A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
A Clockwork Orange is a dystopian satirical black comedy novel by English writer Anthony Burgess, published in 1962.A Clockwork Orange tells the story of Alex, a Beethoven-mad thug with a lovely internal monologue. Eloquent in Nadsat, his teen argot, a heady mix of Russian, romany and rhyming slang, Alex narrates his career as the leader of a gang of “droogs”, Peter, Georgie and Dim. It is often said that these brutes derive from the mods and rockers, but Biswell shows conclusively that a deeper inspiration comes from Burgess’s wartime experience.
A brilliant and sinister opening of horrific “ultra violence” describes the gang on the rampage: terrorising a school teacher, beating a drunk, carving up a rival gang, stealing a car, and ransacking a country cottage, having tortured a harmless literary man and gang-raped his wife. After the sick brio of this opening, the novel settles into Alex’s subsequent incarceration in State Jail 84F and the mind-altering aversion therapy inflicted on him by the authorities. It also explores, with some subtlety, the relationship of free will and individual responsibility in Burgess’s inimitable style.
Quotes;
“Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.”
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