Book of the Week

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Recommended by Louis Odgers

Alex is a teenage gang member ruling the English nights with his three 'droogs' in Burgess’s futuristic imagination of society, taking pleasure in performing the 'ultra-violence' on members of the public.

However, when one seemingly simple robbery goes wrong and Alex is betrayed by his friends, he is captured and sent to prison where he is one of the first to trial an experimental method of imposing good behaviour on criminals.
This causes Alex to struggle desperately with aspects of his free-will and results in individuals questioning the morality of the experiment and using it as a way of furthering their political ambitions.

The book is written like a diary where the narrator is Alex. This allows Burgess to explore the mind of a psychopath and more vividly show the pleasure Alex gets from harming others; the fact that something as horrible as rape is described as beautiful by the narrator gives the book a more horrifying edge. However, it is also a way for the author to convey the insecurities of the character and present Alex as a victim of his own psychological state who has been failed by society and thus the reader will later be able to pity Alex and the pain he feels, especially during and after the experiment.

A Clockwork Orange is also written largely in the gang’s own language 'Nadsat' which gives the impression that Alex and his gang are separate from other parts of society but also suggests a form of immaturity as it is very child-like to invent your own language. Furthermore the language gives further indication of psychological state of the gang as words such as 'horrorshow' which one might expect to be something horrible actually translates as 'good'.

'Nadsat' also gives Burgess an opportunity to suggest and state ideas that he wouldn’t necessarily have said in plain English as they would be considered too inappropriate or controversial. Lastly, the book is also fascinating in the sense that at first it appears to the reader that Alex is the antagonist but as the story progresses it unfolds that it is really society that has failed him as they have neglected the impacts that gangs have had and also failed to reform him and have instead turned him into 'A Clockwork Orange with no ability to think and act for himself.

A Clockwork Orange is an absorbing book due to its graphic nature and extreme violence, that questions morality and the role of society. I would strongly recommend it as an interesting concept book but not one that you will necessarily enjoy reading as it is so harrowing.