'A Clockwork Orange' is basically a nightmarish vision of a futuristic alternative reality, similar to our own, where the ultra violent youth reign supreme. Anthony Burgess' interpretation of such a society was just as relevant when it was first published in 1962 as it is now, in the 21st Century.
The story is humbly narrated by 15-year-old Alex, as the story begins following him and his group of 'droogs' as they prey on just about everyone they can during an average night, performing acts of the ultra violent.There is a power struggle within his group and his alpha dominance is challenged to the point where he is betrayed by this 'droogs' and caught by the police forthe final time. He is sent straight to a state prison where after two years of serving a forty year sentence he is put forward for the Ludovic Technique; a treatment which would supposedly 'cure' Alex and make him incapable of violent or sexual thoughts. If Alex feels in any way hostile toward anyone, even those who threaten him, he immediately feels nauseous tothe extent where he feels like he's going to die. After two weeks Alex is set free back into the troubled society from whence he came and coincidently bumps into those who he has terrorised and thusly gets a taste of his own medicine but he is no longer able to defend himself.
I should probably mention that Alex speaks and thinks in Nadsat, the terminology of the teenagers of this alternative future and at first it looks really intimidating, it almost put me off reading the book but once I started, the meaning of each word, in context, was pretty easy to accurately guess and once you're finished reading using whatever vocabulary you picked up is addictive to use in everyday conversation!
You can probably tell from that quick synopsis that the subject matter of 'A Clockwork Orange' is quite dark and if even though I didn't find the scenes with explicit violence particularly shocking, if you're squeamish or if you've chosen to stay away from the topicsof rape, brutal assault and murder in your literature maybe reading 'A Clockwork Orange' won't benefit your fragile mind in any way.
On the other hand I have officially made this my favourite book. Period. And maybe I'm a twisted bitch for doing so but I would never have imagined that such a story could be told in such an enjoyable and even heart warming way. By the end I really did feel like Alex was a very close friend of mine and despite all he did I was sympathetic and even proud of him and how far he came. I don't know how Anthony Burgees made a juvenile delinquent to that extreme so loveable.
If you enjoy your dystopian novels like George Orwell?s 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World I'd definitely recommend 'A Clockwork Orange' and if you haven't read any of those I'd still tell you to take a dip into it. It's a fantastic and pretty short read and I can guarantee that it will have you glued to every single page.
If you have any problems with the language here?s a Nadsat Dictionary to use at your disposal.
O brothers, it's a real horrorshow of a tale.
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