A Clockwork Orange - Book Review

A Clockwork Orange takes place in a futuristic city governed by a repressive, totalitarian super-State. In this society, ordinary citizens have fallen into a passive stupor of complacency, blind to the insidious growth of a rampant, violent youth culture. The protagonist of the story is Alex, a fifteen-year-old boy who narrates in a made-up teenage slang. Alex leads a small gang of teenage criminals through the streets, robbing and beating men and raping women.

After a particularly violent attack on an old woman, Alex is arrested and learns that the woman has died. He is sentenced to fourteen years in prison. After a few years, Alex is selected as the first candidate for an experimental treatment called Ludovico's Technique, a form of brainwashing that incorporates associative learning. After being injected with a substance that makes him dreadfully sick, the doctors force Alex to watch exceedingly violent movies. In this way, Alex comes to associate violence with the nausea and headaches he experiences from the shot. The process takes two weeks to complete, after which the mere thought of violence has the power to make Alex ill. He is released from prison and finds that not only is he incapable of vicious acts, but he's defenseless as his earlier victims begin to take revenge on him. If Alex is to survive, it will take a drastic action on his part.

This book is very deep and packed full of fundamental struggles between opposing forces: good vs. evil, man vs. government, commitment vs. neutrality, youth vs. maturity, intellect vs. intuition. The problem is that this level of depth could be lost if you aren't able to look past all of the violence and strange vernacular. The use of a made-up language was a bit troubling at first and I wasn't sure I'd be able to really understand the events taking place, but it got easier as the book progressed - you can guess the meaning of the words based on context most of the time. Anyway, without this quirk, I'm not sure the book would have been asintriguingg and captivating. It's definitely an original literary work that should be read at least once - the book has an extra chapter that the movie doesn't address, so don't try to take the easy way out :-)


Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Would I read it again: No

A Clockwork Orange
by Anthony Burgess
Paperback: 192 pages
Released: 1962