A Clockwork Orange
In Anthony Burgess's influential nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, a teen who talks in a fantastically inventive slang that evocatively renders his and his friends' intense reaction against their society. Dazzling and transgressive, A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil and the meaning of human freedom. This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition, and Burgess's introduction, "A Clockwork Orange Resucked."
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Community Reviews
Okay. So this was a trip, and not a good one. The language was a struggle and felt a little overboard. The point of the book is that we have a choice of right or wrong and we can’t be forced to choose right…but then the third part happened and it was like the second part never happened…so I’m just totally confused. 217 pages of my life I’ll never get back…
This is almost an allegory which I'm not the biggest fan of generally. To make matters worse, it's a super disturbingly violent allegory. And like with most allegories, if I don't agree with the central concept which the author is trying to cram down my throat, then I can't really enjoy the book. No, I don't think it's better to be able to choose good and evil in the name of free will. I prefer that people not commit evil in the form of rape and murder. I don't care why they don't do it. That's between them and their God. What concerns me is the NOT raping and murdering.
Fantasy or true human nature? This book blew me away. I had to ask myself difficult questions like, is free will really a good thing? What are real solutions to criminal behavior? Can a person ever really change or are they forced to?
This book will live in my heart forever.
Not going to lie, it took me until about the halfway point to start enjoying the book. I read the version with the additional chapter that was originally was left out when it was published in the US and that chapter completely changed the tone for how I felt about the book. With the Nadsat language used, I ended up finding a dictionary and that helped me better understand some of what happened. Highly recommend! But I also recommend checking content warnings before hand.
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