Dystopian Fiction Affliction: A Clockwork Orange (The Book)

written by Jon Petre

As part of our exciting 2014 Dystopian Fiction Affliction series, I've been reviewing some of the most famous of the 20th century's lengthy list of Dystopian books. As you may know, a Dystopia (derived from the word "Utopia", which, like our blog, means perfection in the world) is a world in which everything seems perfect (or people are told so), but in actual fact there's a horrible secret or truth lurking beneath the surface, like The Hunger Games series.

When A Clockwork Orange was first released in 1961 a reviewer said that "if you don't like the first seven pages, you'll hate the book...if not, it gets much, much better". And that's exactly true. Make no mistake, this book is seriously messed up and seriously weird. The biggest thing to realize is that Antony Burgess wrote it in an invented slang called nadsat (an amalgamation of Russian and Cockney Rhyming Slang), so that the youth culture portrayed in the novel could never seem dated or out of touch. Clever, but odd. Really odd. Here's an example of some short sentences in nadsat:

I'm smotting like forward to viddying the like sinny of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, O my brothers (and not to skazzy devotchkas), but the book was choodessy enough. Now where's the moloko for the sladky chai?

It's a bit strained, but here's what that means:

I'm looking forward to watching the film of A Clockwork Orange, by brothers (and not forgetting women). But the book was wonderful enough. Now, where's the milk for the sweet tea?

So there. If that's not too confusing for you, then you'll probably like the book. Here's a link to a nadsat dictionary; use ctrl-f to search for specific words (Nadsat Dictionary).

Clockwork Orange follows Alex DeLarge,  a boy of fifteen who spends his evenings drinking milk laced with drugs, attacking and killing random pedestrians, and listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. He soon attracts the attention of the new, less lax right wing government, and their radical new psychological techniques. The novel poses the question: Does a man cease to be a man if he cannot choose?

I won't say much more, but the book is very different to the film. For example, no-one is beaten to death with a bust of a penis in the book. Maybe that's a good thing. However, the ending to the film is much better than the book's, and that is most definitely a better thing. Whatever you do, make sure that you're not one to shy away from a little violence in your reading, because it features two murders and a rape scene. I thought I'd just mention that straight away.

It was a good read, and an interesting one. It takes so getting used to written in nadsat, but as soon as you get the hang of it it rolls off the tongue quite nicely. The final chapter was a bit of a let down, but I still enjoyed it. Ignore the socialist-bashing allegories, and enjoy the ride.

Next up, I'll be doing a review of George Orwell's classic Nineteen Eighty Four, as well as Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, the only acceptable use of the Fahrenheit system. Overall I'd give Clockwork Orange a solid 3.7 out of 5, as it was entertaining, but the ending and the confusing structure will probably make the book less palatable and more, well, weird
than anything else.

3.7 out of 5