“With my britva I managed to slit right down the front of one of Billyboy’s droog’s platties, very very neat and not even touching the plot under the cloth. Then in the dratsing this droog of Billyboy’s suddenly found himself all opened up like a peapod, with his belly bare and his poor old yarbles showing…”
Anthony Burgess’s disturbing 1962 novella A Clockwork Orange is a story of brutal violence and examination of free will. Alex and his violent teenage gang commit many vicious crimes. Betrayed by his gang, Alex is captured and sent to prison where he experiences a form of Pavlovian conditioning known as the Ludovico Technique. The technique leaves Alex unable to commit any acts of violence. Released back into society he struggles to survive as he finds himself unwanted by his parents and tortured by previous victims wanting revenge.
It is worth noting that there are two versions of A Clockwork Orange. The full version of the book contains a final chapter removed from the pre-1986 US release. It was felt by the publishers that the American audience would not ‘believe’ the more positive final chapter so it was cut from the book. The film adaptation is based on the ‘missing chapter’ version. Those few extra pages do make a big difference to the overall feel and message of the story.
Underneath the violence, Burgess looks at themes of freedom of choice, order in society, and the right to control a human. The violence will be too much for some readers, but if they can see beyond that they will find a thought-provoking book with clever storytelling. In later life, Burgess distanced himself from it and dismissed it as a book he had written for money in three weeks, although this could be a reaction to the notorious film version and the mixed blessings of being known for a single novel.
Despite being fifty years old, A Clockwork Orange has managed to avoid aging. There is a subtle vagueness that maintains a feeling of relevance. The location is unnamed and it could be set anywhere in the world. It is told in first person by a teenage gang leader, Alex, who presents his biased view of the world using a fictional Russian-influenced version of English called “Nadsat”. “Nadsat” combines some hard sounding words – “britva” (razor), “shvat” (grab) – with childish words like “eggiwegg” (egg). “Nadsat” can initially make it hard to read, but the words soon start to make sense and it does give the reader the impression that they are looking into another world.
Using words like “eggiwegg” reminds us of Alex’s young age. These reminders are seen throughout the book and provide some interesting contrasts. One of the favorite haunts of the gang is the “Korova Milkbar”, which serves drugs in the milk. Alex is underage and has to drink in a milk bar, but the world he lives in provides easy access to drugs before an evening of violence.
A Clockwork Orange is worth reading at least once in your life. The smart use of language and ambiguous location give it significance. The many contrasts keep it stimulating. The violent adult world of a child makes it frightening and shocking. The evaluation of how much a state can control a person is thought-provoking. It is a controversial book that was banned from some schools and libraries. It was dismissed by many reviewers and even its own author. It still regularly appears in lists of great literature.
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