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Anthony Burgess

A Clockwork Orange Paperback – April 17, 1995

by Anthony Burgess (Author)

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Great Music, it said, and Great Poetry would like quieten Modern Youth down and make Modern Youth more Civilized. Civilized my syphilised yarbles.

A vicious fifteen-year-old droog is the central character of this 1963 classic. In Anthony Burgess's nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. When the state undertakes to reform Alex to "redeem" him, the novel asks, "At what cost?" This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition and Burgess's introduction "A Clockwork Orange Resucked."

Print length

213 pages
Language

English
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

April 17, 1995
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.6 x 8.3 inches
ISBN-10

0393312836
ISBN-13

978-0393312836
Lexile measure

1310L
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A brilliant novel... a savage satire on the distortions of the single and collective minds."
― New York Times

"Looks like a nasty little shocker, but is really that rare thing in English letters: a philosophical novel."
― Time

"I do not know of any other writer who has done as much with language as Mr. Burgess has done here ― the fact that this is also a very funny book may pass unnoticed."
― William S. Burroughs

"A terrifying and marvelous book."
― Roald Dahl

About the Author

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) is the author of many works, including The Wanting Seed, Nothing Like the Sun, and Re Joyce. A Clockwork Orange is one of the "100 best novels" of both Time magazine and Modern Library and is on David Bowie's Book List.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company (April 17, 1995)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 213 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393312836
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393312836
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1310L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.7 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.3 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #448,173 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4,536 in Psychological Fiction (Books)
- #11,438 in Classic Literature & Fiction
- #23,524 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
7,397 ratings

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Anthony Burgess

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Anthony Burgess (1917-1993) was a novelist, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. He is best known for his novel A Clockwork Orange (1962), but altogether he wrote thirty-three novels, twenty-five works of non-fiction, two volumes of autobiography, three symphonies, more than 250 other musical works, and thousands of essays, articles and reviews.

Burgess was born in Manchester, England and grew up in Harpurhey and Moss Side. He was educated at Xaverian College and Manchester University. He lived in Malaya, Malta, Monaco, Italy and the United States, among other places. His books are still widely read all over the world.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

7,397 global ratings

5 star		73%
4 star		15%
3 star		6%
2 star		2%
1 star		3%

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Fred Rothganger

Better than I expected

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 18, 2022

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This is one of those books I knew I should read but avoided for years. My preconception was something similar to Orwell's 1984, some horrid and depressing dystopia. The current cover on Amazon does little to dispel that. The book does in fact hint at a dystopian society, but that's merely backdrop. The focus is on the main character (Alex), what he does and why he does it.

Alex is a truly bad guy. The books tells us the bad things he does, but not in titillating detail. That would sort of miss the point. As the narrative voice, Alex pretty much just summarizes what happens and then moves on to the next thing. I simultaneously feel revulsion, but also sympathize with him, even when his reasoning is utterly self-centered. It's a strange sensation.

The middle of the story tells about the aversive-conditioning process Alex goes through. Even here, he mostly summarizes rather than going into a lot of detail. As narrator, Alex even tells us that he's skipping some stuff because it's just too awful. They don't actually torture Alex like they do in 1984. Instead, it's all psychological, a mixture of drugs and the forced viewing of movies depicting horrible acts.

The theme seems to be a contrast between internally-motivated goodness versus externally-induced behavior. In the famously controversial last chapter, Alex just gradually grows out of it, as if being bad were simply a phase of childhood. I think this is a better ending than the penultimate chapter, but it stills seems a big unsatisfactory. It seems to dismiss how evil and selfish Alex is through most of the book. It doesn't present any kind of repentance. OTOH, it might be consistent with how criminally-minded people change as they grow old.

5 people found this helpful

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Ksenia Anske

I'm struck by literary genius

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 11, 2014

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And so I sit here, struck by literary genius, O my brothers. I must tell you I have indulged in this book perhaps more than any of you, unless you're Russian also. My native language intertwined with this astounding work of brilliant horror, coloring it rich and scary and crazy at the same time, with me imagining it as it was spoken, properly. Brrrrr. I feel like there is the voice of Anthony Burgess in my head, reciting as Alex. I must tell you one more thing, before I go on. I have read the version with the 21st chapter, the very end that's been cut off in the original American publication, but was kept in the British, hence the review might differ from the version that didn't have it. You see, Alex changed, as impossible as it might have seem, he did change in that last 21st chapter, and indeed it changed the story itself. There is hope, after all, for the Alexes of the world. Makes you wonder, doesn't, what kind of decision made it cut from the American version in the first place. But I'm getting carried away into mundane. Now, I must say, this will be the book to re-read and to re-read and to re-read, among such works of genius as Lolita, War and Peace, and the like. I've never read Burgess before, and I plan on indulging more and more in his work in coming years, because, oh well, because the explosion of the beautiful and the appalling, the sophisticated and the primitive strikes such a fine balance, that you feel it, you smell it, you taste it, you hear it, you see it like it's unfolding around you, and you unfold around it, and inside it, and all is in and out and together, and you raise your head from the book to answer that call and you no longer know who you are or why or where. Last time a new writer had such an impact on me it was Haruki Murakami with 1Q84. I can't say wow, because it sounds boring. Let me try. It will deposit fireworks in your brain. It will skin you and pin you with sharp words all real proper. It will put you in a mind of one you don't want to be yet feel for by the end of the book, unsure how it happened. Namely, little Alex.

Little Alex. Little Alex has a proper mum and pop, lives in a proper flat, in a proper block, all good. But it's not enough for little Alex. Little Alex likes to perform a bit of ultra-violence every night with his droogs, but it's just simple bloodletting, oh no. It's more sophisticated than that. Alex has wit, Alex is fond of classical music, Alex adds the disturbing twist to his crimes, and that, only at 15. He does everything there is to try, the beating, the cutting, the raping, the stealing, until one day he stumbles on killing, and that's a slippery slope that leads him to an institution where some very interesting new curing methods are tried on him, and lo and behold, I can't tell you no more as otherwise I will spoil it for you, in case you happened to have been untouched by this story, wether in book or film shape. Anyway. It all turns around, of course, as things do in life. Those who do crimes, pay for their crimes, but who is to judge what is fair? How much do you pay, and when can we stop the punishment? I know there have been horsed of scholars who said smart things about this book and about life and people at large and how it relates, but on my level I can tell you that the coin has always two sides, and we may forever wonder if what the author was trying to say, but I have a feeling that is wasn't simple glorifying of sex and violence, as it might seem. Oh no. It's about "Why?", and about "Why not?" Why do we have violence and those who enjoy it? Because those who do it can tell you, why not? When we're blind as to why we shouldn't, we do it just because we can, don't we? We do until we get caught. That's how we learn. Some earlier, some later. Alex does learn, eventually, but at a cost. Okay, I need to shut up now otherwise this will turn into an essay. Go read it. It will, literally, blow your mind.

6 people found this helpful

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LiterallyLiterary

Full on Social Satire, No Holds Barred.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 14, 2014

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To call this book "dystopian", as so many seem inclined to do, is a complete misrepresentation of it. It's contemporary social satire that's just as relevant today as it was when first published in the early 1960s.

What makes this book difficult is not so much the mindless violence that the narrator engages in or the nadsat language that he uses, but moreover the directness with which Burgess wrote the story. He didn't soften it by loading it up with metaphors, he went straight for the jugular.

The satire in this book clearly attacks at least three aspects of society, each given their own section in the book:

Part one takes a shot at the choice, notions of "free will" are closely examined in this book, of Alex and his cohorts to freely engage in hooliganism and mindless crime for no other reason than that they can. Alex revels in it, glorifies himself through it and makes no apologies. Alex is not written to be likable, he is neither protagonist nor anti-hero; he is simply Alex who exercised his free will contrary to how we would have liked to see him do it.

Part two attacks corrupt, hypocritical governments and other power structures and what they do with their powers when left unchecked. After Alex is simply thrown in prison for his crimes, he hears of a new experimental method of "reforming" criminals in such a way that they will not ever re-offend. Officially, this is done to ease the burden on the prison system. Realistically, it's a disturbing and invasive behavioral control mechanism that goes much deeper than simply eradicating Alex's criminal tendencies; it stifles his ability to take much joy in life at all, criminal or benign. The classical music he was passionate about before the "treatment" is unbearable to him after. What they do to "reform" Alex is pure abuse of power and no less disturbing than anything Alex himself ever did.

Part three takes a run at anti-government groups and how they use, and often abuse, people. After his release from prison. Alex eventually and unwittingly finds his way into the company of a man who he horribly victimized in the first part and two other men representing and anti-government organization. Initially, they see Alex as a potential "poster boy" for their cause and intend to use him as evidence to the public of how evil the government is; however, a combination of Alex's former victim eventually recognizing Alex for who he really is and Alex later trying to take his own life sees the anti-government movement abandon Alex almost as quickly as they rallied around him. Their only interest in him was as a tool for their cause.

This book challenges the reader because it gives no true protagonist to bond to, in fact it strives to keep a distance between the reader and the narrator and the nadsat slang is a big part of how that's done. The slang is not actually that difficult to figure out as there is enough standard English to give context. The key is that nadsat works exactly as slang should, that is as an exclusionary language; every generation creates its own slang to confuse older, more authoritative generations and to keep them somewhat in the dark.

Burgess places the reader in the position of being a bystander to the goings on in the story; close enough that we can see, but still outside of it and not directly involved. Disturbingly like watching a television newscast these days.

misspent youth, government corruption and anti-government groups of often dubious motives existed at the time Burgess wrote this book and they still exist today; they are timeless things. As such, this book is anything but dystopian; it's uncomfortably contemporary.

As for the film adaptation; that was certainly not one of Stanley kubrick's finest hours. It only very loosely follows the story, cuts out a lot of critical events and adjusts certain characters' physical qualities to the point where a lot of the shock value is lost.

Read this edition of the book for best effect. The notes, essays and interviews at the end are very enlightening and add greatly to the overall reading experience.

25 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

A.J. Sefton

Original, disturbing of its time but also relevant today

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 6, 2019

Verified Purchase

In one respect, A Clockwork Orange is of its time. Written in 1961 when the 'teenager' as an entity had just come about, (complete with its own language, dress code, music and culture) the novel deals with this 'problem', finds a solution and then considers the consequences.

The protagonist is an unlikable teenage thug who leads a gang into acts of extreme violence. There are no excuses for his behaviour, such as having a dysfunctional or poor family life, he simply enjoys what he does. What this means is that I have no sympathy for him. He also is quite original in that he likes classical music and has invented a language that he and his friends use, which is a mixture of slang and words taken from Eastern European countries.

This invented language leads to two things. One is that I struggled to follow the story for a while as the flow was interrupted by having to refer to the glossary far too often, so that in the end I just ploughed through without fully understanding what the word meant. Does he have a pain in the stomach or the head? Never mind, move on. Very frustrating. However, this also serves to diminish the impact of the violence, which is very disturbing. Flicking to the glossary to find out what has covered the floor certainly disrupts the graphic imagery.

The next two parts of the book demonstrate an evergreen theme: freewill. Should delinquent members of society be forced to conform to the accepted standards by brainwashing or other such programmes, or be allowed to suffer the consequences of their choices organically. There are other themes covering good versus evil, man versus machine, man versus government, youth versus maturity, and intellect versus intuition. All relevant today.

The story is told from the perspective of the protagonist in a lighthearted, frivolous and arrogant manner, suitable for someone capable of such unfeeling brutality against others. The style does not connect with the depravity or touch the dark acts in the way many other novels do, so I always felt disconnected from the story. Perhaps that is the point. Towards the end it also feels as if the author has lost his way a bit, too.

A Clockwork Orange certainly has an originality, but as it took me three weeks to read a relatively short book, it suggests I wasn't drawn to the story as much as I expected.

29 people found this helpful

Literature_lover

Restored edition great

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 30, 2019

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This is the penguin restored edition. First off, it looks and feels good (paper quality feels marginally better than most). The main selling point is this book has lots of 'extras' at the back, including various commentary works on the book, and helpfully some notes on the text and a nasat glossary.

The story itself is remarkably true to the film (ok I know the book came first but the film was what made it iconic). The nadsat isn't tricky, you can still understand what's going on even if you don't understand particular words (and if that bothers you check the glossary) and gives a unique flavour to the book. The last chapter is well...it divides people. I personally think it's better without but Burgess did write it so it does belong as part of the book. An interesting read for fans of the film and generally literature for it's nadsat language.

7 people found this helpful

T

Excellent.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 20, 2016

Verified Purchase

Having only ever watched the film, I had always thought that the book wouldn't be worth reading. I remember someone asking whether I had read the book and I suppose that eventually lead me to buying it. I'm not a huge reader but I do enjoy some fictional works. I can happily say that I have no regrets in deciding to give the book a go. I was surprised that it's actually very graphic, I had thought that the film had been spiced up a little bit by Kubrick - perhaps it was in some areas - but the film does omit some events (including the reason for the title). To me this story has everything. It isn't just a tale of mindlessness, it is a comment on youth and free will, with a bit of oddness thrown in. I have no trouble with saying that this is my favourite book ever.

28 people found this helpful

Pav P

An interesting read!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 21, 2015

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In Anthony Burgess's nightmare (ultra-violent) depiction of the future, where criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character/protagonist, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang (Nadsat, a fictional register or argot, a form of Russian-influenced English) that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom.

The use of Nadsat can be relatively confusing for the reader, however, you slowly begin to understand the terminology while progressing through the novel. This is an interesting tool as it acts as a buffer for the reader, protecting them from the horror initially and then opening up and divulging the gritty details as the plot develops.

19 people found this helpful

Shopper 05

Cleverly Written And Deeply Impactful

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 3, 2020

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Arrived quickly and in brilliant condition. Well made with a robust spine and no misprints or stains on any page or creases on any cover.
Burgess should take great pride in A Clockwork Orange as the novel is a unique assessment of law and order through the chaotic life of its titular character.
A short but sweet effort ACO encompasses a multitude of horrors in its 141 pages but the childish writing softens the blow here. The slang the book is written in is easy to decipher and the reader is quickly able to read between the lines and get to the heart of the novel, when this is done, you have an achievement, balancing comedy and horror in the perfect blend and despite Kubrick adapting this to a phenomenal motion picture, in this case, once again, the book remains superior to the film.

One person found this helpful

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