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A review by mossbird
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
There's so much to say about A Clockwork Orange, I'm not entirely sure where to start.
I'll preface this review with the following: I've never seen the film and have limited exposure to Kubrick's works in general so I went into this novel relatively blind. I'd only heard of the film by name with no real explanation as to what it was about, making my first experience with Burgess' work a standout and leads me solidly into the camp of wishing the final chapter had been included in the film.
A Clockwork Orange is, at its core, a story about morality. We begin the novel with our protagonist, Alex, and his gang of lackies. Immediately from the jump, you're completely immersed in their world as Burgess spares no moment to explain anything from the setting to the distinct dialect we see used throughout the book's pages. To say I found it a touch hard to follow in the beginning would be an understatement. This, however, ended up adding to my overall takeaway from the novella. Bear with me, we'll get there. Spoilers to follow.
The story follows Alex, beginning our tale when he's the humble age of 15 and ending shortly after his 18th birthday. Throughout the course of its first chapters, the reader very quickly gains the understanding that Alex is not a good person. There are explicit, once you understand the dialect, depictions of murder, rape, and violence in general and Burgess makes no attempt to make you feel any amount of pity. It's explicitly clear that not only does Alex do these things of his own volition, he genuinely enjoys them too. The novella is written as though Alex himself is writing it, he refers to himself as "Your Humble Narrator" throughout the length of its pages, making the experience feel almost autobiographical in a way as if he takes pleasure in detailing his crimes.
This all changes however when Alex is arrested for the murder of an elderly woman and it is here that Burgess' delicate dance with morality begins. We see a short bit of Alex's time in prison, generally with the theme that he'll serve his years and then get back to how his life was before, though he exhibits a newfound enjoyment for the Bible and religion during his time behind bars. Burgess truly begins to challenge the reader's moral compass when Alex is taken into a State Center for Prison Reform.
There is really only one way I could describe Alex's 'treatment' in guise of reform. Alex is tortured and Burgess lays all out to bear. The question then becomes this. Does Alex's former involvement and perpetration of objectively heinous crimes entitle him to a fortnight of psychological torture? Does the perpetration of a crime warrant the criminal to undergo treatment of debatably the same severity? Why is this torture sanctioned and encouraged? Is it moral to sanction psychological torture if the outcome is a reformed criminal? Does it not just strip the individual of independent thought? Does the repentance of a murderer retain any meaning if the repentance is brought on by repeated Pavlovian conditioning and not the perpetrator's free thought?
Burgess continues to explore this as we follow Alex after his release, his 'reform' having been deemed successful. We see him return home only to find a stranger in his place next to his parents, the welcome he was expecting turned cold and unaccepting in reality. We follow Alex next as he revisits many of the places he and his cronies frequented in the book's opening pages, culminating ultimately in his brutalization and abandonment by his former 'friend' and former enemy. It is here Alex returns to a very prominent place in his story: the home of a man whose wife he brutally attacked and gang raped years ago which led to her untimely death.
At first, the man, a writer of a novel of the same name as the one I review now, doesn't recognize Alex and instead takes him in under a guise of kindness with the plan of using Alex and his story as a political pawn. And he does just that, handing our protagonist off to three of his colleagues just as he begins to realize Alex's true identity. It is with these three colleagues that Alex's mistreatment continues, culminating in the youth's attempted suicide. After a short stay in the hospital, Alex is released once again with the assurances of safety from the very people who initiated his first bout of torture in the name of 'reform'.
Unfortunately for them, Alex's suicide attempt seems to have undone a majority of the classical conditioning embedded into his psyche with much of his bloodlust and love for violence returning as he lays in his hospital bed. What we see now though, as Alex leaves the hospital, is a brief return to his former criminal compulsions before we see a genuine change in our protagonist. The final chapter of the novel, omitted from the film, shows us that, despite all he's undergone, Alex has grown. He longs for a family, specifically a son, and we end the novel with a final farewell from our leading man.
TL;DR: The ending of A Clockwork Orange is one that left me deeply contemplative and to say it didn't affect me would be a lie. Burgess' entrancing playfulness with language and the detailed horrific mistreatment undergone by his protagonist provides a haunting dichotomy that lingers with the reader as they near its final pages and leaves them pondering many sociological ideas, truly exploring the limits of human morality and what it means to make a choice.
I'll preface this review with the following: I've never seen the film and have limited exposure to Kubrick's works in general so I went into this novel relatively blind. I'd only heard of the film by name with no real explanation as to what it was about, making my first experience with Burgess' work a standout and leads me solidly into the camp of wishing the final chapter had been included in the film.
A Clockwork Orange is, at its core, a story about morality. We begin the novel with our protagonist, Alex, and his gang of lackies. Immediately from the jump, you're completely immersed in their world as Burgess spares no moment to explain anything from the setting to the distinct dialect we see used throughout the book's pages. To say I found it a touch hard to follow in the beginning would be an understatement. This, however, ended up adding to my overall takeaway from the novella. Bear with me, we'll get there. Spoilers to follow.
This all changes however when Alex is arrested for the murder of an elderly woman and it is here that Burgess' delicate dance with morality begins. We see a short bit of Alex's time in prison, generally with the theme that he'll serve his years and then get back to how his life was before, though he exhibits a newfound enjoyment for the Bible and religion during his time behind bars. Burgess truly begins to challenge the reader's moral compass when Alex is taken into a State Center for Prison Reform.
There is really only one way I could describe Alex's 'treatment' in guise of reform. Alex is tortured and Burgess lays all out to bear. The question then becomes this. Does Alex's former involvement and perpetration of objectively heinous crimes entitle him to a fortnight of psychological torture? Does the perpetration of a crime warrant the criminal to undergo treatment of debatably the same severity? Why is this torture sanctioned and encouraged? Is it moral to sanction psychological torture if the outcome is a reformed criminal? Does it not just strip the individual of independent thought? Does the repentance of a murderer retain any meaning if the repentance is brought on by repeated Pavlovian conditioning and not the perpetrator's free thought?
Burgess continues to explore this as we follow Alex after his release, his 'reform' having been deemed successful. We see him return home only to find a stranger in his place next to his parents, the welcome he was expecting turned cold and unaccepting in reality. We follow Alex next as he revisits many of the places he and his cronies frequented in the book's opening pages, culminating ultimately in his brutalization and abandonment by his former 'friend' and former enemy. It is here Alex returns to a very prominent place in his story: the home of a man whose wife he brutally attacked and gang raped years ago which led to her untimely death.
At first, the man, a writer of a novel of the same name as the one I review now, doesn't recognize Alex and instead takes him in under a guise of kindness with the plan of using Alex and his story as a political pawn. And he does just that, handing our protagonist off to three of his colleagues just as he begins to realize Alex's true identity. It is with these three colleagues that Alex's mistreatment continues, culminating in the youth's attempted suicide. After a short stay in the hospital, Alex is released once again with the assurances of safety from the very people who initiated his first bout of torture in the name of 'reform'.
Unfortunately for them, Alex's suicide attempt seems to have undone a majority of the classical conditioning embedded into his psyche with much of his bloodlust and love for violence returning as he lays in his hospital bed. What we see now though, as Alex leaves the hospital, is a brief return to his former criminal compulsions before we see a genuine change in our protagonist. The final chapter of the novel, omitted from the film, shows us that, despite all he's undergone, Alex has grown. He longs for a family, specifically a son, and we end the novel with a final farewell from our leading man.
TL;DR: The ending of A Clockwork Orange is one that left me deeply contemplative and to say it didn't affect me would be a lie. Burgess' entrancing playfulness with language and the detailed horrific mistreatment undergone by his protagonist provides a haunting dichotomy that lingers with the reader as they near its final pages and leaves them pondering many sociological ideas, truly exploring the limits of human morality and what it means to make a choice.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail