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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: 2 stars
Summary: A novel by a young writer.
Review: The highlight of this book is the invented language that the narrator speaks. The slang makes the Alex very imposing and makes the book a lot of fun to read, but this is where my praise ends.

The main problem with the novel is that every few pages somebody gets up on a soapbox and talks about the importance of free will. Burgess should have let the reader figure that out on his own. A Clockwork Orange sometimes reads more like a pamphlet than a novel.

Aside from my stylistic criticism I also have to disagree with Burgess' point about free will. The beginning of the novel sees Alex and his friends hospitalize innocent people, brutally rape and murder a woman in her home while they force her husband to watch, and commit other equally appalling acts of violence. The rest of the novel sees Alex himself get beat around, unable to defend himself. Personally I have no sympathy for him. Burgess should have toned down Alex's crimes in the beginning if he wanted the reader's sympathy. (Which he needs if the reader is to agree that Alex's punishment was somehow not warranted.)

Finally, if you do read this novel, make certain that your edition contains the final chapter, which crucial to Burgess' argument that Alex did not require his radical treatment.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Freedom!!!
Review: A great and wild book. If you have the stomach, it will change your lif

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Clockwork Orange: A combo of violence and genius
Review: A Clockwork Orange is the best book I have read to date. Although right now I am starting Naked Lunch by Burroughs and that could beat it out. So if you are deciding whether to read this book I will make it really easy for you: just read it! I swear, once you start reading it you won't put it down. I know I sound corny but how else can I put. It's just a great book. Burgess is brilliant. His characters come to life right before your eyes. Oh yeah, one more thing. Read the British version because it contains the "controversial last chapter" that the late and great Stanley Kubrick left out of his masterpiece. The last chapter wraps the book up by giving the reader the full experience of the book. Also he/she receives the entire message Burgess so ingeniusly put to paper.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: As brutally funny and revealing as ever...
Review: Reading "A Clockwork Orange" for the first time is always rough going. The slang slows you down, sure, but the first couple of chapters are almost pure action, so it isn't that difficult to decipher what's going on. Like most other readers, I confess to spending a good deal of time flipping to the back and then to the front again (Stanley Edgar Hyman's afterword is excellent) -- then finally just gave up and smashed straight through the book in one sitting. It was more than worth it.

The book is more than about sex and violence, of course -- it's one of the few truly philosophical novels, wherein a subject is confronted directly on its own turf. Alex and his gang of droogs suck down drug-spiked milk (Freud would have LOVED this book) and get into violent altercations with everything and everyone. "What I do I do because I like to do," Alex 'fesses up readily: he's young, clever, unrepentant, and fascinatingly repulsive. All the more important that he be that way, because after he's thrown in prison and experimented on in a bizarre behavior-modification program, he's gone from being a vital, if hateful man to being a State-programmed robot. Which is worse? Burgess argues that both are wicked and undesirable, but that at least a "naturally" evil Alex can be confronted without the same sorts of squirming justifications that a "deprogrammed" Alex comes with. The novel's final chapter (deleted from most U.S. editions) shows Alex ultimately growing up and shirking his violent but monolithically dull past; it has since been reinstated, and shows the book coming full circle in a far more satisfying way. (N.B.: Stanley Kubrick's excellent film version does not deliberately omit the final chapter; Kubrick never read it.)

Burgess's reaction to his own book's success has been muted, to put it mildly. He has repeatedly claimed this is not his favorite nor his best effort; I wonder if this could be chalked up to the perpetual problem of the Artist In Spite Of Himself. No matter. Burgess's amazing book will far outlive any of its detractors, and it seems its own author as well.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Greatest Book Ever Written
Review: This is by far the gratest book ever written. One thing that people oftin forget is that this book is also very funny. Brillent language, and exuisit writing make this a real horrorshow of a book. I highly reccomend it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A tale of pure concentrated evil
Review: Anthony burgess creates a character who has no concious, no regrets, and no qualms about raping innocent women or doing drugs or leading an ultra-violent street gang.ironically enough the book is not about this character but instead focuses on the his rehabilation in whish he loses his free will to become a moral being and in so doing the system tales away his soul "a man who cannot freely choose is not a man" This is the ultimate tale of playing God.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The greatest novel i have ever viddied.
Review: This book is pheonomanal. There arent enough words to describe it. It is, without a doubt Horrorshow.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: WOW
Review: Anthony Burgess has written a classic here. The book brings you into Alex's Mind by using teenage (NADSAT) British slang and all. This is by far the best book I've read; Brave New World running a close 2nd.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good book but,
Review: This is a good book; however, it does help if the reader has an extensive Russian vocabulary. Talking to peers and reading criticism, I've yet to find anyone else who has realized that his "made-up" language is realy just phonetic russian translaions (ie. korova-cow, mesto-place/location, moloko-milk, bog-god, mozg-brain/center, peet-to drink, horrorshow-good, ect.) Why hasn't anyone else noticed? I'm afraid that to get the true essence of the book I've had to keep my Russian dictionary with me at all times, and as a result, the reading has been rather slow.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: THE BEST BOOK I'VE READ TO DATE!
Review: When I first began reading "A Clockwork Orange", I found it difficult and frustrating to read. The language Mr. Burgess has created is annoying at first. But after a while you don't even think about what words like "rasoodocks, rot, govereeting...etc." mean. It becomes second nature. When I finally understood these words, I found the book impossible to put down. I loved the style that Burgess wrote this masterpiece. He does not write it like a man in his fifties; he writes like the fifteen, and seventeen year old character that is Alex. The story is distorted in the way that any story would be told throught the eyes of an immature teenage "droog." Finally, the much debated final chapter. I would not dream of giving it away, but I will say that the story may suffer depending on how you percieve the Alex of this chapter. Personally, I could go either way, But it does seem more satisfying without that final chapter. I HIGHLY, HIGHLY RECOMEND this FANTASTIC, FANTASTIC Novel.


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