I've borrowed a copy of A Clockwork Orange from one of the amazing human beings at The Burgomeister's Books via truly dash free dot org, one of the best sites currently in existence on this here Internet. So. What's it going to be then, eh?
The book was written by Anthony Burgess, who, if the introduction is to be taken at face value, didn't particularly like it. I get the general impression that mister Burgess viewed his creation with equal parts fatherly affection and self aware revulsion, and for good reason, as it features one of the most casually evil protagonists in literary history. But I'll talk about him in a bit.
Burgess spends a great deal of the introduction justifying his creation, and the remainder stressing repeatedly that, to do something a bit more cynically succinct than paraphrase, the American edition and subsequent movie ruined his book. Frankly, I'm inclined to agree.
You see, dearest most darling reader (as well as the rest of you, why not), there were two different editions of A Clockwork Orange available on the market in its release. One, which the author calls the "original" version, was released in Europe, and features twenty one chapters of content. The other, the American version, was released a bit later, (Guess where?) and features only twenty. The American release, for some unfathomable reason, decided that the ending was unnecessarily cheerful and ruined the dark brutal pointlessness of the whatever I can't even pretend to understand the logic. My point is, if you can acquire a copy of the uncut version of the book, do so. It will make the entire story, and more importantly this review, make a good deal more sense.
Our story opens with our apparent droog and brother the humble narrator Alex babbling away in a font of delightfully incoherent fauxfuturistic slang with an absolutely charming syntax and distinctive flavor. Most of it is easy enough to grasp given proper reading comprehension and context clues, O gentle reader, but I'd not recommend the book to, say, your friend who's never read a book in her life but thinks the twilight series is like, totally written to like describe my inner like... soul! et cetera. (If you are that friend... Honestly, get off my blog. I read them. They suck. Moving on.)
The slang to which I have alluded is known as Nadsat, and is comprised of one part cockney rhyming slang to seven parts red scare Russian to two parts absolute bullshit. It is gorgeous, and serves to set the tone of the narrative most excellently.
When he's not jabbering away in the most magnificently madgabbery invented language since newspeak, Alex keeps himself busy by skipping school to rob, beat, rape, and pillage his fellow man, woman, malchikkiwick, and ptitsa (sorry, sorry, won't happen again.) with a crew of friends in what amounts to a micro gang. It is heavily implied that this is the norm in the wonderful world of Orange, and indeed, we encounter at least one other such group over the course of the book.
When Alex's life of crime goes predictably sour, his friends betray him and he finds himself incarcerated for a murder that fans of the movie may be disappointed to learn did not involve a giant ceramic penis. To get out of jail, he volunteers himself for an experimental new treatment devised by the government that promises to make him a better person. It works, more or less, by simply taking away his option to be a bad person at all, and at that point things grow alarmingly
Through a string of bad luck and contrived coincidence that would make the Count of Monte Cristo raise an elegant eyebrow in an expression of ludicrously rich disbelief, our newly disarmed antihero finds himself at the mercy of first an old victim, then his old betrayer and an old enemy, then yet another old victim with a frighteningly political bent. One musically provoked suicide attempt later, he finds himself recovering in a government run hospital, magically cured of his miracle cure and once more completely free to be just as much of a sadist as he has so delighted in being for three forths of the book, and there the American edition ends.
"What kind of terribad ending is that, dearest Yoric?" you might ask, and I would direct you again toward author Anthony's insistent introduction, and he would tell you all about the difference between moral choice and coercion and at some point in all the self apologetic philosophizing you would come to understand that "be as bad as you like and do what the authority figure du jour asks of you in public and you can get away with whatever you like" is not actually intended to be the moral of the story, regardless of what several American copycat criminals in the seventies seemed to believe.
The final chapter of the novel begins precisely as the first did. This is intentional, and exceptional. Alex is once more at a bar with his gang, whose names have changed, preparing to raise whatever ridiculous slav-esque term they might use for hell, when a feeling of ennui begins to gnaw at his heart. A bit of depressed introspection and a chance meeting with an old friend later, our protagonist realizes that he's too old for delinquency at eighteen, that he's finding less and less satisfaction in sadism, and that he would actually rather like to raise a delinquent child of his own. One last bit of Nadsat silliness to say goodbye, and the book ends on a rather melancholy happy note. Yes, melancholy happy. Think "friend-winning-the-lottery-with-the-ticket-you-bought-then-handed-idly-to-them-because-no-one-wins-lotteries" and you're on the right track.
Yes, yes, mister Burgess. I know that there's a heavy handed moral there. I understand that the entirety of the story is a fairly well crafted if a bit unsubtle metaphor. I grasp that the title refers to an old cockney expression that can be applied to describe the state of humanity given the right circumstances. But explaining all that is your job, so I'll let the readers learn it all for themselves.
Read the book. Be as cynical as you like in so doing. It's the sort of story that thrives on a cynical reader, and only by pausing occasionally to scratch your head at the blatant moralizing can you let the book really shine for you.
In conclusion, A Clockwork Orange is a beautifully written anvil designed to create the loudest possible clang when struck by the hammer of blunt philosophical exposition. Read it for the future slang and do your best to ignore the ever present voice loudly telling you how you should feel about all this.
