Rating: 
Summary: One of the best
Review: Once you get over the language barrier (and you do after a while), this book is a pretty quick read. However, do not let that overshadow the significance of the book. I read it for the first time in high school and it is still one of my favorites. The last chapter is not "new"- it was deleted at first from the American printing (on which Kubrik based his film). The last chapter, in my eyes, ultimately forces the question around which Burgess wrote the book. On my AP English exam some years ago, I wrote that the final chapter was a happy ending, and I got a perfect score on the exam. If all you can see is the violence or the language, this book is way above your level.
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Summary: If you like Burgess - You must listen to this recording
Review: This is the only recording I've found of Anthony Burgess reading from A Clockwork Orange. Unbelieveable.
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Summary: Just a note on the terminology within
Review: It's been years since I read this book, but I remember not being able to put it down and a profound fascination with the strange terminology used in the text. I had mentioned some of the words to a foreign-exchange student from Georgia, Russia and he said that they were Russian words. For instance moloko is milk in Russian. By the end of the book you don't think twice about the silly words, because you already know what they mean.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome
Review: Well, after you get used the invented slang (which doesn't take long) it is very easy to read. I personally like this tongue and at times it can be quite funny. The first part of the book is violent, but what isn't these days? This book is an excellent look at what can happen with government given too much power which I feel we are drifting closer and closer to these days, with the Govt. protecting us from ourseleves and all. I really liked this story and has become one of my favorite books of all time.
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Summary: What's it to be then?
Review: Rightly, A Clockwork Orange is viewed as a modern classic, if you'll permit such an oxymoron. It is an intensely moralistic study of society, and its right to judge. The basis for it can perhaps be traced to an incident in Burgess's own life, when his wife faced down an Alex and his droogs. In the novella, Alex, the antihero, relates his adolescent experiences, and the effects he suffers at the hands of a civilized society. Some have accused the novel of being pornographic, violent, and downright distasteful. First, the sexual content is minimal, secondly we live in a violent society, and one person's concept of taste is inherently personal. Whether art affects society or vice versa is a rich topic of debate for middle class dinner parties, not book reviews. Central to this plot is the concept of sin and redemption. Even the societies who manipualte Alex to their own ends are symbolic, eg the Pelagians. Ultimately one could simplify it to the question of personal choice: to choose to be 'bad' or to be forced to be 'good'. I don't belive the book to be immoral. Undoubtedly there is an argument for Alex being amoral, after all, he is only obeying his own philosophy. (Alex, is, literally, without law.) We are forced to draw our own conclusions about the ethics we adopt. I think some of the other reviews are tainted by the fact that for a long time, A Clockwork Orange, in its proper format wasn't available in the States. The 21st chapter was removed without Burgess's permission. This spoilt the moral questions and also ruined the numerical unity of the book. The 21st chapter crucially deals with Alex rejecting his violent lifestyle. To fully understand how Burgess suffered at the hands of the ill informed, especially after the Kubrick fiasco, one should read the Enderby novel, A Clockwork Testament. The only thing to add is a warning: Nadsat is a difficult idiom to grasp, but the wordplay is a glorious exercise in the richness of language in all its forms. This is a rare book, one that challenges the reader and makes her/him think.
Rating: 
Summary: A Clockwork Orange
Review: After reading this book I fail to see any kind or redeaming value that would constitute it being called a "classic" or "a work of art". The biggest problem that I felt it had was that if the same content would have been written by another author, it would have been called pornogrophy but because it was by Burgess it is called classic literature. Beating helpless people, raping women, and drinking some kind of spiked milk should not be something that is glamorized, but it should be something hidden with the rest of the works such as this trash. If a woman is raped and purposefully hurt now in a work of literature, it is seen as some kind of foul scene, but here, because the youths in the book seem to have no sense of right and wrong it is seen as alright. There is something wrong with this. I only gave it one star because I had to for the form to post. Otherwise it would have received none from me.
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Summary: A Malenky Bit of a Great Book
Review: This really is a great book and the language took nothing from the story, in fact it added another dimension to it. It can be easily understood after the first chapter or so. The story is filled with irony and is very thought provoking.
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Summary: Seeing beyond the violence
Review: First of all,'A Clockwork Orange'is a very violent book. The book reached notoriety largely through the Stanley Kubrivk film of the smae name, which was banned for its extreme violence and copycat crimes. However, there is more to the the book than this. Burgess has created a surreal and terrifying futuristic world, in which gangs of teenagers roam the streets, leaving havoc and mayhem in their wake. These horror teens speak their own language, nadsat, which has strong elements of Russian. The fact that the book is written from the first person, and it is written in this slang, makes it quite difficlut to read as a lot of meanings have to be worked out from the context. There is horrific violence, including rape, but behind this are strong and fascinating messages about human nature: whether it is better to be bad by choice or good by default, and the risk of humans becoming machine-like. There is also some fascinating writing about classical music.All in all, highly reccomended but not for the faint of heart.
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Summary: An excellent excellent book
Review: I was given this book by a friend. It's the best that I have ever read. The way in which the writer creates a whole new language is really inspiring. If you are able to get past the first chapter you will really enjoy this book.
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Summary: A fantastic exploration of good and evil
Review: Burgess himself thought that this book is overrated, but I don't agree. This is brilliant on every level. The purpose of the invented slang is to make the book timeless - it doesn't date like it would if he'd used real early 1960s slang. At first I was put off from reading the book by the notoriety surrounding the film. I thought this might be one long round of rape and murder. But it isn't - the violence isn't at all explicit and anyway the effect is dulled by the use of the slang. Clockwork Orange is a deep exploration of good and evil, with the conclusion that it is better to choose to be bad than to be forced to be good. In other words, man's free will must be protected at all costs, and we mustn't curb our nature so that we become little more than a machine - we mustn't become like "a clockwork orange". This is a dystopian nightmare that can easily be ranked alongside "1984" and "Brave New World".
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