A Clockwork Orange

by Anthony Burgess
Hennepin County Library audiobook 6 discs
read by Tom Hollander

At first, listening to the author's note, I was really intrigued. Why had the American publishers (back in 1962) agreed to publish Burgess' book, but without the final chapter? He purposely wrote it with three parts, seven chapters each . . . and allowed it to be published in the U.S. without the final chapter. Stanley Kubrick's film was based on this shorter version. The rest of the world knows the original UK version (even the international translations were based on the full work). This is another of those titles that I've heard of for decades, but never read or watched.

Oh my. I kept having to pause the story because it was / is so awful. I was aware that it was a work filled with violence, but it was too horrible to listen to. My curiosity kept me going and I'm glad that I've "read" the whole thing, but I will definitely never see the movie!

I was intrigued by Burgess' choice to use a made-up language. I am fascinated by language and found myself doing two things: one, "translating" as I listened and two, having some of the words like "malenky" crop up in my mind. Words like "ultraviolence" and "horrorshow" were used throughout, as well as:
cancer = cigarette / rot = mouth / lunar = moon / viddy = see / sluishy? = hear / smeck = laugh . . . I should just find a website with a glossary. I'm sure one exists. This playing with the language fascinated me. It was horrifying too . . . "the old in-out, in-out" referring to sex was awful when I knew he was raping someone (especially when he drugged the two ten-year old girls). The cruelty - downright evil - of these amoral marauding teenagers was really, really hard to read.

On 11/19/14, I made a note at a stoplight while listening in my car. This was part two when he went to prison. He was fifteen years old!!! I cannot fathom a group of young teens doing this kind of destruction. When he's in prison, he "befriends" the chaplain and spends time playing music for the services and reading the Bible. He is mostly doing this to avoid some of the nastier parts of prison, but also because the adults see his "reform" and he hopes to get out earlier than his sentence of 18 years. As he reads the Bible, he prefers the Old Testament with all it's fighting and smiting. When he is finally talked into reading the New Testament, he fantasizes about helping to torture Christ.

In part two, he agrees to a treatment that involves conditioning him to feel sick at the mere thought of violence. In part three, he is adjusting to life outside of prison and is taken in by revolutionaries who are protesting the government. I don't want to ruin the ending for anyone who hasn't read it and wishes to . . . but it is truly fascinating in many regards. But horrible, too. And pretty darn depressing if this is what Burgess thought the world was coming to . . .

I'll probably add more to this entry later. I got the print version because I need to return the audiobook. It took me a long time and a lot of renewals to get through it! The narrator's voice was excellent! He really captured the essence of the story and communicated very effectively. Alex's concern that his "droogs" were looking to usurp him as leader, his realization of whose house he was at for recovery after a beating, . . . so much happening in this fairly short book.

22 December 2014
I've had the "restored" print version for over three weeks and I am not eager to re-visit this work. I read the editor's introduction and am again fascinated by what Burgess has done with this book. The use of Nadsat as a created language is fascinating. Burgess' drug references and culture were apparently *not* adopted by Kubrick into the screen version. The number of artists (musicians especially) who reference A Clockwork Orange is astonishing.

I love the quotation from Shakespeare which opens the book. "I would that there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting . . . "(from The Winter's Tale, act III scene 3)

The only known chapter of a non-fiction work on the use of brainwashing written by Burgess was found in 2012 and is included in this book. I didn't take the time to read it . . . too much to do and I'm ready to move on. At least now I better understand allusions to this novel.