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Just read it, after checking it out from the library. WTF? I mean, okay, I get the whole conceit of the title, unnaturally imposing a mechanical regularity on a living thing by robbing it of its free will. But, bearing in mind Alex's behavior before and after the Ludovico treatment, I have to say the prospect doesn't bother me much. On the one hand, he can no longer enjoy music or coitus, and he tries to kill himself. On the other, until he is "reprogrammed" back for asinine political reasons, he is also incapable of the following activities he once enjoyed:
-Assault and battery
-Breaking and entering
-Armed Robbery
-Child Rape
-Gang Rape
-Gang Warfare
-Murder
On balance, that sounds like a very reasonable trade for society to make. Alex can go ahead and take up stamp collecting or kite-flying or whatever other recreational activity he can think of that doesn't involve penetrating someone with a knife and/or penis. Meanwhile, the prisons don't have to cram in dozens of little snots like him OR put up with lots of "ultra-violence." The only worrisome aspect, that the authorities could abuse the same conditioning to make people do anything at all, is mentioned but not really explored. Instead it's "Ooooh, poor Alex, he can't rape a pregnant woman, cut out the fetus and kick it around with his droogs anymore," or whatever he would have done next. I'm cool with that. Oh, and he's helpless before the comical wrath of angry, weak old people at the library.
More important question, not addressed: what the hell is up with this society, that there are so many kids running around doing some Paul Bernardo-type ****? Yeah yeah, humans have free will like the preachy preface says, but so do I, and even the worst kids at my middle school in a sleazy suburb of DC didn't act like that. I think part of the problem might be the apparently legal establishments where minors are allowed to quaff psychoactive drugs in their milk. Not the whole problem, but part of it. They might want to look into closing them down, or at least regulating them so gangs of teenagers can't get loaded on something akin to PCP. And Alex seems to have some really lax parents, assuming they aren't just afraid he'll cut them.
I say "seems" and "apparently" because the book is bloody hard to understand; it's all narrated in this obnoxious slang which, according to the back cover, "brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology." No, their beating the elderly for fun renders their social pathology. The slang is just annoying. They don't use a few words for special or important concepts, like in real life; half the words are Cockney/Russian nicknames for body parts, and they never use any other word. A head is always a "gulliver," boobs are "groobies," then you have "rookers" and "glazzies" and "zoobies" and...gah! There's no glossary in the back of the book, so you have to deduce everything from context, and since half the words are this invented slang there's precious little context to deduce from. And few of the words, aside from the ubiquitous "horrorshow," have any clear etymology to shed light on their subculture.
Can anyone else shed light on why this book is famous? Is it just that Kubrick made a movie out of it?
-Assault and battery
-Breaking and entering
-Armed Robbery
-Child Rape
-Gang Rape
-Gang Warfare
-Murder
On balance, that sounds like a very reasonable trade for society to make. Alex can go ahead and take up stamp collecting or kite-flying or whatever other recreational activity he can think of that doesn't involve penetrating someone with a knife and/or penis. Meanwhile, the prisons don't have to cram in dozens of little snots like him OR put up with lots of "ultra-violence." The only worrisome aspect, that the authorities could abuse the same conditioning to make people do anything at all, is mentioned but not really explored. Instead it's "Ooooh, poor Alex, he can't rape a pregnant woman, cut out the fetus and kick it around with his droogs anymore," or whatever he would have done next. I'm cool with that. Oh, and he's helpless before the comical wrath of angry, weak old people at the library.
More important question, not addressed: what the hell is up with this society, that there are so many kids running around doing some Paul Bernardo-type ****? Yeah yeah, humans have free will like the preachy preface says, but so do I, and even the worst kids at my middle school in a sleazy suburb of DC didn't act like that. I think part of the problem might be the apparently legal establishments where minors are allowed to quaff psychoactive drugs in their milk. Not the whole problem, but part of it. They might want to look into closing them down, or at least regulating them so gangs of teenagers can't get loaded on something akin to PCP. And Alex seems to have some really lax parents, assuming they aren't just afraid he'll cut them.
I say "seems" and "apparently" because the book is bloody hard to understand; it's all narrated in this obnoxious slang which, according to the back cover, "brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology." No, their beating the elderly for fun renders their social pathology. The slang is just annoying. They don't use a few words for special or important concepts, like in real life; half the words are Cockney/Russian nicknames for body parts, and they never use any other word. A head is always a "gulliver," boobs are "groobies," then you have "rookers" and "glazzies" and "zoobies" and...gah! There's no glossary in the back of the book, so you have to deduce everything from context, and since half the words are this invented slang there's precious little context to deduce from. And few of the words, aside from the ubiquitous "horrorshow," have any clear etymology to shed light on their subculture.
Can anyone else shed light on why this book is famous? Is it just that Kubrick made a movie out of it?
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