How many of you have heard about a clockwork orange? I read the book and are now reviewing it for you. The book and the film follow the same principle, and as I have only seen clips of the film, I cannot do a comparison, which I would've preferred, so here's my review of the truly 'horrorshow' book.
A Clockwork Orange, By Anthony Burgess, follows the story of Alex and his 3 'droogs', Georgie, Pete and Dim. They spend the majority of their time in the Korova Milkbar, drinking milk plus, milk "peeted with vellocet or synthemesc or drencom or one or two other veshches which would give you a nice quiet horrorshow fifteen minutes" before going out for a night of ultra-violence and rape. Throughout the beginning of the book, Alex describes the milkbar, and the people in it. He also states that they were dressed in the height of fashion, tight black tights, a 'old jelly mould' fitting on the crotch underneath the tights, waisty jackets without lapels but with very built up shoulders, off-white cravats and flip horrorshow boots for kicking. They beat up and rape various different people, in particular a man and his wife. They get into their house by pretending that there has been an accident on the street and need to use the telephone. They attack the man, wreck their house, and rape his wife. In the middle, Alex is in prison after apparently murdering a woman, and gets into a fight with his other cellmates, and one of them dies from a heart attack. When his parents come to visit, he is told Georgie, one of his droogs, is dead after being hit over the head. Alex, after a brief stint in prison, is transferred to a place where he is given an injection after every meal and is forced to watch clips of ultra-violent scenes, with his head strapped to the head rest and his eyes held open by clamps to prevent him from blinking. All of these films are to his favorite music, Beethoven, Mozart and Bach, his preferred being Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. During these films, he begins to feel ill, and by the end of the treatment, he can't listen to the music without feeling ill and is deemed a 'person fit for society'. Alex goes back into the world, wanting to kill himself, as he can't listen to the music he loves without picturing horrible scenes of ultra-violence. Whilst in the public library, the man who he attacked at the begging sees him and takes revenge. The police arrive, and Alex realises on of the police officers is Dim, a former droog. Later, Alex arrives at the house of the old man who's wife they killed and raped, and asks to stay, as his parents have a lodger who refuses to leave. The man agrees, not knowing who he is until later, when Alex asks some questions that he wouldn't know unless he knew the man. The man figures that Alex killed his wife, and tries to get revenge by locking Alex in a room playing Beethoven's 9Th Symphony. Alex can't stand this and jumps out the window. He survives, but breaks alot of bones in his body. At the end, we see Alex returned to his former ultra-violent self, Alex bumps into Pete, another ex-droog, and seeing he is married, starts to dream of having a job, wife and a son. Alex realises that he is too old for all this stuff (he's 18 at the end) and looks to find a wife to share his dreams of a family. I think this is one of the most brilliant books I have ever read, and I can't wait to watch Stanley Kubrick's celebrated movie.
.
ReplyDelete