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A Clockwork Orange
By: Anthony Burgess
Penguin, 1986, London.
First published in 1962 by Heinemann Ltd.

Why I chose to read: A Clockwork Orange.

Very simple; the movie is incredible. A masterpiece by Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick, may he rest in peace, can’t have just picked any average book to make a film of, considering how famous he already was by the time he directed A Clockwork Orange. Surely he'd pick an outstanding novel. I was certain of it, this was going to be an awesome novel. I was going to enjoy reading this…

How I experienced reading: A Clockwork Orange.

After reading Part One (5-60)

In one word: Magnificent. But words similar to: grand, awesome, unequalled and superior might do as well. Please know that I am dead serious about this. I’ve read many good books but this one is, so far, simply the best. I’ll tell you why…


First of all, the language. A Clockwork Orange is not written in English. It’s written in Nadsat. Nadsat is some sort of teenage jargon. Here’s a small example. Note that I made it up myself, it’s not a quote from the book.

In nadsat:

Let me viddy your cutter or I’ll tolchock you in the litso! Me and my droogs, we wanted to fill our carmans with pretty polly, off to buy some of the old moloko, milk plus that is, good that is. Now this starry chelloveck viddied his platties going red, as he viddied the krovvy flowing, his own krovvy that is, lovely and horrorshow!

In English this would be:

Show me the money or I’ll hit you in the face! My friends and I wanted to fill our pockets with some coin, to buy some nice drugged milk. Now this old man watched his clothes going red, as his own blood was flowing. It was perfect!

Now I’m sure you can understand that this nadsat is extremely difficult to read at first. The first ten pages were as if I were reading Latin. But I got use to it pretty fast. After thirty or so pages, I actually enjoyed reading this nadsat. This Burgess was a genius!

The story itself is very simple. Alex and his droogs (friends that is) cause mayhem and destruction in the streets of New York, in a not-too-distant future. They hit people, steal, rape and do more horrible things. The book is written in first person. Alex, the main character, the ´I´ of the book, is telling all this. Sometimes he addresses to himself as: Your Humble Narrator. He is telling the reader the story of his life, and giving his opinion now and then. This is very nice to read. Much better than reading about ´he did this and that´ written by an unknown narrator up there in the sky. At the end of part one Alex gets betrayed by his droogs and ends up in jail, being charged and convicted for murder and a lot more. Sad, but so far I really like this book.

Motives are: Violence, Immorality, Gangs, Grim future, Crime

After reading Part two (61-101)

This part of the book was a lot different. It’s about Alex’s time in staja. This is how he calls the state jail. The book’s style didn’t change at all though. I had expected the ´narrator-style´ to end as he Alex got jailed. I thought he was confessing part one from jail, and I expected the story to switch to a normal present-time story. I’m glad this didn’t happen. And the second thing I feared didn’t happen either. I was afraid the book would turn into a standard prison story. Of course nothing was less true, because this was when Burgess’ advanced theory about the human choice between good and evil worked itself into the story, and the question whether you can really make a person ´good´ by making him unable to do evil acts. Does a person cease to be a human being when the ability to choose is taken away from him? I’ll tell more about this later on. Fact is that I’m still enjoying reading this book. In fact, I can’t wait to start reading again, which is exactly what I’m going to do… now!

Motives are: Violence, Immorality, Gangs, Grim future, Crime

And: Good/Evil, Society, Humanity, Police, Government

After reading Part Three (103-148)

This is the part where Alex is a free man again. The style of the book has not changed at all. Burgess was still using the ‘Your Humble Narrator’ and the ‘I did/saw/etc’ ways of writing. I don’t mind, I’ve got used to this. It is now, after reading the entire book, that I can write down the book’s theme.

The book’s theme is: Crime and how it’s ought to be treated. And of course the ethical questions involved.

The story;

Fifteen-year-old Alex and his small gang terrorize the streets at night. But one night his gang members betray Alex and he gets convicted for murder and spends a year in jail. This is when he becomes subject of the Ludivico’s Technique. An experiment that causes Alex to be unable to perform acts that are considered evil by society. The book’s about whether this is a proper way of fighting crime or not. Some characters in the book, such as the prison chaplain, say that a person ceases to be a human being when you take away his option to choose. Finally, Alex gets ‘cured’ from the effect of this Ludivicio’s Technique and starts his old violent way of living again.

In the last chapter, Alex decides to stop this way of living and that he is going to try to find him a wife. He’s thinking about having a child. But Anthony Burgess was forced to write this chapter by his publisher. They refused to print the book as Burgess had written it. So, against his own will, Burgess wrote this happy-end. I simply ignored it, for it adds nothing to the story.

About Anthony Burgess;

The following brief biography is quoted from a Penguin Books editor.

Anthony Burgess was born in Manchester in 1917 and is a graduate of the University there. After six years in the army he worked as an instructor for the Central Advisory Council for Forces Education, as a college lecturer in Speech and Drama and as a grammar-school master. From 1954 to 1960 he was an education officer in the Colonial Service, stationed in Malaya and Borneo.

He became a full-time writer in 1960, though by then he had already published three novels and a history of English Literature. A late starter in the art of fiction, he had previously spent much creative energy on music, and has composed many full-0scale works for orchestra and other media.


Anthony Burgess was a good writer because he had an opinion. He is not careless about life and society. A violent man could not have written such a good book about violence. He wrote about ethical problems that play a great part in life. Music also played a great part in his life and in his books. I may not have written much about it, but Alex in A Clockwork Orange really likes Beethoven, Bach and the other old ‘masters’.

Anthony Burgess died in 1993.