A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Title: A Clockwork Orange
Author: Anthony Burgess
First published: 1962
Pages: 213
I didn’t enjoy this book. Also, it’s now some months since I read it, so if this is an unsatisfactory review, I apologise. I just want my next book!
‘A Clockwork Orange’ was published in 1962 and was (and probably still is) considered ground-breaking. To put it very simplistically, the story is of a teenage boy in a futuristic England. In the first part he and his friends run wild and do awful things to people. This involves rape (‘ultraviolence’ in Burgess’s words) and other violence. In the second part Alex is sent to prison where the government brainwashes him. In the third part, he is released into society again and has to deal with the consequences of his actions.
My main problem with this book was that it swung between boring (to me) and appallingly graphic. Apparently (according to Wikipedia, so maybe not that accurate), one of the reasons Burgess decided to have his character use a Russian-derived slang was to muffle the violence of the book, but in many scenes it is truly horrifying anyway. When Alex is being brainwashed by the government, it was the one point in the book where I was actually impressed by the writing and completely engrossed in the story, but the content is quite repulsive and not really the sort of thing I generally look for in fiction.
The boring side of it came from the fact that I have the attention span of a gnat - I like a book I can easily get into. The use of the Russian dialect words was really distracting and kept dragging me out of the story. It is an interesting concept but I think the fact that I found it hard going in parts was entirely down to the use of the dialect which halted the natural flow of the words.
In conclusion: I am glad I read this book. I can definitely see why it was such a big deal when it was published in the 1960s. I think it deserves to be remembered as one of the 1001 books to read before you die, simply for the way that Burgess writes about challenging subject matter and uses an experimental style that broke the bounds of traditional fiction. If I wasn’t reading it for this challenge, however, I would probably have put it down after the first chapter.
Author: Anthony Burgess
First published: 1962
Pages: 213
I didn’t enjoy this book. Also, it’s now some months since I read it, so if this is an unsatisfactory review, I apologise. I just want my next book!
‘A Clockwork Orange’ was published in 1962 and was (and probably still is) considered ground-breaking. To put it very simplistically, the story is of a teenage boy in a futuristic England. In the first part he and his friends run wild and do awful things to people. This involves rape (‘ultraviolence’ in Burgess’s words) and other violence. In the second part Alex is sent to prison where the government brainwashes him. In the third part, he is released into society again and has to deal with the consequences of his actions.
My main problem with this book was that it swung between boring (to me) and appallingly graphic. Apparently (according to Wikipedia, so maybe not that accurate), one of the reasons Burgess decided to have his character use a Russian-derived slang was to muffle the violence of the book, but in many scenes it is truly horrifying anyway. When Alex is being brainwashed by the government, it was the one point in the book where I was actually impressed by the writing and completely engrossed in the story, but the content is quite repulsive and not really the sort of thing I generally look for in fiction.
The boring side of it came from the fact that I have the attention span of a gnat - I like a book I can easily get into. The use of the Russian dialect words was really distracting and kept dragging me out of the story. It is an interesting concept but I think the fact that I found it hard going in parts was entirely down to the use of the dialect which halted the natural flow of the words.
In conclusion: I am glad I read this book. I can definitely see why it was such a big deal when it was published in the 1960s. I think it deserves to be remembered as one of the 1001 books to read before you die, simply for the way that Burgess writes about challenging subject matter and uses an experimental style that broke the bounds of traditional fiction. If I wasn’t reading it for this challenge, however, I would probably have put it down after the first chapter.