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A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
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A Clockwork Orange

by Anthony Burgess

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10,57312492 (4.11)224

Member recommendations

  1. Aeryion recommends Rubicon Harvest by C. W. Kesting, "The sub-culture of designer drug use and it's effect on the gritty society within Rubicon call back to A Clockwork Orange like an anesthetized echo. The (see more) prevalent use and abuse of the potent designer neurocotic Synth and the language (Illuminese) that the addicts speak amongst themselves is a brilliant homage to Burgess's original genius! This story gave me shivers as I read through the vivid hallucinatory narrative. A must read for every fan of the genre!"
  2. fugitive recommends Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
  3. Anonymous user recommends The Year of Compulsory Childbirth by Nigel Farringdon, "The authors share similar libertarian ideas and themes"
  4. SanctiSpiritus recommends The Stranger by Albert Camus
  5. wosret recommends Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
  6. wosret recommends The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
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Showing 1-5 of 120 (next | show all)
This was a crazy read. I bit hard to understand at first, but great once I got into it. ( )
  Anagarika | Oct 30, 2009 |
I know Burgess doesn't like the idea of writing anything that appears to "moralize," but this novel definitely suffers from the addition of the 21st chapter. The themes that the author seems to be building--on the nature of man, on freedom, on morality--all seem to be reduced to "Oh, those are merely the problems of youth, and will disappear with age" in the final resolution. Very postmodern, very disappointing.

I always advise my friends to read the first 20 chapters, stop and draw conclusions/react, and then read the final chapter to see how one's opinions are changed. ( )
  krysbrezinski | Oct 27, 2009 |
I know, I know it's a good book. Still, it drove me crazy. ( )
  dresdnhope | Oct 14, 2009 |
When I saw that A Clockwork Orange was on the book list for our AP English “Utopias and Dystopia’s” unit, I immediately knew that I wanted to read it. I’d heard that it was disturbing and controversial and just strange. So I wanted to see why. And after finishing the novel, I can see why. It’s violent, spine chilling, disturbing, and made me question what I knew about good, evil, and the power of free will.
The story is told from the point of view of Alex, a teenager growing up in England in a future where the government is a permanent source of fear and abuse for average citizens and gangs of teenagers violently roam the streets in protest. Alex, at first, is an unsympathetic protagonist committing horrific crimes with pleasure and always looking for his next robbery or fight or rape victim. Eventually he gets caught and is sent to jail where, lured by early release, he decides to enlist in an experimental program designed by the government to make him “good”. Failing to beat the system, Alex becomes conditioned to be good against his will, he becomes, as the book calls it, a clockwork orange, a mere piece of clockwork in the society. And as Alex faces the pain of having free will taken away, the reader is forced to question whether or not goodness in a society is worth losing the right to free choice, the very thing that makes us human. Is a society of good-doers worth losing the population’s sense of humanity?
At first I thought this book was pointlessly violent with no plot. But once the story began to unfold, I was hooked. I loved it. I even started feeling sympathy towards nasty little Alex. My advice to those reading is to just push through the first third of the book, it may seem horrid and terribly pointless, but all the violence has a point that’s revealed at the end. Also, make sure to buy the book with the dictionary in the back of the book because Alex speaks in the teenage slang of his time. You can infer what’s going on without the dictionary but it makes reading so much easier and faster. ( )
1 vote EmilyK | Oct 8, 2009 |
"What's it going to be then, eh?"

The question begins each section in A Clockwork Orange, and really focuses the issues of morality versus social acceptability raised in the book. "A clockwork orange" is a startling and unnatural image, an organic process which has been robbed of its "naturalness."

Alex, our narrator, becomes as clockwork and inorganic when the state cures his violent tendencies through intense aversion therapy. But such a method raises severe questions of morality: what behaviors does society deem "acceptable," who specifically is making these calls, and how much pressure is the government allowed to put upon its citizens to force them to conform? Maybe the answer lies in understanding appropriate channels for behavior, rather than what behaviors themselves are appropriate: some teenagers are juvenile delinquents, others (as Alex discovers) grow up to be police officers with a "reasonable" amount of violence inherent in their jobs. Society may need a certain amount of governance and boundaries in people's behavior, but how can we both promote that while keeping legislation out of the area of limiting us all to clockwork oranges?

Another note: the American editions, until 1986, were published without the final chapter; the publisher liked the tone imparted in the penultimate chapter better and so decided to just cut Chapter 21 (an epilogue or resolution of sorts). This chapter, along with a note of explanation by Burgess, is available here:
http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/do...
  the_awesome_opossum | Oct 5, 2009 |
Showing 1-5 of 120 (next | show all)
But all in all, “A Clockwork Orange” is a tour-de-force in nastiness, an inventive primer in total violence, a savage satire on the distortions of the single and collective minds.
added by jlelliott | editThe New York Times (Mar 19, 1963)
 
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Series (with order)
Canonical Title
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Awards and honors
Epigraph
Dedication
First words
'What's it going to be then, eh?'
-¿Y ahora qué pasa, eh?
Quotations
Goodness comes from within [...] 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 to be bad perhapsin some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?
Last words
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Canonical titleA Clockwork Orange
Original publication date1962
People/CharactersAlex, Georgie, Pete, Dim, P. R. Deltoid, The Prison Chaplain (show all 11)
Important placesEngland, UK
Awards and honorsWaterstones Books of the Century (1997, No 27), Time's All-Time 100 Novels selection, The Modern Library's 100 Best Novels (The Board's List, 65), The Modern Library's 100 Best Novels (The Reader's List, 55), Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century (49), Prometheus Award (Hall of Fame, 2008) (show all 10)
First words'What's it going to be then, eh?', -¿Y ahora qué pasa, eh?
QuotationsGoodness comes from within [...] 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 to be bad perhapsin some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?
Last words(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
BlurbersBurroughs, William S., Dahl, Roald
DescriptionA Clockwork Orange (1962) is a dystopian novel by Anthony Burgess. The title is taken from an old Cockney expression, "as queer as a clockwork orange", and alludes to the prevention of the main character's exercise of his fre... (show all)
Book description
A Clockwork Orange (1962) is a dystopian novel by Anthony Burgess.
The title is taken from an old Cockney expression, "as queer as a clockwork orange", and alludes to the prevention of the main character's exercise of his free will through the use of a classical conditioning technique. With this technique, the subject’s emotional responses to violence are systematically paired with a negative stimulation in the form of nausea caused by an emetic medicine administered just before the presentation of films depicting "ultra-violent" situations. Written from the perspective of a seemingly biased and unapologetic protagonist, the novel also contains an experiment in language: Burgess creates a new speech that is the teenage slang of the not-too-distant future.

Amazon.com Book Description (ISBN 0393312836, Paperback)

"Anthony Burgess reads chapters of his novel A Clockwork Orange with hair-raising drive and energy. Although it is a fantasy set in an Orwellian future, this is anything but a bedtime story." -The New York Times

Told by the central character, Alex, this brilliant, hilarious, and disturbing novel creates an alarming futuristic vision of violence, high technology, and authoritarianism.Anthony Burgess' 1963 classic stands alongside Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World as a classic of twentieth century post-industrial alienation, often shocking us into a thoughtful exploration of the meaning of free will and the conflict between good and evil. In this recording, the author's voice lends an intoxicating lyrical dimension to the language he has so masterfully crafted.

"I do not know of any other writer who has done as much with language as Mr. Burgess has done [in A Clockwork Orange]." -William S. Burroughs

Recognized as one of the literary geniuses of our time, Anthony Burgess produced thirty-two novels, a volume of verse, sixteen works of nonfiction, and two plays. Originally a composer, his creative output also included countless musical compositions, including symphonies, operas, and jazz. The author's musicality is evident in the lyrical and dramatic reading he gives in this recording. Anthony Burgess died in 1993.

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:23 -0400)

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