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A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
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A Clockwork Orange

by Anthony Burgess

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations
10,81613292 (4.1)236
Info:

W. W. Norton & Company (1986), Paperback, 192 pages

Member:missmango
Collections:Your library, To readRating:
Tags:1001, british, classic, dystopia, fiction, gangs, literature, novel, satire, science fiction, violence, unread

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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English (128)  Spanish (3)  French (1)  All languages (132)
Showing 1-5 of 128 (next | show all)
A very fast read as I read it one sitting. And a really great story to boot. Burgess creates a whole new language borrowed almost exclusively from Russian. ( )
  ProgWizardry | Dec 27, 2009 |
A Clockwork Orange is a magnificent look at the potential of violence within humans (namely the youth), and the horrific actions some may take to tame thoughts and actions of violence in the name of safety within society. While taking place in a dystopia sometime in the future, A Clockwork Orange is readable in any timeframe and puts a horrific mindset of organized chaos among the young Droogs that run the streets at night. For readers first picking up this tale, get ready for a strange slang that may be difficult at first, but just read on, it makes sense and gives the characters an authority as you read along. A great novel with a deep and unsettling theme, A Clockwork Orange is not the story of just violence and unjust government, like the movie would tell us, but it is a story of the violence that is almost natural to youth, and the changing emotions and actions that we, as humans, feel as we grow and mature.  ( )
  AaronWTimm | Dec 26, 2009 |
A very difficult and challenging read, not helped by the frequent use of a made-up language!

Completely different ending from the movie. A thought provoking novel from a clearly twisted mind. ( )
  MandieZ | Dec 24, 2009 |
I remember when the film A clockwork orange was banned in Manchester - so I read the book, the one with this iconic cover.
  jon1lambert | Dec 22, 2009 |
Yuck! What a stupid awful book! I spent so much time trying to decipher the ridiculous made up words that I never could enjoy a moment of the book. If I could have given this one negative stars I would have. Hated this book SO much. :) ( )
  AllieRhodes | Dec 17, 2009 |
Showing 1-5 of 128 (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.
 
In A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess has written what looks like a nasty little shocker but is really that rare thing in English letters—a philosophical novel. The point may be overlooked because the hero, a teen-age monster, tells all about everything in nadsat, a weird argot that seems to be all his own. Nadsat is neither gibberish nor a Joycean exercise. It serves to put Alex where he belongs—half in and half out of the human race.
added by Shortride | editTime (Feb 15, 1963)
 
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People/Characters
Important places
Important events
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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

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (4)

A Clockwork Orange

Korova Milk Bar

Ludovico technique

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jack Spoonie

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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Legacy Library: Anthony Burgess

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