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Summary: This book changed many lives
Review: Two versions of this book are in circulation. One version, the one originally created by Burgess, has changed many lives for the better and fulfilled many people's views of society and culture. The other version, the one published in America, is an incomplete and bastardized version of Burgess's original. The ending is changed 100% because the American publishers left the last chapter out of the book. Burgess wrote the book in a format of 3 parts with 7 chapters apiece to add up to 21 chapters. The story is about a boy named Alex who grows up defying society and its laws. Without the final chapter of the book the true ending, and the true future of Alex's fate, is not revealed. Many people who have read this version are left feeling ill and doubtful about the direction of youth. Burgess also created his own language (Nadsat) in the writing of this book. It is slang that the characters use (many of the words are based from Russian) and is easilly tripped over in the beginning. It took me two hours to read the first twelve pages of the book (using the glossary in the back), but after that I could read it easily. I hope this review helps you in making your selection. Good luck, and happy reading.
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Summary: Didn't even Finish it
Review: Alright, Don't get me wrong, I bought the novel, (Amazon said i would like it) took it home, and after i finishing reading my latest Vonnegut Novel, I dove right it face first. At first i was mystified. The launguage in which Burgess makes up (Mostly from russian translations) was kina confusing. After a bit i could pick it up and could stumble my way through. I think the plot of the novel is truely golden. I couldn't speak the future better. However i had to stop reading it because the Made-Up Launguage was just hard to follow and it was making me mad. If you feel you can tackle the Vocabulary, or wish to swich back and forth between a translator and novel, please buy it. otherwise, just go away and never come back.
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Summary: A good read, O my brothers.
Review: This is a book about a boy named Alex whose interests are rape, ultra-violence, and classical music. He and his droogs are in a gang that goes around and indulges in these things. They enjoy drinking milk laced with drugs to sharpen them up for a bit of ultra-violence. This novel is very brutal but the nadsat seems to be a buffer for the brutality. After Alex breaks into a house and beats and old woman his gang members abandon him and leave him beaten, with a chain, for the millicents (police). He is entered into a criminal rehabilitation program. Now when he thinks of the things he used to love he gets sick. This book is one of the greatest pieces of English liturature ever and was even made into a film by Stanley Kubrick. If you want to know what happens to Alex, read the book. This edition includes the 21st chapter which was originally excluded in the original American release. A highly recommended novella. P.S. The nadsat is really cool. After picking up the book with my rookers and viddying it with my very own glazzies I was impressed with Burgess' masterful use of nadsat. EXCELLENT!
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Summary: A Clockwork Orange is Genius
Review: A Clockwork Orange is one of the ingenius novels in the history of all time. It deals with a teenage boy named Alex who lives in England. And when night comes, he and his teenage "droogs" or friends (in Russian) go out and wreak havoc on the city. During one of the groups ultra-violent encounters, Alex accidently kills an old woman. To add up on to the incredibly frustrating situation for Alex, his friends betray him and leave him to be for the police. Stuck in prison, Alex wants to get out as quickly as possible. He starts to suck up to the warden by reading the bible and trying to be "friendly" to be let out earlier than the original sentence of 14 years. Since Alex is 15 at the time of his sentence. To go through his entire sentence, he would be 29 at the age of his release. Alex finds out about a certain technique that is used on prison inmates to make sure that they get out of prison and never return. Almost drooling, Alex finds himself very interested in getting out of prison. He volunteers to have himself as a test subject for the technique. The basic procedure of the technique is to give the patient a certain drug that makes that patient extremely sick. The doctors and scientists then strap down the patient in front of a screen and hold back his eyelids by tape so that he would be brainwashed in a way. Watching the most violent and gruesome of films, Alex is slowly brainwashed to a state where anything that has to do with violence in Alex's mind would automatically engage a very nauseating and stressing feeling makeing Alex extremely sick. After two weeks of the procedures, Alex is let out of the hospital where he was being "treated" and "cleansed." Alex is then rejected by his parents, by his friends, and by his earlier enemies. Being beaten by those who he hurt before prison, and being extremely exauhsted, Alex comes into the possesion of certain rebels of the government. The rebels want to use Alex to overthrow the government which seems to be so cruel and bad. To do this, they want to have Alex commit suicide to show that the treatments that the governemtn applied to prisons is bad and that it leads patients to commit suicide. Jumping out of a window out of extreme frustration, Alex survives and is sent to a hospital to be treated. The government takes control of Alex again and turns him back to his original violent self. Alex enjoying the fact that he can control his emotions and violent feelings once more believe that he is fully cured. Back on the streets of England now at the age of 18, Alex starts to move away from the violent feelings in his life. Wanting more out of life, Alex begins a new era of his life. Escaping out of the animal called youth. This story explains, in great words, the idea that everything changes no matter what. We don't need machines, or governements to make everything "okay." All that we need is to live our lives and let the universe unfold as it should.
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Summary: Incredible use of language...
Review: I have read this book several times, and read many of the reviews posted here. Many wrote that Burgess' invented slang was difficult at first, or slowed the book down. I couldn't disagree more.
Burgess' ear for patterns of speech, colloquialism and his seemingly instinctive choices for slang are uncanny, if not absolutely brilliant. How many writers can invent a language? And do it in such a readable way, that meshes perfectly with the timeframe and intention of the story?
Add to this that he has created empathetic characters, a perfect linear narrative, and an incredible social commentary that has every bit of relevance now as it did when it was written. What is the result?
...A truly great work, which will be read and will provoke thought long after this reviewer and the likes of amazon.com have perished.
Sorry to be so dramatic, but few books fly at this lofty altitude of excellence.
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Summary: Marvelous Piece of Work by Anthony Burgess
Review: This story is tells the story of Alex, the main character and narrator of the story. Alex and his three droogs, friends, Pete, Dim, and Georgie were a horror for the town that they lived in with their ultraviolent ways. They go around stealing, beating, and raping whomever and whenever they please. One day on a regular night Alex and his droogs broke into a house and beat a women to death. As the four were about to make their getaway, Dim, Pete, and Georgie turn on him and knock him down cold. The police took him in and sent him to a state jail for murder. While he was there he made some changes for the better and was picked to be in an experiment to rehabilitate convicts. They give him medicine and make him watch horrifying movies of crimes of all sorts. Whenever he has an urge for violence, he receives an excruciating sickness to his stomach. When this experiment was through, they send Alex into the world. How will the young man last in a harsh world when he can't fight back? The results are all too shocking.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess is a spectacular piece of fiction. This well thought out piece of work is one of a kind. It is one of the most interesting books of it's time for the author, Burgess, writes this book in the teenage language of the future, nadsat as they call it. In this futuristic tale, the main conflict is between good and evil and the freedom of choice. Alex must choose to continue his life of evil or to switch to the side of good. Saw the movie? Think you know the story? Think again because this version contains the lost twenty-first chapter that was never before published in the United States. This ending changes the meaning of the whole book.
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Summary: Better than the Film
Review: Most people probaly only know about this book because of the Kubrick movie. This book is so my favorite book of all time. So involving, and I can't belive the original version didn't have the last chapter. Thank bog it does now.
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Summary: Yikes!!!
Review: Burgess said that this was one of his least favorite novels but when it comes to books that delve into the basic primal instincts of man, this one tops the lists. He (Alex) exhibits an entirely nonchalant attitude toward violent crime. I think that Burgess was trying to get readers to understand that if man does not stop his violent downward spiral, the world found in "A Clockwork Orange" will become the world we live in. A real horrorshow effort.
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Summary: MS. VAILL READ THIS!
Review: I loved the way that a book like A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess, can make the reader feel bad for the villain. It is the story of a fifteen-year-old boy named Alex, who maims, rapes and robs people for recreation. He doesn't really think much of it, just as we don't think much of killing a fly. Well one night, he and his droogs (gang friends) go to a house to rob it, and Alex ends up killing the lady and then is betrayed by his droogs and brought in by the police. He then goes under a new scientific procedure that will make him good again... One of my favorite quotes from the book pretty much sums it up: "Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?" (p. 95). I thought this book was eye opening. It really debates whether it is better to choose, for better or worse, or to let people tell you what to do. It also shows how desensitized people get after being exposed to so much violence. At first it is hard to understand, with all of Alex's slang (hands are "rookers," guys are "malchiks," and the aforementioned droogs). But as one gets more into the book, one picks up on the slang, and it is a great language that Burgess writes in.
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Summary: Viddy well, my little droogies!
Review: This book, though looked at by some as impossible to read and looked at by others as glorifying violence, really does have a point: a person can change. While the movie and the original American version of the book don't have this redeeming quality, this new version does, mostly because of the inclusion of a new chapter that should have been included in the movie and original American version of the book. Those who say that this book isn't thought-provoking don't know what they're talking about. I would recommend this book to anyone who has the patience to work through the very difficult dialogue. Even after having read greats like Shakespeare and Dostoevsky, "A Clockwork Orange" is even harder to read, but like the works of the great authors I mentioned above, "A Clockwork Orange" has a greater point than it seems on the surface. Read this book with an open mind and your opinion will definitely be changed.
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