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A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
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A Clockwork Orange (original 1962; edition 1986)

by Anthony Burgess

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15,303217108 (4.07)436
Member:wookiemonster
Title:A Clockwork Orange
Authors:Anthony Burgess
Info:W. W. Norton & Company (1986), Paperback, 213 pages
Collections:Your library, Read 2012, Classics, Kindle, Thriller/Suspense
Rating:***1/2
Tags:None

Work details

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1962)

1001 (75) 1001 books (60) 20th century (164) British (184) British literature (144) classic (303) classics (183) crime (85) dystopia (701) dystopian (103) England (74) English (69) English literature (96) fiction (1,758) future (77) gangs (86) language (55) literature (245) made into movie (77) novel (296) own (72) read (253) satire (117) science fiction (776) sf (95) social commentary (59) speculative fiction (56) to-read (117) unread (106) violence (283)
  1. 261
    1984 by George Orwell (wosret)
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    Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (MinaKelly)
  3. 90
    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey (lucyknows)
    lucyknows: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey may be paired with A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess or The Outsider by Albert Camus. All three novels explore the them of society versus the individual.
  4. 102
    The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (wosret)
  5. 50
    The Stranger by Albert Camus (SanctiSpiritus)
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    A Boy and His Dog [short story] by Harlan Ellison (artturnerjr)
    artturnerjr: Futuristic ultraviolent teenage blues
  8. 21
    Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban (fugitive, sturlington)
  9. 00
    Rubicon Harvest by C. W. Kesting (Aeryion)
    Aeryion: 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 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!… (more)
  10. 33
    The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (SqueakyChu)
  11. 01
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  12. 01
    A Dead Man in Deptford by Anthony Burgess (Anonymous user)
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  14. 01
    The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe (thatguyzero)
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English (204)  Spanish (3)  French (3)  Italian (1)  Swedish (1)  Dutch (1)  Finnish (1)  German (1)  All languages (215)
Showing 1-5 of 204 (next | show all)
Of course, The best adaptation of the novel is the 1971 film by Stanley Kubrick. Once I watched that, I had to read the book. A mesmerizing classic
  Odenizli | May 8, 2013 |
I have postponed reading this book a long time. First I didn't read it because I didn't have it and then, when it arrived, I read some reviews that said it is a horrible book, it is difficult, language non comprehensible.
Usually I read what I want, but since this is a 1001-book, these comments got more to me than they otherwise would have done.

Taking part in the readathon, I decided to devote this 'extra' time to some 1001-books. This was one of them. And.... I have to confess, that it was lots better than I had imagined. Talking about the form of the book. The slang wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, after I discovered that most of it was derived from Russian / Salvic languages. Oh, was that all? Yes.

The contents of the book, well that's another chapter. Sad, gruesome, appalling. Both the violence described as well as the 'remedy' that was found for it. A wonderfully pictured distopia, a state that does as it pleases with guinea pigs (well, imprisoned people), that's why I liked the book so much. ( )
  BoekenTrol71 | Apr 27, 2013 |
I don't think I can exactly say I "liked" A Clockwork Orange. It was difficult to parse the language without careful attention, and I didn't really want to pay close attention to a story about hurting, raping and eventually killing people. Maybe I've had Ludovico's Technique used on me, because that kind of thing just makes me feel sick.

Still, "Nadsat" is pretty amazing as a made-up language, and especially the way that it is understandable if you pay attention. And the narrator's voice is distinctive: no one sounds quite like Alex. And the idea of the world, the themes explored, are worth picking it up for.

But. Those faint of heart (or stomach) might want to give it a miss. ( )
  shanaqui | Apr 9, 2013 |
I really hated this book... way too disjointed and ugly for me.
( )
  StefanieGeeks | Apr 5, 2013 |
Showing 1-5 of 204 (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)
 

» Add other authors (47 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Anthony Burgessprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Buenaventura, RamónPrefacesecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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'What's it going to be then, eh?'
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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?
There is, in fact, not much point in writing a novel unless you can show the possibility of moral transformation, or an increase in wisdom, operating in your chief character or characters.
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Wikipedia in English (5)

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.
Haiku summary

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0393312836, Paperback)

Anthony Burgess's modern classic of youthful violence and social redemption, reissued to include the controversial last chapter not previously published in this country, with a new introduction by the author.

(retrieved from Amazon Tue, 12 Oct 2010 06:19:11 -0400)

(see all 5 descriptions)

Told through a central character, Alex, the disturbing novel creates an alarming futuristic vision of violence, high technology, and authoritarianism. A modern classic of youthful violence and social redemption set in a dismal dystopia whereby a juvenile deliquent undergoes state-sponsored psychological rehabilitation for his aberrant behavior.… (more)

(summary from another edition)

» see all 10 descriptions

Legacy Library: Anthony Burgess

Anthony Burgess has a Legacy Library. Legacy libraries are the personal libraries of famous readers, entered by LibraryThing members from the I See Dead People's Books group.

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W.W. Norton

An edition of this book was published by W.W. Norton.

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Penguin Australia

Four editions of this book were published by Penguin Australia.

Editions: 0141182601, 0141037229, 0141192364, 0241951445

 

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