Anthony Burgess' Classic Novel, "A Clockwork Orange"

Amazon Customer: Shipped internationally, arrived in perfect condition. All as stated. Great book.

United States on Dec 05, 2023

Elaine Sayle: This book was quite difficult to read because it is written in Russian gypsy slang and so it can take a long time to understand the words, there is a glossary which helps you understand the meaning of the written word but who honestly wants to keep going back and forth to check word meanings, I eventually got the basic understanding of the written dialogue. The story itself is very good and altogether frightening if this was to become our reality. I would definitely recommend to read this in your lifetime. It is a good classic.

United Kingdom on Aug 17, 2023

MEDEMEDE: Ich möchte in der Rezension zwei Dinge unterscheiden: zum einen die Kindle-Version und zum anderen den Inhalt des Buches sowie die Sprache.

Zur Kindle-Version:

Ich finde die Kindle-Version ok, aber nicht perfekt. Es ist toll, dass es Seitenzahlen gibt, das ist leider nicht immer so. Was mir fehlt, sind die Angaben zu der besonderen Wortwahl des Protagonisten. Wörter wie 'slovo', 'bratchnies', 'vonny', 'viddy' usw. werden nicht angegeben. Und leider sind diese besonderen Wörter, die der Protagonist benutzt, ein Merkmal des Buches, sie kommen in fast jedem Satz vor. Das ist ein absolutes Minus.

Zum Inhalt:
Ich werde nicht spoilern, sondern nur kurz etwas allgemein zum Inhalt sagen. Grob gesagt, dreht es sich um einen jungen 14jährigen Kriminellen, der raubt, schlägt und mordet. Nachdem er gefasst wird, soll eine neuartige Umerziehung an ihm durchgeführt werden. Erzählt wird die Geschichte aus der Ich-Perspektive, also aus Sicht des Kriminellen.
Die Geschichte ist sehr brutal, aber dennoch lesenswert. Man bekommt einen Einblick in die Gefühlswelt des Protagonisten, die absolut schonungslos ehrlich ist.

Zur Sprache:
Das Buch bedient sich...

Germany on May 20, 2023

Kathan Prajapati: ‘A Clockwork Orange’ is probably one of the most unique novels in the annals of literature. And by unique, I mean unique in every sense, including dark humor, language, and the way Alex has with music.

To those voracious readers of this ever-growing community, have you ever thought before picking up this book that it will be a hard read? Let me answer you. You will find the first chapter hard, I agree. But as you go on, you will find that most of the words are repeating themselves. The novel will be engrossing after this point. If you enjoy reading, then you will understand the meaning of Nadsat words from the sentence itself. The language is also pretty comical. Especially the words for 'good' and 'God.'

Then there is the music. Rock music was taking baby steps during the time this novel is set, that in the 1970s. But still, it was prevalent. And look at Alexander the Large's interests- Beethoven and Bach. Music is a nice element of this novel; for Alex, it is at first a pleasure, but later on, after the therapy, it is torture for him. A toying with his brains is what changed his response to music.
The humor- my god, it is out of this world! I mean, there is...

India on Feb 15, 2021

Amazon Customer: AP LIT SQUAD 2015 -- A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess was an interesting book to read, to say the least. The combination of sex, violence, criminal activity, and teenage drinking makes for an entertaining novel that definitely captures the attention of the reader. Anthony Burgess effectively uses the life of Alex and his droogs, or group of friends, to portray the evil existing in our society, and a failed attempt at reforming the evil out of youth. By incorporating the government into the plot, Burgess writes a thorough, scarily realistic story concerning the evils in our world.

A major aspect of this book was Burgess’s choice to write from Alex’s perspective. Instead of a third-person viewpoint, the author puts us in the criminal’s shoes and lets the reader understand the crime, rape, and thievery from the one leading these delinquencies. This point of view gives the reader a more personal connection to Alex both when he is committing crimes as well as when he is tortured by the treatment. The author also gives us access to Alex’s motives and feelings before, during, and after his jail time and subsequent treatment.

One of the unique characteristics of...

United States on Dec 15, 2015

伊藤よしひろ: ペーパーバック: 176ページ　とアマゾンの表記があるが違う。本文141ページ。解説18ページ。（解説を先に読むべからず！）
Penguin Classics; New Ed版 (2000/2/24)
ISBN-10:...

Japan on Apr 15, 2014

Ksenia Anske: And so I sit here, struck by literary genius, O my brothers. I must tell you I have indulged in this book perhaps more than any of you, unless you're Russian also. My native language intertwined with this astounding work of brilliant horror, coloring it rich and scary and crazy at the same time, with me imagining it as it was spoken, properly. Brrrrr. I feel like there is the voice of Anthony Burgess in my head, reciting as Alex. I must tell you one more thing, before I go on. I have read the version with the 21st chapter, the very end that's been cut off in the original American publication, but was kept in the British, hence the review might differ from the version that didn't have it. You see, Alex changed, as impossible as it might have seem, he did change in that last 21st chapter, and indeed it changed the story itself. There is hope, after all, for the Alexes of the world. Makes you wonder, doesn't, what kind of decision made it cut from the American version in the first place. But I'm getting carried away into mundane. Now, I must say, this will be the book to re-read and to re-read and to re-read, among such works of genius as Lolita, War and Peace, and the like. I've...

United States on Jan 11, 2014

Mark W. Brown: As everyone knows by now, when the novel first appeared in 1962, the American edition (published by Norton) differed from the UK edition (published by Heinemann) because it lacked the final chapter, in which "Alex like groweth up, oh yes." Stanley Kubrick based his 1971 film on the American text. Norton restored the final chapter in 1987, bringing the American and UK editions into line with one another. Now Andrew Biswell offers a slightly revised text based upon the annotated typescript Burgess sold to McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario) in 1967. This text, subtitled "The Restored Edition," has once again been published by Heinemann in the UK and by Norton in the USA--and once again the American and UK publications are far from identical.

Some things of course are the same: most of Biswell's introduction, the text of the novel itself, the notes, and the annotated pages from Burgess's typescript, plus the "epilogue," an additional piece by Burgess entitled "A Malenky Govoreet about the Molodoy." But otherwise each version offers a very different package of extras. The Norton edition includes another piece by Burgess, entitled "The Clockwork Condition," which the...

United Kingdom on Jul 14, 2013