A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess; narrated by Tom Hollander | 2007; originally published 1962 | HarperAudio | Audiobook $ 19.99
In Anthony Burgess’ nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal, invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends’ social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. When the state undertakes to reform Alex to “redeem” him, the novel asks, “At what cost?”
I’m on a mission to read some classic works of various genres, including horror and dystopian sci-fi; A Clockwork Orange seems to apply to either or both of these classifications, so of course it had to go on my to-read list.
I nearly didn’t finish this book. Frankly, I’m irritated that I wasted so much time on it and I wish I hadn’t bothered. Normally I don’t mind DNFing, but I’m really doing my best to get through most of my selected titles for Classics Club. This could perhaps be a lesson in learning to be OK with quitting books even if I’ve set myself an arbitrary goal for them — except that I almost quit the next audiobook I listened to, too, and THAT one turned out much more satisfactory and I was glad not to have given up on it. So… lesson very thoroughly not learned, I guess.
Anyway, the 1 thing I appreciated about this book was actually the introduction by the author. In it, Burgess basically says he doesn’t understand the popularity of this title in comparison to his other works; he thinks this book is both too moralizing and too frequently misunderstood. He also complains about the omission of the final chapter in the edition that was published in America, which Stanley Kubrick’s film version was based on; more on that in a minute.
In this intro, Burgess gets a little churchy and says that basically the wild violence in this story is the kind of thing he thinks people really want to do and would do if it weren’t for the guidance or redemption offered by God, which, though a common kind of apologetic religious moral framework, really doesn’t make sense to me personally — sir, are you telling us you fantasize about gang rape all the time and the only reason you don’t do it is because a preacher says no? Because that’s a lil concerning.
Actually, there’s 1 other thing that I appreciated — the audiobook format. I genuinely don’t know if I’d have been able to navigate all the absurd jargon in print. Kudos to the narrator, Tom Hollander, for providing an intelligible reading.
Overall, this book struck me as neither philosophically provocative nor interestingly thrilling. It just seemed like a bunch of matter-of-fact senseless violence followed by a bunch of state-sponsored insidiously sensible violence followed by a half-assed insincere redemption.
Honestly, even though it clearly annoyed the author, I think I’d prefer the version without the final chapter. It’s kind of like an ineffectual little neatly-tied-up bow of a conclusion that tries to say, “There’s a moral to the story, I promise!!!”… which feels almost nonsensical in the wake of the preceding bloodbath. The shock value of all the violence just so far overshadows any point the author tries to make about the nature of morality that this final chapter is almost insulting in its contriteness.
I’m almost embarrassed to put this review out into the world; I suspect that most folks are going to roll their eyes about how I just don’t appreciate true literary genius. But I am posting it anyway because maybe there are other people out there who, like me, just don’t get it — and if that’s you, at least you know you aren’t alone.
Links:
Publication information: Burgess, Anthony. A clockwork orange. New York, NY: HarperAudio, 2007. Audiobook.
Source: Public library, via Hoopla.
Disclaimer: I am not compensated, monetarily or otherwise, for reviews of books or other products.
I tried reading it once but all the violence, plus the weird jargon that was too much work, put me off. I’m glad to see that I didn’t miss anything much!
Yeah, I can sort of intellectually understand its “classic” status because it was so off-the-wall for its time, but… it ain’t actually worth all that effort to read IMHO.