A Clockwork Orange affected me deeply when I first absorbed it, on the recommendation of my older sister, in middle school. It affected me again, when I watched Stanley Kubrick's movie adaptation of it, several months later. It was absolutely haunting and disgusting, and for a time it was my favorite novel–I couldn't put it down, and the characters were so unlike anything I could ever find in reality and the situations so unreal, and I spent hours annotating the book trying to figure out what the words meant.
Re-re-reading it, I was not nearly as shocked as I had been the first time Alex was forced to watch videos of bodies run around after their heads had been shot off by Japanese soldiers. This isn't just a result of the information no longer being new: it's that, like the main character, as time has passed I've gotten older, and I daresay a little more calloused. As he matures, Alex loses his proclivity for violence, and I have lost my fascination with the occult. My mistake in reading this novel the first time around is that I assumed that Burgess was going for shock value, that his purpose was to make people sick and write about how bad things in society could get. But really, the novel is not so appalling, and the author's themes are much less superficial than that.
The story is an entirely atypical coming-of-age story. Alex, the anti-hero in a dystopian society, reveals himself to be entirely unreliable and as foolish as any fifteen-year-old boy could be. He is, to put it prosaically, a jerk, and stumbles through a series of improbable situations in which he is abused verbally and physically, and makes bad decisions and justifies them to his audience through self-pity and stereotypical assumptions about himself and those around him. A Clockwork Orange is, basically, a message on morality and the choices we make as humans: it applies to everyone, and the line between good and evil is radically fragmented.
Wow. Uhhh, I'll just go and delete my review now...
ReplyDeleteWhat an impeccable review of the novel, KJ. Having read it before, and at a younger age, gives you a unique depth into the novel not experienced by us others. But I can see where you are coming from, and I am thoroughly intrigued. I can definitely see how one would assume that Burgess is going for the ol’ “shock factor” with such gruesome and eccentric situations. But as one gains maturity and a deeper understanding of society and the world, it is revealed that there is indeed a much deeper meaning to these situations that allow one to now peer into the human soul and societal consciousness.
Another interesting characteristic that your growing up with this novel has produced is the conception you brought up of it being a “coming-of-age-story.” This is something that I had never thought of before, and probably would not have because I have not had an experience with the novel such as yours. Nonetheless, this is a truly accurate description, and you address some great aspects of the story that would allow one to label it as such.
I really enjoyed your review and your comments on the book and how they relate to your life. I don't mean to intrusively analyze your review, but I see a connection between the coming of age of Alex, and your evolution over time since your first reading of the book. I think a lot of the same aspects of the things that Alex went through, are similar to the things that a lot of us go through as we grow and change throughout life, particularly during our early young adult years, like Alex. I like how to mentioned the shock factor of the novel, as I believe it isn't brought up enough, since it is a more superficial element of the story, although it does still deserve to be commented on, since it was included by Burgess to convey a point. Also, I find it interesting that you say you have become more hardened as you have gotten older and thus less affected by the "shocking" nature of the book, because in the book, it is Alex, the young and un-corrupted that is less affected by the brutality, and the adults that are more sensitive to it all. I can see how as you have re-read the book again, changed to develop slightly different views on morality, which still have the possibility to be ever-changing. The freedom of morality views to change and such is conveyed in the novel to be quite essential to life.
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