100 Books in 2018

8/ a clockwork orange by anthony burgess (re-read)

read: 22.01.18 - 26.01.18

book: A Clockwork Orange

author: Anthony Burgess

blurb: In Anthony Burgess's nightmare vision of the future, where 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?"

review: One of my reading goals for this year was to re-read a selection of books that I read last year either in hope of understanding them better or simply to relive the excitement of reading them. I chose to read 'A Clockwork Orange' again this year because I don't think I ever truly understood it when I read it first.

'A Clockwork Orange' was the third (modern) classic I'd ever read willing in my life, and looking back at the review I gave it at the time I am completely touched and amused at the way I viewed this book. To save you finding my first review of this book, I basically said that I enjoyed the book but found the Nadstat slang hard to read and that it was wasn't very descriptive and some things were skimmed over.

The complaints about the Nadstat slang being hard to read are valid. To anyone who isn't familiar with the book or film, within the world Burgess has created Alex and his friends use slang which they call 'Nadstat' and it's a bunch of made up words which you can figure out what they mean by their context. Reading this book a second time round, I found that the writing flowed a lot easier because I could still remember what the slang meant.

However, rather than seeing this inclusion of Nadstat slang as being a hindrance to the story, I now see the pure genius in it. Burgess was creating a world that felt authentic, and the inclusion of slang was vital in the characterisation of Alex himself. Alex is presented as an unconventional teenage not just because he finds enjoyment in murder and rape but because he feels old for his years, and the slang really puts that across. Words like 'droog' to mean 'boy/friend' just sound slightly older and more distant to the slang of teenagers - it's something you would expect to see in cockney slang.

Furthermore, I don't have the same complaints about the 'lack of description' and the supposed skimming over of events. This book is not one about murder and violence - these are only events which occur within. Instead, this book centres itself around corruption and the ethics behind the decisions we make. It's a book that really makes you question what good and evil really means in society.

I think this is a really important read, but one that has to be read at the right time for any person. Now having a knowledge of books like '1984' and other similar totalitarian-state pieces of satire, I can appreciate and understand this book more. I wouldn't suggest it as a starting place for any reader trying to get into modern classics or classics at all because it can be very disconcerting  to see lots of made-up slang on the page in front of you.

Overall, I would say that 'A Clockwork Orange' is still not one of my favourite books, but I can appreciate it more than last January when I read it.

rating: 8.5/10