A CLOCKWORK ORANGE BY ANTHONY BURGESS (BOOK REVIEW AND RECOMMENDATION)

Hello readers! Today I'll share a book review and recommendation. The book in question? A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess. When it comes to dystopian literature, A Clockwork Orange is one of the first novels that comes to my mind.  Published in 1962, A Clockwork Orange describes a near future society in which the youth turns to extreme violence for amusement. Its protagonist Alex belongs to a youth subculture characterized primarily by the brutal violence. The novel focuses on the protagonist Alex and explores the themes of free will and human maturation.  This beautifully complex dystopian novel by Anthony Burgess remains a popular  representative of the dystopian genre. 

 Despite is popularity, this masterpiece is sometimes misunderstood and underappreciated. Dealing with some seriously bleak topics such as juvenile delinquency,  A Clockwork Orange manages to remain humorous albeit in a dark way. In fact, one could call A Clockwork Orange a dark comedy. This isn't the easiest novel to read. The language employed for descriptions of violence is quite graphic at times. This combination of violence and dark humour might be the reason why some readers miss the profoundly philosophical aspect of this novel. Some readers will see A Clockwork Orange as entertaining horror, while others will realize it is much deeper that. 

The Warhol's and Kubrick's adaptations certainly helped put this novel on the map. The initially controversial but later rehabilitated Kubrick's film adaptation introduced this book to the general public. In fact, my initial introduction to this important work of literature was via the famous film adaptation. I had mixed feelings about the film initially. Not surprisingly, I enjoyed the book much more than the movie. That being said, having read the novel and all, I do feel a certain new appreciation of the Kubrick's movie as well. 

“Is it better for a man to have chosen evil than to have good imposed upon him?”

^{“If he can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange—meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil.”} 

 ^{Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange}

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, A NOVEL BY ANTHONY BURGESS

What follows is my original review, written many moons ago and published on goodreads in 2016 (I just added some quotes and subtitles:

WHY IS THE FINAL CHAPTER SO IMPORTANT FOR UNDERSTANDING OF THE BOOK?

I happen to think that the final chapter is fundamental for the understanding of this novel. It ties everything together nicely and it adds depth to Alex (the protagonist) in a way that I found quite convincing. Somehow, it even makes him more credible as a character. It doesn't seem like too sudden a change, considering everything he undergoes towards the end of the novel. That's my opinion! The final chapter makes the novel take on a whole new perspective. Too bad that it was not in any way a part of the famous film version (and if I remember well, the ending was dropped out entirely when the book was published in USA, so it is not really the director's fault because he had probably read the novel without the last chapter and when he found out about it he didn't really take to it).

“Oh it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh. The trombones crunched redgold under my bed, and behind my gulliver the trumpets three-wise silverflamed, and there by the door the timps rolling through my guts and out again crunched like candy thunder. Oh, it was wonder of wonders. And then, a bird of like rarest spun heavenmetal, or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now, came the violin solo above all the other strings, and those strings were like a cage of silk round my bed. Then flute and oboe bored, like worms of like platinum, into the thick thick toffee gold and silver. I was in such bliss, my brothers.” Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

THIS NOVEL DOESN'T GLORIFY VIOLENCE BUT IT IS VERY GRAPHIC

Long story short, this isn't novel that glorifies violence, but there are some not very long but pretty graphic descriptions of it, so if you can stand that sort of thing, don't take up reading this one.

THE MOVIE VERSION VERSUS THE BOOK

 I remember not liking the film when I saw it, but now that I have read the book, I sort of warmed up to it. Not that I have a desire to see it again, not that I consider it to be a good interpretation of the novel, but it appeals to me visually (at least in my memory, it's been ages since I saw it). I still can't say that I like the film version, but at least it is stuck in my memory. That being said, I don't see the actor who played Alex in the film when I think of Alex's the character. 

THE BOOK IS (IN MY OPINION) MUCH BETTER!

This book is not only much better than the film, it is an entirely different world...and what a world it is. Beautifully crafted world, with an impressive set and characters. The setting and the feel of it are absolutely fabulous. This dystopian future where children and teenagers are left to their own devices, where nobody takes the time to raise the kids or the young, where there are left to the street to raise them.

THIS DYSTOPIAN WORLD OF VIOLENCE IS BOTH CONVINCING ND RELEVANT

This world of violence and isolation sounded terribly convincing and I could certainly see it as something that is relevant for our time….I would even go so far as to say it is something that is already happening. For indeed, in the modern world nobody seems to have the time to do the parenting. Contrary to what some new age therapist might think, a child and a teenager don't need parents that are their friends, they need parents who do the parenting. If a parent acts towards the child as a friend, the child will feel neglected and rightfully so.

IMPECCABLY PORTRAYED CHARACTERS AND AMAZING VIVID LANGUAGE

Anyhow, Burgess painted this dim world of future with impressive precision. With language, descriptions and characters Burgess did it perfectly. He introduced a set of impeccably portrayed characters. The language he created adds greatly to that. I believe that the language was intentionally designed to be hard to process at first, but becoming more understandable as you progress with the reading. In this way, the author avoided using any slang that might sound dated by the time the novel was published or by the time you get to read it.

MIXING RUSSIAN WITH ENGLISH TO CREATE SLANG OF THE FUTURE

He used words from Russian, mixing them with English, in order to create this street idiom and he did a great job. I found the language too easy to understand but that couldn't be helped having a Slavic language for a mother tongue. I think I would have enjoyed it better if I had to figure out some things on my own, but the word play was certainly enough to deeply impress me for it was very cleaver ( for example consider Bog meaning God in Slavic languages and something quite different in English). This writer has a way with words!

THE GANG PROTAGONISTS OF THE NOVEL

The gang protagonists of this novel are all teenagers, pretty wild, animalistic and hormone driven. Perhaps it could be said that there is only one real protagonist because the other boys are not examined in detail like Alex. They are a sadistic group of boys. Left on their own, like most youth, they do some amazingly cruel and violent things. Alex was easy to relate to, despite everything what he does because it is was clear from the start that there is something essentially good about him. Something stacked under a lot of horrible things, but still something decent was there, one could notice it in details, for example in his appreciation o classic music. Future readers will perhaps even feel horrified at how easy it will be to sympathize with Alex, especially taken the fact he commits unspeakable acts.

“Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses to be bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?”
 Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

WAS THIS NOVEL THE RESULT OF PERSONAL TRAGEDY?

I stumbled somewhere on a piece of information that Burgess wrote this novel as a way of coming to terms with the attackers of his wife ( If I understood well). If that is so, it is indeed incredibly brave of him, to be able to raise up like that and choose love over hate. To raise above sadness and create art.

WHEN ANTI-VIOLENCE MESSAGE GETS INTERPRETED AS AN ODE TO VIOLENCE

 How ironic that some have interpreted this novel as an ode to violence for it is certainly not the case. This is a novel about the importance of free choice….and I would also add about the importance of parenting. When you leave kids to their own devices, terrible things are bound to happen. 

“That's what it's going to be then, brothers, as I come to the like end of this tale. You have been everywhere with your little droog Alex, suffering with him, and you have viddied some of the most grahzny bratchnies old Bog ever made, all on to your old droog Alex. And all it was was that I was young. But now as I end this story, brothers, I am not young, not no longer, oh no. Alex like groweth up, oh yes.

But where I itty now, O my brothers, is all on my oddy knocky, where you cannot go. Tomorrow is all like sweet flowers and the turning young earth and the stars and the old Luna up there and your old droog Alex all on his oddy knocky seeking like a mate. And all that cal. A terrible grahzny vonny world, really, O my brothers. And so farewell from your little droog. And to all others in this story profound shooms of lipmusic brrrrrr. And they can kiss my sharries. But you, O my brothers, remember sometimes thy little Alex that was. Amen. And all that call.”  Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

THIS NOVEL MIGHT JUST BE ONE OF THE BEST WARNINGS AGAINST VIOLENCE!

This novel is a great warning against that. It feels fresh and inspired. In addition, it is amazingly well written and quite original! There is music in it, brilliant music coming out of every page, urging you to listen! This novel has that power that music has over us. A Clockwork Orange is a novel that deserves its hype.

“The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities.”
Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

AFTER SOME WIKI RESEARCH, THIS IS WHAT I HAVE FOUND: 

- A CLOCKWORK ORANGE IS STILL A CELEBRATED WORK ! (In 2005, A Clockwork Orange was included on Time magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923,^[4] and it was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.^[5] The original manuscript of the book has been kept at McMaster University's William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada since the institution purchased the documents in 1971.^[6] It is considered one of the most influential dystopian books. In 2022, the novel was included on the "Big Jubilee Read" list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors selected to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.^[7]) 

- THE USA EDITION WAS INDEED MISSING THE FINAL CHAPTER FOR YEARS! The book has three parts, each with seven chapters. Burgess has stated that the total of 21 chapters was an intentional nod to the age of 21 being recognised as a milestone in human maturation.^[8] The 21st chapter was omitted from the editions published in the United States prior to 1986.^[9] In the introduction to the updated American text (these newer editions include the missing 21st chapter), Burgess explains that when he first brought the book to an American publisher, he was told that US audiences would never go for the final chapter, in which Alex sees the error of his ways, decides he has lost his taste for violence and resolves to turn his life around. At the American publisher's insistence, Burgess allowed their editors to cut the redeeming final chapter from the US version, so that the tale would end on a darker note, with Alex becoming his old, ultraviolent self again – an ending which the publisher insisted would be "more realistic" and appealing to a US audience. The film adaptation, directed by Stanley Kubrick, is based on the American edition of the book, and is considered to be "badly flawed" by Burgess. Kubrick called Chapter 21 "an extra chapter" and claimed that he had not read the original version until he had virtually finished the screenplay and that he had never given serious consideration to using it.^[10] 

- THE AUTHOR WAS  INDEED TRYING TO DEAL WITH AN ATTACK ON HIS FIRST WIFE THAT RESULTED IN THE LOSS OF THEIR CHILD

A Clockwork Orange was written in Hove, then a senescent English seaside town.^[12] Burgess had arrived back in Britain after his stint abroad to see that much had changed. A youth culture had developed, based around coffee bars, pop music and teenage gangs.^[13] England was gripped by fears over juvenile delinquency.^[12] Burgess stated that the novel's inspiration was his first wife Lynne's beating by a gang of drunk American servicemen stationed in England during World War II. She subsequently miscarried.^[12][14] In its investigation of free will, the book's target is ostensibly the concept of behaviourism, pioneered by such figures as B. F. Skinner.^[15]

FROM BRITANNICA: 

A Clockwork Orange, novel by Anthony Burgess, published in 1962. Set in a dismal dystopian England, it is the first-person account of a juvenile delinquent who undergoes state-sponsored psychological rehabilitation for his aberrant behaviour. The novel satirizes extreme political systems that are based on opposing models of the perfectibility or incorrigibility of humanity. Written in a futuristic slang vocabulary invented by Burgess, in part by adaptation of Russian words, it was his most original and best-known work....... In the final chapter of the original British edition, Alex has grown tired of violence, and, after seeing an old friend who has left the gang, he renounces his amoral past. This chapter—which some consider unconvincing—was removed when the novel was first published in the United States.

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