenda is exactly what you’d expect it to be because of it. I cold not help thinking many times of Orwell and feeling like he did it much better with 1984.
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cirtnecce, it is a harsh and raw book. It kept making me think of Orwell’s 1984 and wishing Burgess had made Alex more like Winston because then his political point would have had an impact. The book is very popular, has a cult-like following. The language is a big draw I think.
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I read the book before the happy ending came out. I remember being extraordinarily impressed with the language.
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bybee, the language is really amazing. Reading it before the happy ending probably puts a whole other emphasis and spin on the story.
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I haven’t read this one but I did grow up in the west of Scotland where there was a thriving gang culture and I was always amazed to see former gang members meekly following their wives and carrying the shopping bags. They had outgrown the violence, no more knuckle dusters, chains or flick knives, they had kids instead. Maybe the kids fulfilled their macho tendencies – they were a man because they were a father. I don’t know how their children grew up though!
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pining, oh how very fascinating! It would be interesting to know how their children grew up. There is a thriving gang culture in the US too and depending on the city, it varies. But from my outside perspective, much of it seems to be about guns and drugs and it doesn’t seem like the young men grow out of it these days. But I could be wrong.
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I read this book when I was 13 or 14, and it was eye-opening for me. I learned that sometimes there’s no reason for violence. The language and the gang fit right in with my early adolescent mindset–of course they had to do things to set themselves apart. I remember being fascinated with this book, but I never reread it.
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Jeanne, that’s interesting! I wonder if the age you are when you read the book matters? Perhaps it is more appealing and has more impact to readers in their teens and early 20s? Something to consider.
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Never read the book, but the movie was the only movie I ever walked out on. It was just too much to take in technicolor.
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Great thoughts on a difficult book.
It’s funny, when I read 1984, it reminded me of A Clockwork Orange, which I read first. You’re right about the violence. (Classical conditioning at work) Just reading your description of it has hit me in the stomach, because the first time I saw the movie, it made me feel so sick. Nonetheless, as I’ve told you, I think it’s one of the most important novels I’ve read/movies I’ve seen from a psychological perspective. Most students of psychology can’t avoid the book, its scathing indictment of behaviorism, and the dangers off that theory if taken to an extreme or put into the wrong hands. B.F. Skinner and his radical behaviorism would eventually argue that we have no free will, that everything we do is the result of either positive or negative reinforcement. Burgess and Skinner overlap, and I’m not sure if Burgess was aware of Skinner’s take on behaviorism (Beyond Freedom and Dignity was published after A Clockwork Orange), but Burgess seemed to have understood that taking behaviorism to an extreme could lead to the absence of free will, and throughout his book, is arguing against this idea that science has taken away feee will. That’s why the British ending was so powerful for me (having seen the movie first and, thus, been stuck with the American ending), which is that, in the end, despite science’s best efforts, Alex choices good over bad, choices to give up his violent ways and to live a non-violent life. He has free will. He also just grows up. It was significant that the final British chapter was Chapter 21, the age of maturity, the idea being that once we grow up, we outgrow our violent impulses. I didn’t read it so much as “boys will be boys” as “children will be children”.
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Emily, how funny regarding 1984 and Clockwork Orange. I guess it depends on which you read first! Behaviorism taken to the extreme can certainly be a dangerous thing and no sane person would want that I hope. However, I had so little sympathy for Alex that it was very hard to feel sorry for him. That probably says more about me than it does the book! When it comes to violence though, maybe I am cynical, but I don’t believe it is something you outgrow. That doesn’t mean a person can’t change, but I just didn’t find Alex’s “redemption” believable.
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Like you, I don’t necessarily think that violence is something one outgrows, but I think it was used as a metaphor for growing up, outgrowing childish impulses, and exercising fee will. Also, the English school boys in Burgess’s day, if what’s been written about them is to be believed, were quite rough and violent. Presumably, most of them outgrew it, but Burgess might also have been pointing to a future in which that English schoolboy stuff had gotten way out of hand, leading to rapes and murders. Just a thought.
I can’t remember how I felt about Alex when reading the book because the images from the movie are just so very powerful, the two are hard to separate. By the end of the movie, I couldn’t believe it, but I felt sympathy for Alex, which probably says more about Malcolm McDowell’s portrayal of him than the story. It’s not, of course, a “good” sort of sympathy, kind of like the odd sympathy one finds oneself feeling for the talented Mr. Ripley. I don’t recommend the movie, though, to anyone who found the book too violent.
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Emily, I see your point. I still don’t like it though, even as a metaphor. My sense of justice for Alex’s victims prevents me from making the leap on an emotional level even if intellectually I can understand it. 🙂
Yeah, I will not be seeing the movie. Visual violence makes me feel even worse than reading about it.
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I am not sure I would have read this through to the end either, had we not read it together, but I am glad I persisted. I, strangely, liked it, but for the same reasons you liked it–the language was quite clever and even though I felt really disoriented, I could manage it all still. But Alec had nothing really that redeemed himself in my eyes. I mean at the end he said the violence lost interest in him, but it was sort of hard to buy it all. Have you seen the movie, or will you watch it? My library has it and I have it checked out, but I think I need to be in the right mood for it! I think the NYRB should be a breath of fresh air after this one!
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Danielle, I have not seen the movie and I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to watch it. Visual violence distressed me even more than reading about it in books and I don;t think I need to put myself through that. The NYRB will definitely be a breathe of fresh air!
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I really liked reading both yours and Danielle’s take on this book. I have been tempted but I just don’t know if I can really deal with all the violence and yes, this from someone who loves murder mysteries. I guess because in mysteries I think all ends well but I am not sure that’s the same feeling I would have after reading this book.
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Iliana, the thing with murder mysteries though is the violence tends to happen elsewhere. You find the body and reconstruct what happened. No doubt there is plenty of as it happens moments, but with Clockwork Orange we are talking about 50+ pages of unrelenting, raw and pointless violence which to me is very different. So I don’t think you have a conflict at all 🙂
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Thank you for reading this so I don’t have to! Loved the review – it made me laugh (and feel for you – you were brave to get all the way through). Now I must go and see what Danielle says!
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Litlove, glad to have done the service for you! And glad you liked the review. 🙂
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I read this when I was 17 or so and was blown away, not only by the language but by the whole concept of psychological treatments like behaviour patterning verging on mind control that seemed to flourish in the early days of the Cold War. It’s definitely a book I plan to revisit someday — wonder if it’ll hold up to my memory.
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Isabella, I’d be curious to know if it holds up for you. It seems like the people who read it when they were younger were all blown away by it. I wonder if it is one of those books that leaves a deeper impression on the young?
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