A Clockwork Orange | Book Review

A concise book review of Anthony Burgess's classic novel, A Clockwork Orange. Let's have some ultraviolence! (tw // rape, violence)
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[Irish]

The basic premise of the slang is that, in the story, post-war British life was influenced by Russian pop culture, instead of American pop culture, as it was in real life. Burgess proves his genius with words by taking American slang, and overlaying Russian words on top of them. In a situation in which Alex confronts an old woman American kids in the 50's and 60's would have called an 'old bag', Burgess uses the Russian word for bag, 'soomka'. If Alex likes or appreciates something, if he 'digs' it, Burgess uses the Russian word 'kopat', which means to dig. As a linguistic study alone "ACO" is fascinating. But it's a story about the ability to make moral choices, and how we are robbed of our humanity if we are robbed of choice. That's even more fascinating.

[Unknown-tlts]

This is such an awesome novel. It’s intense and dark and disturbing, but also full of such a pivotal development. It really shows the balance between black and white goodness and evil. Alex is such a brilliant character. The slang really got me infatuated with this book. This is a groundbreaking novel, and unlike anything I’ve ever read before

[halimamuslimah]

My black SUV is A Clockwork Orange themed. I love this story.

[Verlopil]

This is a great book and it's definitely science fiction. There are branches of science fiction that are what ifs dealing with future events, and the sciences being explored are mainly the social sciences, and this particular one is a dystopian view. Philip K. Dick writes a lot in this tradition. I love how it doesn't spoon feed you the future world but makes you dive head first into the language and actions of the characters to figure out the world on its own and how it got there.

[SophiaClef]

The slang is easy to understand if you know Russian, so, unfortunately, the use of these words didn't soften the violent moments in my case. I enjoyed the movie adaptation more than the source material. I think that the music and colors are to blame...

[KtoX]

Nice! I did my senior AP Lit project on this book— if I recall correctly I did it on the allusions to Alex being a "Christ" figure and his relationship to the government (and how they're portrayed in the novel).

[nigeldonaldson]

Alex is a product of a dystopian society, and he knows it.
his attitude is always- society doesnt care any so why should he, the Author (Anthony Burgess) HATED what was becoming of English society with the rise of youth cult gangs, and 'the old order' from the days of Empire being threatened, and so he reflected this in his book.
BUT ironically both the novel & the film had the opposite effect as Alex was regarded as an anti-hero, because Burgess described him as having class and charm like some Shakesperian character despite it.

[truthskr]

I'm one of the few people who liked the movie over the book. In fact I thought the book was garbage. The overuse of slang and the lack of real character development made this read like a journal. In Kubrick's film there was a bizarre atmosphere that was completely void in the book.

[ANewKindaGuy]

I stopped after the first Chapter to watch YouTube explanations of this book before I continued . I came across your video. Thanks for the clarification/reminder on the slang used, because I was getting so frustrated, and wanted to give up, omg. I continue to hear people rave about the book so I won’t give up on it.

[chwejenya]

sometimes I feel distanced from my homeland (because I'm not russian by ethnicity) but as a native speaker, I'm happy to be able to understand this book

[ALatteThoughts]

It's on my TBR. I started but stopped because of that slang. I plan on going back to it.

[barbararios]

Thank you so much for this I will continue to read

[havocmaverick]

Eggy weggy and milk plus goes horror show with the book

[nigeldonaldson]

on the spine of the American video jacket A CLOCKWORK ORANGE is described as- adult drama.
But here in the U.K the critics call it- Science fiction.

[toddsqui]

I didn't understand why the book was called a Clockwork Orange though.
I mean, I know it was the name of the script written by one of the victims, but I didn't quite get the significant message Burgess was trying to convey by giving the entire story that name. Were you able to get a reading on this (no pun intended)?

[iHeartAMP]

That's a real horrowshow book. I just read it, and I have watched the movie 5 times