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A Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange

List Price: $13.95
Your Price: $10.46
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Frustrating and disturbing
Review: After twenty pages I threw this book against the wall. I have never read a more frustrating and disturbing book. All the dialogue is gibberish. In the first twenty pages, Alex and his lackies beat a guy senseless and rob him; they steal a car and trash it, they get into a vicious gang fight; they attack a couple at their home, destroy the husband's life work (his book "A Clockwork Orange") beat him and his wife senseless and rape the wife. This really ticked me off. I read this expecting a great story because it's a "classic", but I was severly disappointed. If you want to read the book, save yourself the frustration trying to wade through the garbage and read the last three pages.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Necessity For Any "Public Biblio", My Fellow Droogs!
Review: This book is fantastic. It's a shame that the original version was missing the final chapter. For, the final chapter is what holds the meaning for the rest of the book. A young man falls from grace, pays his dues, yet it seems that is not enough for some! Eventually, he is no better off than before. In the final chapter, though, he comes to terms, and realizes what he must do to finally achieve peace of mind. Burgess' use of teen slang is hilarious, and yet adds to the character, and the over all tone. There is also a message that we should all leave well-enough alone. Some things are meant to be the way they are. Also, the whole concept that people can and do change with age is evident moreso in the final chapter, which is another reason why its previous omission was a true travesty. This book is a classic. A sure-fire classic! I strongly recommend this for anyone who is a fan of Beat Literature(Kerouac); especially the work of William S. Burroughs. The story development is much the same, although Burgess represents the British counterpart to Burroughs. But, contrary to Burroughs' Naked Lunch, the main figure of Clockwork emerges rejuvenated, and free of worry, whereas Burroughs' main figure, William Lee, is a martyr for his craft. Either way, this is a great read, and is a good example of both what goes on inside the criminal mind, and superb revolutionary literature.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: a response to madness
Review: this book is an amazing feet of acomplishment. i mainly have a prblem with the reviewer who gave it a bad grade. your reasons where because you thought there where a million books like it, and better. why not try to rate the book based on THE BOOK for once? not based on why others like it. and how do you know what the aurthor likes or disslikes? i personaly loved it and have read some of these other books of "yours", and thought they had an interesting new perspective on the subject as well. thank you all for your time.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: 1/2 of The Clockwork Orange
Review: The Clockwork Orange is definitely an interesting and strange novel. From the first page on, the reader gets trapped to reading into a new language. The language however hard to interpret truly gets the reader engaged into the writing. I believe that the language helps to get the reader involved and as the story goes on the language gets easier and easier to understand. I am about halfway through the story and as I go on it keeps getting better. I'm finding myself in the mind of Alex (the self-proclaimed narrator of the story). I never want to put down the book because it is so enticing. Although a bit violent and gruesome the story really is exciting to read. The one thing that I absolutely loved about the book is the fact that Anthony Burgess incorporated the title, The Clockwork Orange, into the book. He did this by writing up a scene where Alex and his friends confront an author who is actually writing a book called The Clockwork Orange. I have to admit I am not an avid reader but this book is really grabbing my attention. The Clockwork Orange starts out by introducing Alex and all his droogs. Droogs are what they call friends. The author also goes on to describe the area in which they live in and the atmosphere. One night Alex and his fellow droogs go out and have a night on the town. However your perception and their perception of having fun are completely different. They go out to cause trouble. Stealing, fighting, and raping are just three things that they love to do with other people. Once they feel like the police are leading to them, they give up for the night. The next day Alex stays home from school and finds himself more trouble to get into. That same night, after a few fights break out between his droogs, they all set out to cause more mischief.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Clockwork Orange
Review: This great book follows the life of young Alex and his "droogs", from their nightly "ultraviolence" to Alex's prison days. This book has great use of its dark futuristic (of the time that it was written) setting. I liked how burgess showed who Alex was right in the beginning by use of showing Alex and his friends prowling the streets, looking for trouble. At first I didn't like the words that Alex used, but once I got used to them, they added alot to the book. The book was written very well and Burgess used very good character development.

I like the ideas of the book alot, also. I like that Burgess seemed to be against the doctors messing with Alex's head. I think that he was because of the political writers he used to bring the doctors and the government people that funded them down. I also like how he showed how some people would do any thing to get what they want done. He did this when He showed Alex lay down in the bed and the people that were supposed to be helping him played the music that made him jump out of the window.

I am glad that I read the version with the final chapter that was omitted from the book the first time it came to America from Britain. I'm not quite sure why it was left out, but it pretty much changes the whole scope of the book. It shows that even someone as bad as Alex can change.

Over all, it is a great book and I highly recommend it to you.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Spare Some Cutter Me Brothers
Review: Well my brothers the adventures of young Alex and his 'droogs' will have you incaptivated, shocked and amused forget the pseudo-intellectualisation of good and evil and the semantics of free will. From under-age sex to brutality and violence young Alex explores the whole gamut of depravity. As an English reviwer where the film of this great novel is still banned and Anthony Burgess is somewhat underlooked in literary circles his writing from historical novels to the eponymous Mr.Enderby collect dust in second hand book shops throughout this land. Like the author, live life as if it were a book rather than through a book, this is the gift 'A Clockwork Orange' represents rather than an over emphasisation of a moral duality....So what are you waiting for get clicking that mouse and order an adventure today.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Mystery of Human Soul
Review: This book raises an eternal and crucial problem of ethical philosophy - the problem of free will, of free human choice between Good and Evil. Can a person be forced to be virtuous? Vladimir Solovyev, a great Russian philosopher of the nineteenth century, wrote that an intent of the law is not to transform a human being into an angel but to prevent their transmutation into a devilish beast. The government officials in Anthony Burgess' distopia conducted a forced metamorphosis of a morally brute protagonist into some celestial critter incapable of doing any harm. The result is deplorable: produced Clockwork Orange, whom nobody needs except some unscrupulous politicians, can not survive in society based on lie and violence. Forced Good is ephemeral and powerless before Evil.

The last chapter gives a new dimension, new profundity to the story. Good, which was impossible to inculcate from without, appears uncoerced within the depth of the soul of adult hero supplanting Evil and Hate. The novel is full of violence but it gives a hope: the author believes in an ultimate triumph of Good in human being.

The language of the novel is positively unique. For those who know both English and Russian its reading is a pure pleasure. The author spells Russian words (sometimes slightly transformed) in English letters and uses them with Russian meanings but under the rules of English grammar. The result is stupendous: such exquisite inter-language play of words, such splendid construction of sentences I've never met. However, Russian translation of 'A Clockwork Orange' is rather lackadaisical, and that only confirms novel's inimitable originality.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Disturbance with a Purpose
Review: Such a complex book to review. Let me get to the point: if you are at all queasy about violence or not ready or willing to contemplate what makes us human- this is not the book for you. On the surface, it is simply the tale of a "droog," reformed, then unbrainwashed, and then redeemed. The Russian slang adds incredible flavor to the story, but also another layer of difficulty. And the final chapter... This is not an easy book to read, dispite its length. It is, however, an important book. A rare thing- this Western novel of philosophy. Where does our free-will begin and end? If we can be killed for our crimes, why not taught to be good? What is the place of the individual in society, and when must its freedom be sacrificed for the "greater good"? All questions are address but few are are answered. Yes, a dense a complicated book. But if you have the stomach, the persistance for the language, and a questioning nature this book is well worth the time spent reading it, no matter what your final conclusions.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ...
Review: People have argued that A Clockwork Orange is too violent, too "out-there", too difficult to understnad, but if you pay any attention at all to any sort of possible meaning that can be gained from Burgess' masterpiece it is simply incredible. A CLockwork Orange and its respective film pushed William S. Burroughs and Hunter S. Thompson to 2nd and 3rd on my list of absolutely the best books ever written. The entire concept, characters, language,...everything about A Clockwork Orange is incredible and everyone must read it!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A Clockwork Orange
Review: I am only moderately surprised that I'm the first reviewer to give this book less than five stars for "non-moral" reasons. A Clockwork Orange, like the works of Salinger or Rand, is one of those books that inhabits a literary island of its own where it is treated with reverence like some sort of quasi-literary bible, but seems to have little association with other literary works. How many people who reviewed this book, for example, have gone on to read other works by Burgess?

That aside, Burroughs' spiel on the back cover is off, unsurprisingly, as the Beats are another literary sub-culture with fans who tend towards insularity in their literary diet.

Many authors have done more with language than Mr. Burgess, much more. Many authors have written on the subject of free will and society vs. the individual with much more insight. Burgess himself in the forward essentially expresses the desire to disown the book.

To the book itself. I wasn't shocked at all by the violence or sexuality. The language was not difficult to follow. In fact, I wish that Mr. Burgess had been bolder. I was annoyed by his continual clarifications of meaning. The slang was limited to about a dozen words and consequently didn't ring true for me. In fact, the entire work read like the scribblings of an academic who lived locked in his study in a little place called "Home." I couldn't help imagining what a similar book written by someone like Celine would have been like.

Very pedantic, extremely sophomoric, it deserves to be called what it is: another entry in the cult of cool, well-known because of Stanley Kubrick, respected because those who admire it have not first been exposed to Beckett, Joyce, Gaddis, Pynchon, or Nabokov, or any such master of language. Alas for Mr. Burgess. His wish that this unwanted spawn be relegated to obscurity will, it seems, never be granted.


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