Sign in with Facebook
Paul Bryant's Reviews > A Clockwork Orange
A Clockwork Orange
by
by
In 1960 Anthony Burgess was 43 and had written 4 novels and had a proper job teaching in the British Colonial Service in Malaya and Brunei. Then he had a collapse and the story gets complicated. But I like the first cool version AB told, which was that he was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour and given a year to live. Since as you know he lived a further 33 years, we may conclude the doctors were not entirely correct. However - the doctor tells you you have a year to live - what do you do?* Lapse into a major depression? Get drunk and stay drunk? Buy a Harley davidson? Not if you were Anthony Burgess. Uxorious regard for his wife's future security bade him to place his arse on a chair in the unpleasing English seaside town of Hove and type out five and a half novels in the one year left to him, which, he later pointed out, was approximately equivalent to E M Forster's entire lifetime output. And the last of these five completed novels was A Clockwork Orange.
No mean feat.
So, this little novel should be on everyone who hasn't read it's must read list. It's a real hoot, and it's absolutely eerie in its predictions about youth culture and recreational drug use. It's also very famous for its hilarious language, all those malenky droogs, horrorshow devotchkas and gullivers and lashings of the old in-out in-out - the reader must be warned that it's very catching and you will for sure begin boring all your friends and family about tolchocking the millicents and creeching on your platties and suchlike. They'll give you frosty looks and begin avoiding you at the breakfast table, but you won't be able to help it. In extreme cases they might smeck your grazhny yarbles and that will definately shut you up.
* Reminds me of the old joke where the doctor says to the guy "I'm sorry to say you only have three minutes to live." Guy says "Isn't there anything you can do for me?" Doctor says "I could boil you an egg."
No mean feat.
So, this little novel should be on everyone who hasn't read it's must read list. It's a real hoot, and it's absolutely eerie in its predictions about youth culture and recreational drug use. It's also very famous for its hilarious language, all those malenky droogs, horrorshow devotchkas and gullivers and lashings of the old in-out in-out - the reader must be warned that it's very catching and you will for sure begin boring all your friends and family about tolchocking the millicents and creeching on your platties and suchlike. They'll give you frosty looks and begin avoiding you at the breakfast table, but you won't be able to help it. In extreme cases they might smeck your grazhny yarbles and that will definately shut you up.
* Reminds me of the old joke where the doctor says to the guy "I'm sorry to say you only have three minutes to live." Guy says "Isn't there anything you can do for me?" Doctor says "I could boil you an egg."
Sign into Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ to see if any of your friends have read
A Clockwork Orange.
Sign In »
Reading Progress
Comments Showing 1-40 of 40 (40 new)
date
newest »
newest »
"In extreme cases they might smeck your grazhny yarbles and that will definately shut you up"Smeck means laugh though, doesn't it? If you wanted to get technical :p
Smeck means laugh? Aww, now I have to reread the whole thing! .... actually, i think I just forgot.
I walked into the cinema, sat down, and watched about 10 minutes of the film.I walked out. I love your review and but the admonition to read the book is taken with a pinch of snuff, sir. I'll just have to remain illiterate.
I think it's worth reading for the economy of language, personally. The pure economical deceiving ugly-truth whizbang of language.
Some people say this book is difficult to read because of the Nadsat it uses. I can see it being difficult for other reasons, most certainly. But the language is not the hard part, trust me. I found this one easier to read, language-wise, than most other novels.
You could have a go at Trainspotting then! (if you haven't read it already and if you have a taste for Scottish junkies).
Yes! Yes! My library has it! Thanks for the recommendation, Paul.
Er..... wait till you read it before you thank me!!!
I haven't read this one yet.Or should I?
Depends on how willing you are to look below the surface. I would say YES!!!! but I wouldn't want to push anybody into a reading experience like this.
SPOILER!!!!I HATE HATE HATE HATE the ending in which that little shithead-sociopath gets all better. What a load of crap.
Funny and brilliant .As usual.
Aw Paul, you will certainly have something to say about what Lewis says about A Clockwork Orange.
I never found Hove unpleasing in the five years I spent there in the late sixties while at college. The cricket ground is one of the best.
Our tastes may be different. I regard cricket as a baffling affliction. The BBC is afflicted by a virulent strain.
It would have been better if you had given the 'uncool' version of this story as well as this is becoming as famous as Dostoevsky's supposed return from a near-death experience at the hands of the firing squad ( that story has an uncool version as well).Not much wrong with Hove though. It could be worse, he could have settled in Brighton itself or kept on traveling and reached Beachy Head near Eastbourne (not far from Hove) and you know what happens when upset people end up there!
That joke about boiling an egg is good. Made me chuckle.
BBC stopped showing cricket about a decade ago. Channel 4 and Sky Sports for cricket these days.
When I listen to the BBC News, which is frequently, they cannot help tagging on a sports bulletin which is 90% about cricket. For a few minutes every hour or so it could be 1933.
The glinting ice of the sidewalk when I first moved to Seattle always reminds me of this book, back when there was time to read whole new languages.
What about the guy who was given three months to live. He said he wouldn't be able to settle the doctors account so the doctor gave him another three months!
Great review Paul....!
Thanks for your review, Paul. I loved this novel when I read it years ago in high school, with all its eggiwegging and toast-crunching. I remember reading the entire thing in amazement before discovering that there was a glossary in the back, which would have ruined it. It was a great teacher of the concept (and joy) of understanding good writing purely from context. One reading was probably enough for me (I’d say the same for the redoubtable Kubrick movie based on the book), but it remains on my perennial mental List of Books that Can’t be Topped.
I agree completely - wouldn't want to endure the movie again, even if it is a masterpiece.
I watched the movie during college and it was a very disturbing experience with its exaggerated violence and vulgarity. It troubled me for nights. I am too scared to pickup the book.
the movie is much more upsetting than the book, which is filtered through Alec's wry, droogy brain; so I still recommend the book!
Paul wrote: "the movie is much more upsetting than the book, which is filtered through Alec's wry, droogy brain; so I still recommend the book!"Okay, thanks for letting me know. Maybe someday I will try to pick it up.
'So, this little novel should be on everyone who hasn't read it's must read list.' XD
Let me add to the morbid humor:Doc: You don't have long to live.
Pt: Okay...tell me the truth. How long do I have?
Doc: 10...
Pt: 10 years?
Doc: *shakes his head*
Pt: 10 months?
Doc: *shakes head*
Pt: 10 days?
Doc:* shakes head*
Pt: Tell me how much then doc!!!
Doc: 10,9,8,7,6....
Luke, you are a shameless self advertiser!I understand that a zillion people now self publish in one way or another and have to hustle up business the best they can but probably commenting on GR reviews is not the most efficient use of your time.
Best wishes.
It's a great little book - by far the best that I've read of the many he wrote. And you're absolutely right about the infectious nature of his invented argot - I bored many droogs to the back zoobies with my incurable post-Nadsat syndrome.
Ich habe mich nicht einfach,wie
Burgess completed 5 novels and left an unfinished draft. ACO was it. He finished it the following year. In all he spent roughly six weeks composing it.
In his compendium of the 100 books David Bowie read, John O' Connell says Burgess wrote AOC in 3 weeks. It is the first book on the list of a hundred .
Compelling review as always, Paul, which has encouraged me to finally get around to a novel that I am embarrassed to admit I’ve never read.
Wow I can't remember if you've ever given a five star rating. I loved the film but never got round to the book.
Q: Why did the sword-swallower finish half way through his act?
A: Because he had a mid-knife crisis.