A Clockwork Orange

Viddy well this novel, oh my brothers. Enjoyed reading this real horrorshow.

One of the most fascinating dystopian novels on the par with George Orwell's "1984." Although the superficial perusal may reveal simply a complex plot involving evel-ish protagonist -- "Little Alex," a somewhat deeper look at the author and social issues involved at the time of the novel's writing will reveal a complex lace of multiple subplots and ideas. Something to consider: for a long time Anthony Burgess was a member of Her Majesty's Secret Service. Despite long assignments to Far East and Middle Eastern countries, Anthony Burgess' specialty was Eastern Europe and Slavic languages. Hence the language of the "hood" in this novel: "Nadzet" -- translated as "teen." (e.g. triNADZAT' " = 13; chetirNADZAT'= 14, etc...). Why do the major characters speak this lingo? Well the simple answer is that they are teenagers themselves. Hence the angst, aggressiveness, unbridled sexuality, the ugly behaviour, etc... Something else to consider: why pepper the novel with Slavonic root-words? Why not use Arabic, French, or German? Possible answer: To those "in the know," it may have looked as if there may have been a small but real chance that good old England may go Red (Philby, Burgess (different and unrelated Guy Burgess), and McLean have just defected [not in that order, of course]; the students and the unions are taking over the streets; Soviets are going into space and are arming every anti-colonial movement possible; etc, etc, etc.) As a specialist on Eastern Europe, Burgess had deep knowledge of miserable life behind the Iron Curtain, which he masterfully recreated in and transposed upon Great Britain in the "Clockwork." Trivia 1: it is rumored that while posted in Egypt, Burgess had a nervous breakdown. This led to his resignation from working for the Crown and the beginning of his literary career (this was brought up in several media interviews with the author later in his writing career). Trivia 2: the original printing of the book differed greatly between the US and the UK versions as the American Version lacked the final chapter of the book! It is unclear why, but the readers in the U.S. had to wait until 1972 to read the book in full. Trivia 3: the superb film adaption of the plot by Stanley Kubrick (the one that stars young Malcolm McDowell in the title role) was based on the American and NOT UK version, therefore it (the movie) lacks an absolutely key point of the book obvious to the reader in the last chapter of the original "Clockwork Orange." Trivia 4: No connection was ever made between Guy Burgess (the Secret Service man who defected to the USSR) and Anthony Burgess (Secret Service man who had a nervous breakdown and then wrote this book). As far as I know not even the most paranoid counterintel John Bull has ever raised that question. Hm... Now that I see it written down,,, I wonder... Overall, this is one of my most favourite books ever!

"The question is whether such a technique can really make a man good. Goodness comes from within, 6655321. Goodness is something **chosen**. **When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man**." When I reached this passage in Anthony Burgess' *A Clockwork Orange*, I immediately recognized it as one of the most (if not the most) important message among the many in this intriguing, fast-paced novel (it is then reinforced later on in the novel by the author/victim F. Alexander). Also present in Kubrick's film, but not stated with the same emphasis and strength, it comes from the 'rot of the Staja's charlie' (or, translating from Nadstad--the slang used by teenagers in Burgess' futuristic dystopian England--"the prison's chaplain's mouth") and tells everything: this book is about free will. To be honest, I've never been much interested in the fortuitous, ultra-violent concept behind Kubrick's film (which I had never seen before finishing the book this week), but decided to give the book a shot after learning about its intricate linguistic complexities, by incidentally reading the 'Translator's Notice' in the most recent Brazilian translation (Fabio Fernandes for publisher Aleph). There, Fernandes enthusiastically go over each of the main devices used by Burgess to create a sense of strangeness in the dystopic future of ACWO and how he as a translator dealt with them: the Russian-derived words in nadsat ('horrorshow'/хорошо for excellent, 'rot'/рот for mouth, 'rooker'/руки for hands, 'litso'/лицо for face, 'malenky'/маленький for little or tiny, 'devotchka'/девочка for girl, 'veshch'/вещь for thing and so on), the childish rhyming slang (like kids talking cute in words like 'skoliwoll', 'gutiwutis', 'eggiweg') and the pompous sort-of-shakespearean discourse (filled with thus's, thou's and thine's). All of that made me start reading the Brazilian translation in Portuguese and the original English version simulteaneously. But soon I felt comfortable moving on only with the original, having a nadsat glossary at hand just not to lose track of anything. Actually, as soon as I made it through the surf of the nadsat, just like in Joyce's *Ulysses* (and Burgess as a linguist was a devoted Joycian), ACWO turned into a very entertaining journey because it is so fast-paced. However, the comparison with Joyce's can't go much beyond the surface of the linguistic mimicking, because Burgess himself admitted in life that he wrote ACWO in a hurry (scholars now say he wrote the book in 18 months, but Burgess himself used to brag he did it in just three weeks because he needed the money). Actually, all Nadsat, the childish rhyming slang and the sort-of-shakesperean discourse seemed to me to be rather gross stylistic shortcuts, like finding a solution to create this sense of strangeness of the dystopic future quickly (it certainly makes it easier to establish that all Nadsat comes from anglicized Russian, but why would it be that way?--was there a time when England was under Russian command?). The same can be said about Alex's pompous Shakespearean tone--it is cool, but it is there just because it is cool, no matter how hard it is to explain in the context of the novel why is that. Differently from the Kubrick's film, 'Your Humble Narrator' Alex is, at the beginning of the novel, only a 15-year-old violent teenager who actually comes from a (presumably) stable family--which maybe could help explain how he had the chance to know so much about classical music and develop his devotion to "Ludwig van", although all references to classical music in the novel seem to be, as Nadsat and Shakespeare, stylistic shortcuts as well. In any event, Alex's story goes on for more or less three years, and that is what makes the whole difference with Kubrick's movie (and indeed caused Burgess himself to depricate it), as clearly Malcolm McDowell was not only much older (isn't that something that happens with all adaptations of Hamlet to the screen as well?) but also out-of-placedly immature. I must confess I was completely 'nagoy' about the controversy surrounding the last, 21st chapter. All I can say is that, at first, it really came to me as a blatantly sarcastic detour. It was like the book was moving in one direction and all of sudden it moved almost 180 degrees around. Until the end, I was eagerly waiting for a plot twist that would put it back on track, but that was a hope slowly vanished as the unread pages diminished. So all I had as a console was the prison's chaplain's phrase: if Alex couldn't choose, he wouldn't be free, so he had to learn by himself what goodness was really all about. It is a sort of naïve idea that maybe was needed in the 1960s when Burgess wrote the book, but an idea that didn't age well. That is not what you could say about the rest of the book, which not only didn't age, it became so fluid with our own reality that it has, sadly enough, fallen almost into our everyday triviality.

Life changing, otherwise I would write this horrorshow review. P.S.: Do yourself the favor and listen to the audiobook on YT while reading.

I can easily understand the frustration Anthony Burgess had with the public's fascination with A Clockwork Orange but, like most writers, he was forced to acknowledge this book at nearly every public event, because it was one of his most successful books. On the onset, I don't understand particularly why it garnered the level of popularity it did. It's certainly not a commercial book - it's sexually explicit and very atypical in terms of what every other writer was doing at the time. It just doesn't strike me as a book bearing any kind of commercial potential at all... ...But it's a brilliant book. Anthony Burgess flawlessly creates an entirely new language (Nadsat) and teaches it to the reader throughout the course of the novel. It's a distraction at first but the way he manages to normalize it within the first couple of pages is a testament to the genius Burgess possessed. The story is engaging, the reader can easily sympathize with Alex (who, from the start, is a very difficult person to like) and the conclusion of the story is satisfying. It can't be looked at in conjunction with the Kubrick film. Although it's a faithful adaptation of the book, it is it's own entity, and it deserves to be treated as such. It's not a life-changing read, but it's a brilliantly composed piece of fiction that I've read multiple times since I got it.

主人公が暴力に明け暮れる日々から、国の矯正を受けて変わっていく物語。読みやすいとは言えないけれど、自由とは何か、人間らしさとは何かを自然に考えさせられました。

It's a very short novel, and half of the text in this edition is forewords, afterwords, articles, etc., that give further insight on the novel as a world phenomenon.

Oltre al magnifico romanzo, la qualità di stampa è molto alta