The book started off being a bit hard to read, but once I got used to the language, which is described as "odd bits of old rhyming slang, a bit of gipsy talk. But most of the roots are Slav. Propaganda. Subliminal penetration." (86), it turned into being a lot of fun to read. In the end I had most of the slang words figured out, I think, which was also quite a lot of fun in itself.

I am not sure if I really care for the story too much. But it's short and, even though I am not sure if it's meant to be, but funny I find. Quite "horrorshow", no "cal". ( )

I read this book as part of a BookCrossing ring in 2003. I'd always wanted to read it, having seen the movie a few times and having heard good reviews from several friends over the years.

I completely admit that I skipped the introduction and went straight for the story, then once finished, went back and read the intro. The story was a little difficult to get into at the beginning simply due to the sudden deep immersion in the nadsat slang. A friend of mine in high school had an edition of this book that included a glossary which provided a simple translation between the nadsat slang and proper English, and I was a bit disappointed to find that this particular copy of the book lacked such a handy feature. Still, the slang was not too difficult to comprehend through context, despite its continued ability to distract me because I had some difficulty mentally pronouncing some of the terms while reading.

As for the story itself, use of language aside, I enjoyed it, and was a bit surprised that the story continued on an additonal chapter beyond the conclusion of Kubrick's film version of the story. I preferred the conclusion of the book over that of the movie, for the same reason the author disliked Kubrick's choice in ending the film where he did -- the last chapter really rounds out the story and keeps it from being a tale the purpose of which is to simply incite shock and horror and glorify violence. The final chapter puts the rest of the story into perspective, as a grossly exaggerated commentary on the rebelliousness of youth and the way we change as we grow older, in addition to the more obvious theme of humanity's contradictory urges to both embrace freedom of choice and attempt to resolve problems by removing it.

Very challenging because it's written in a slang dialect created by the author. Interesting. ( )

This was a crazy read. I bit hard to understand at first, but great once I got into it. ( )

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. ( )

I know, I know it's a good book. Still, it drove me crazy. ( )

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. ( )

"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...

There is no need to introduce Anthony Burgess.

The critical feedback of his novels is usually quite abundant - however, some critics remark that while he can recognize (and verbalize) the most problematic issues of our world he cannot show us solutions, and anyhow, he is too pessimistic, too nihilistic, too this or that. As for me I agree with his being a pessimist, but need to add also that his attitude towards these issues and his conclusions seem to be undoubtedly true and authentic.

One of the reasons for Anthony Burgess' huge success is evidently his constant experiments in creative writing. To mention a few: the Napoleon Symphony (1974) is a literary translation of the structure of Beethoven's Eroica symphony - the "movements", the moods but even the ratio of the different parts of the novel are very strictly based on this musical piece. Another one, the first Burgess novel I read in the beginning of the 80s, One Hand Clapping (1961) was built from the magical slogans of our consumer society: television ads. (Supposedly "the entire vocabulary ... amounts to approximately 800 words".) So mostly and seemingly it is the language itself that makes Burgess "Burgess": the author often confesses that he is obsessed with linguistics. Reading A Clockwork Orange surely convinces us of this. The question is: what lies beneath?

There are innumerous essays, reviews and such on A Clockwork Orange (published in 1962), Stanley Kubrick directed a great (although very controversial) movie based on it and all and all the novel has undeniably become one of the modern classics. If we manage to overcome our natural creeps while reading the novel, we are rewarded with a long list of fundamental questions of life that only the greatest and most important works can raise.

But be aware: if we try to prove that the "real" world and the world of A Clockwork Orange are basically the same, we probably would fail (although now and then a terrible possibility appears that somewhere somehow its nightmarish vision might come true): Burgess does not hold up a mirror in front of us, rather makes us look into his special telescope. The scene we see is a dystopia (an anti-utopia if you like) - just like in Huxley's Brave New World and mainly of course Orwell's 1984.

In spite of many dark touches A Clockwork Orange is an absolutely enjoyable pageturner (although it takes a while till we get used to Nadsat* - the language they speak). Burgess said he tried "to make comic novels about man's tragic lot". It is a mystery indeed why we cannot take the story's monstrosities dead soberly. Why does it make us laugh and shiver at the same time? The author helps us solve this paradox feature: first of all he passes a judgement on der stand der dinge** by placing the story, told in past tense, in a vague future, although unlike Orwell and Huxley, Burgess does not even tell us exactly when his novel takes place. (We learn that men have already been on the Moon, and a letter from 1960 is considered to be "starry" - old). Another thing that helps us understand the novel's paradox mentioned above, is Burgess' brilliant linguistic trouvaille*** that lets us take the comfortable role of an outsider, an observer only. It is hard to grab the exact moment of the reader's (the "receiver's") giving up their reluctance - but the use of the Russian-like slang in the English context is so natural and evident that after a short while we are totally convinced: it is indeed the only form Burgess can use for telling his story.

The novel's genius slang Burgess created also gives us some ideas about time (when the events take place). These words are mostly bizarre and weird mixtures of Russian and English and indicate that we are probably after a time when the two dominant empires (the US and the Soviet Union) have been united with all the disadvantages and worst features of both. This fusion hints at a very scary fact (from that time period): the opposite sides are not really antagonistic at all, what's more, their fundamental characteristics are practically the same.

There are some other linguistic inventions of Burgess that are more than just clever tricks. Even the title of the book includes one of the most important messages embedded in a word play: "orange" refers to the Malay word for man ("orang" - like in "orangutan") and so we get quite a clear vision from the very beginning ("the automated man" or "man of a mechanical device", etc.) what we encounter with in the novel. The connection between the protagonist and the writer's name (Alex and F. Alexander) is evident (and it is not too far fetched to discover the cross-reference in it to Alexander the Great as well). But there is more here than meets the eye: lex is the root of the Greek word lexis (word, phrase) and the a is an affix (also in Greek) meaning "without / not with". And even more: in Latin lex means "law". Here, you've got it all: Alex's name itself includes two of his most important personal characteristics: he is an autonomous young man who is not willing to fear any law, and as he is not a man of words either he reacts to everything by acting immediately and spontaneously. In this time, the time of the novel, reading books is not "cool", nobody knows about Mozart, the classical European (humanist) utopia is distorted and Alex becomes the proprietor (rather: a mutation) of culture, moral guidelines, ideals of freedom and aesthetic norms. Although Alex's views of life are rather bizarre (to say the least), they are at least coherent, and real art with stable values has a substantial effect on him. His violence-loving personality attracts and puts us off at the same time: in the novel's world violence is paradoxically the only way to save his dignity - the State forces everyone into a numb, conformist, automatic, zombie state, of which brainwashing is an everyday, ordinary tool. In this sense animal instincts taking over anyone seems to be quite human indeed.
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* It might be interesting for some of you that for a (more than 40 year-old) person from Hungary (that used to be a part of the so called "Soviet-controlled communist block") Nadsat is far easier to get used to than for somebody who has never studied Russian. Russian was a compulsory language to learn at school in Hungary up until 1989. So most of the Nadsat words sound way familiar and the novel gave me almost no difficulty to understand from the very first sentence. But I can see it might be hard for a lot of new readers (even in Hungary as Russian is practically out of schools there).
** The state of things. Originally the title of a Wim Wenders-movie (1982).
*** Idea, inspiration (fr) ( )

It's very easy to forget the book - Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation is a genius work of interpretation. However, forget the book at your peril, as it is truly a modern classic, one of the finest examples of crime and punishment and the idea of free will.

As for the language... well, it wasn't as hard to follow as I had thought and been warned to expect. I'm lucky in two regards though. Firstly, I teach language, and that has given me plenty of practice of teaching my students to figure out meaning from context - it's nice to put into use something I usually just talk about. Secondly, I've spent the last three years in Poland, and although my Polish isn't very good, I know enough to be able to follow the words that Burgess used derived from the Slav. These two made the reading of this book much easier and more pleasurable, and let me enjoy the story more than I think would otherwise have been the case. ( )

This is a fascinating and oddly beautiful novel (by the end) once you allow yourself to be sucked in. It took me a few false starts to finally read this all the way through, but if you can make it through the first twenty pages or so and just trust your instincts in understanding what you're reading, this is a phenomenal read, tight and intrusive. I've never read a novel so successfully plays drastically with language, and in a way that reinforces the themes and content. This is a meditation on free will, and its worth reading and celebrating--make sure you get the work published as it was meant to be, with all twenty-one chapters, since early American issuings left off the last chapter (which does drastically change the work once you've given it some thought). There's no doubt that this is a highly disturbing read that's brutal in the world it paitns for readers, but it's well worth the ride. Highly recommended. ( )

Clockwork Orange is without a doubt the strangest book I have ever read. However, it's also my favorite.

It tells the story, and is narrated by, a young man named Alex who, along with his three droogs (friends/comrades) always makes all kinds of mischief in the future England that he lives in. This mischief covers anything and everything from ripping people's books to shreds, to murder, and even gang rape.

The book is filled with unique slang from the time period that Alex lives in, and I soon found that I could not comprehend the book by simply sitting down and reading it. So I recommend printing out a slang guide for the book, as it helped me make my way through the book. There are a few words such as veck, droog, tolchock, etc that you will get used to since they are commonly used throughout the book. However, there are a few odd words that will pop up every once and a while, but I just referred to my guide for the definition.

The story in this book flows fantastically, and it kept me guessing until the very end. Now, I bought the "resucked" version with the original ending that Burgess wrote, but there are also versions with the 2nd ending, and without the last chapter in the "resucked" version.

But when you get used to the slang and what not, you will find that Alex is a very likeable and unique character, and you will see what a great book this is, as well as why they call Anthony Burgess a genius. ( )

A Clockwork Orange follows the story of little Alex, a fifteen year old kid, who enjoys causing all kinds of mischief and ultraviolence (as well as the ol' in and out), at least until he gets arrested and put into an experimental program aimed to cure him of his violent ways.

Alex is a fascinating character, violent, often funny, and, at times, almost romantic. I found myself enchanted Alex's romantic perceotion of the ultraviolence, sympathising with his plight, and understanding just how fun nights spent in such entertainments could be.

The invented slang used throughout only slowed me down in the first chapter or so. As I began to pick up the meaning of certain words, the text became quite clear, and I was able to read along at my usual pace. And, of course, I find myself wanting to find excuses to pick up and use the slang, to somehow incorporate it into my everyday language, because it was just so much fun to read aloud.

The version of the book I read also included the 21st chapter that had been excluded from U.S. versions of the book (and hence excluded from the movie directed by Stanley Kubrick) until now. I can see the arguments for either removing it or leaving it in, as Burgess said, without it the character has no growth, so the story becomes more of a fable than a novel, but either ending would have satisfied me. I truly loved this novel. ( )

Burgess ‘A Clockwork Orange’ is definitely one of the Must Reads where the Must is a highly entertaining task. The ‘humble narrator’ as the protagonist calls himself is smart 15 year old Alex who recounts the following 6 years of his life. He is an intriguing character even though he’s not really a likeable boy. Quite the contrary he and his droogs could justly be called brutal assholes. They rape, tolchock and crast just for the fun of it, the more creeching and krovvy oozing the better. The use of the teenage slang Nadsat adds to the fact that Alex’ telling of their gruesome daily routine is matter of fact and rather cold-blooded. It’s actually quite disturbing that Alex is still able to cast a spell over the reader and make one read on with sinister fascination.

Nevertheless there rarely was a protagonist I felt less sympathy with. His undeniable intelligence and the average good background from which he apparently comes from, makes his conduct only the more incomprehensible. When he had to endure the anti-violence conditioning and after his release the rough treatment from his fellow men, I more than once caught myself thinking: just serves you right! Therefore my attitude about Alex’ transformation back to his former self is rather ambivalent. I’m not sure if I share the sentiment that it’s preferable a man is doing evil by choice than doing good only because he can’t help it. But these are debatable issues. There is one point of real criticism though: the change in the maturing Alex is just too inexplicable and implausible. There might be some truth in the assumption that violence is a natural part of growing up. Only we don’t speak here of some petty vandals, but of a lot with no grain of empathy for their victims and not the slightest signs of a conscience. That’s why I find the message very questionable that such callous cases merely have to age a few years to become worthy citizens and responsible family men.

P.S. I’m not always a fan of prologues but I wouldn’t have wanted to miss what Blake Morrison had to say about Anthony Burgess. ( )

Fantastic. It is a great story, but what is truly impressive is the experiment in language. What seems difficult and confusing at first becomes perfectly clear as you read more of the book. I even found myself thinking in nadsat a couple of times while I wasn't even reading the book. ( )

Fantastic. It is a great story, but what is truly impressive is the experiment in language. What seems difficult and confusing at first becomes perfectly clear as you read more of the book. I even found myself thinking in nadsat a couple of times while I wasn't even reading the book. ( )

This would rate higher, but wading through all the nadsat (slang) got to be a bit of a drudge. Still, I couldn't put it down. Loved the message; a man isn't a man if he is forced to be good - it's in the choosing. Horrorshow, and all that cal! ( )

So you see the movie and you wonder how much it's like the book. I think the answer is quite a lot. Burgess and Kubrick seem suited to one another. Kubrick's film has the virtue of not emasculating the message of the book. It may be a little more counterculture-ish than the book, but like the best film versions of the best books, it's a worthy complement.

If you read the book after seeing the movie, you can't help but picture Malcolm McDowell as the narrator. I take it McDowell had thoroughly digested the book as part of his preparation.

Aside: I know I'm not the only one who sees the young McDowell in Jonathan-Rhys Meyers' portrayal of Henry VIII in the TV series, 'The Tudors.' ( )

Anthony Burgess' 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange paints a horrifying, grim, dystopian future. Your Humble Narrator - or, Alex - and his three droogs spend their evenings and nights beating, raping, torturing and stealing from any person unlucky enough to be in Alex's path. One evening, however, the gang turns on Alex and he is set-up, with the police arriving just as he murdered an old woman in her house.

Off to jail he goes, having to serve over a decade in a prison over-stuffed, with six or more people sharing a cell designed for two or three prisoners at most. Alex, however, is given the choice to take part in a new program that will get him out of the prison in two weeks, and back to the outside world to live his life as he sees fit. This new program, however, is not something Alex expected; Alex was tied to a chair, with his eyes taped open and forced to watch horrible acts of violence and murder - acts all-too familiar and enjoyable to Alex - as an injected chemical makes him feel nauseous and sick. After two weeks of this treatment, Alex would feel sick at the mere thought of violent acts.

The treatment worked, and Alex's life became a living nightmare, as his former friends were now police officers and old victims were able to exact their vengeance upon Alex. A failed attempt at suicide left Alex in the hospital - cured of Ludovic's experiment - and a return to the life of violence and crime he once knew.

So ends the previously published American version, short one chapter that had been published in the UK. Burgess claims the American publisher made the decision to leave out the final chapter while the publisher claims it was "merely a suggestion made for conceptual reasons." Regardless, the American version misses a chapter that is vital to the message: the power of choice.

One of the characters - the prison chaplain - asks the questions, "Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?" Through the experimental punishment to rid Alex of his evil ways, he no longer had a choice in his actions. This brings a moral dilemma, discussed by a panel after Alex has completed his punishment. "He ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice," argued one person, but the general consensus was that, "We are not concerned with motive, with the higher ethics. We are concerned only with cutting down crime...and with relieving the ghastly congestion in our prisons." This moral dilemma, the ability to choose right or wrong, good or evil, is the message of Burgess' work. The final chapter completes the story and how Alex chooses and acknowledges this moral choice.

A Clockwork Orange is written in a peculiar way - the entire book uses the nadsat language created by Burgess. Not so much a language, rather heavy slang influenced by Slavic languages, the use of nadsat creates a unique world the reader becomes entranced in. It also helps to alleviate the gruesome nature of Alex and his friends, putting more focus on the message rather than the brutal acts of violence. While some may be put off by the confusing language at first, Burgess does an excellent job introducing it and using each new word in context easy to understand and grasp, and before long the reader will be reading at his/her normal pace. ( )

Alex and his three friends' typical activities at night consist of rape, robbery and violence. When this finally spills over into murder, the Police catch up with Alex. He is imprisoned, and subsequently subjected to a form of mind control, which means that he can be returned to society, with no risk to others around him.

Set in an ambiguous and not-too-distant future (although it is worth remembering that the book was written in 1963), the book is written in 'Nadsat' - a form of teenage slang used by Alex (the narrator) and his peers.

If there is one book which I think everybody should read, this would be it. I first read it about 20 years ago, and thought it was due for a re-read. I appreciated it more second time around.

The nadsat language has a dual role here - it firmly entrenches Alex into his own culture (none of the adults or authority figures in the book use it), and also makes the violence less graphic, meaning that the book is disturbing because of it's message and not the violence contained within the pages.

This is a book which raises questions of ethics: Is a man who chooses to be bad better than a man who is forced to do good? Is it okay to take away individual choice for the good of society? Does it do any good to only treat the symptoms of a problem, and not the cause?

Despite the violence and disrespect for authority which is shown by Alex and his gang, the most disturbing aspect of this book is the so-called treatment doled out by medical professionals, and people who are supposed to be good.

The nadsat language may put some people off reading this, but in truth, it is not long before you get used to it. It is obvious what most words mean, either by their context, or by the words they are obviously derived from (for example, 'apologies' becomes appy polly loggies').

A definitely 5/5 for me, and one that I recommend to anybody with an interest in great literature. ( )

one of my all time favourite books, an excellent story, fantastic charatcers and a stunning use of language. The story is compelling and a fantastic socialist concept. Please do not be put off by the use of slang, you get use to it so quickly and most books have a glossary, not that it is really needed as with a little thought the slang is fairly obvious wen in context. ( )

Very cool how the slang here reflects the creeping socialism of the setting. Juicy morality tale. ( )

Very clever in style and form. I enjoyed the imaginative quality of the book.

The added chapter in the end which was missing from the original American version gives a strange conclusion to the story which I didn't feel actually relates to the rest of the book. ( )

This book was slow going because of the slang. I understand why Burgess used the slang - how it roots the first person narrative in the culture he has created, and how it dampens the graphic violence he describes so the book can be read for its message and not for pornographic value. However, the need to endlessly consider vocabulary and learn new words made it more like reading a book in a foreign language, and I struggled somewhat with it.

The message of the book is powerfully made - that we must be free to make moral choices. That a will enslaved so that it cannot choose evil is no more good than the evildoer - and ultimately the book describes how moral choice is at the heart of a repentance and change of mind.

The same message can be found in O.S. Card's The [Worthing Saga] (among others). I preferred Card's story though ( )

In this 1963 classic Anthony Burgess futuristic world is one of violence and horror. A Clockwork Orange is the heart racing story of 15 year old Alex and his friends who rule the night by causing chaos. After his so called friends leave him to the police he is sent to be rehabilitated. Once he is re-entered into society it’s up to the reader to decide if it was for the best. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which takes you into a new world filled with horrors that you would assume only lived in your nightmares. Whether Alex’s actions were right, I found myself having to pity him. It made me questioning my understanding of right and wrong. Thus raising a lot of question as to whether this book is ethical.

Burgess’ talent for holding readers in a trance with “Nadsat”, or his own creation of a language, gives this story a sense of seclusion. Alex and the “droogs” that abandoned him are a tight knit group that touches the reader’s need to understand and fit in. In my opinion, A Clockwork Orange is utter genius. While a majority of readers will discredit this book as barbaric and unethical, isn’t the book doing its job? They may look upon it with distaste, but it will continue to be one of the many great classics. This book is great for anyone who loves to be shocked. Burgess has a way of showing the truth in extremes. He has done his part as a writer by shocking the morals right into people. ( )