Youth is an age of rebellion…“…for there is nothing but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting…”William Shakespeare – The Winter’s TaleAnd Anthony Burgess’s task was to illustrate this concept…Youth rebels in reality… Youth rebels in dystopia… Youth rebels in black comedy…There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a fl...

If you look up “bitter” in the dictionary, you will find a picture of Anthony Burgess.Between the US and UK, there are different versions of this book (not just a different cover). In the UK, there is an extra chapter, Chapter 21. In 1961, according to the author, he only agreed to cut the last chapter of the book in the US version because he needed money.He is still quite salty about this censoring.The UK ending is superior—the US ending is abrupt as it was never intended to be the final conclu...

In the near future in an Utopian socialist country, England where everyone has to work ( except the ill or old) whether the job makes any sense or not, a group of teenagers like to party without limits at night. Alex the leader, George 2nd in command, Pete the most sane and the big dim Dim, he's good with his boots, fun loving kids. Your humble narrator Alex, will tell this story my brothers ...First they see an ancient man leaving the library carrying books, very suspicious nobody goes there no...

A Clockwork Orange is one of those books which everyone has heard of but which few people have actually read –- mostly, I think, because it is preceded by a reputation of shocking ultra-violence. I’m not going to deny here that the book contains violence. It features lengthy descriptions of heinous crimes, and they’re vivid descriptions, full of excitement. (Burgess later wrote in his autobiography: ‘I was sickened by my own excitement at setting it down.’) Yet it does not glorify violence, nor ...

In 1960 Anthony Burgess was 43 and had written 4 novels and had a proper job teaching in the British Colonial Service in Malaya and Brunei. Then he had a collapse and the story gets complicated. But I like the first cool version AB told, which was that he was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour and given a year to live. Since as you know he lived a further 33 years, we may conclude the doctors were not entirely correct. However - the doctor tells you you have a year to live - what do you d...

i've owned this book for 7 years and it wasn't even on my to read list. which gives an indication of how excited i am to read it

update: even anthony burgess doesn't get the appeal of this one.

this is one of those books that i can see why it'd be great to assign as school required reading, but...pretty meh in adult life!

bottom line: the nicest thing i can say about this is that i'm pretty sure i would have liked it more if i was discussing it at 7:45 am with 20 miserable adolescents.

Nope, sorry, I cannot go on. DNF after the 1st chapter. I read and enjoyed books in Patois and with different accents but I give up trying to understand this book. The invented words were so annoying that I wanted to throw my Kindle out of the window.

Just leave the Milk Bar to go bonkers Not as awesome as expected A classic, probably a bit overrated book, and one of the rare cases in which I would say that the movie is better than the book. The most unnecessary thing was to add an extra chapter at the end that took the flow, logic, and atmosphere out of the whole thing. Nice development of an own language, but also not as cool as other examples. The whole dystopic brainwashing idea is one of the best elements. It reminds me of many overrate...

How to review an infamous book about which so much has already been said? By avoiding reading others’ thoughts until I’ve written mine.There are horrors in this book, but there is beauty too, and so much to think about. The ends of the book justify the means of its execution, even if the same is not true of what happens in the story.Book vs Film, and Omission of Final ChapterI saw the film first, and read the book shortly afterwards. Usually a bad idea, but in this case, being familiar with the ...

"What's it going to be then, eh?" A linguistic adventure, O my brothers. I had seen the Kubrick film and so reading the novella was on the list. I very much enjoyed it, was surprised to learn that American publishers and Kubrick had omitted the crucial last chapter that provides some moral denouement to the ultra-violence.As disturbingly good as this is, one aspect that always comes back to me is Burgess' creation of and use of the Nadsat language. This provides color and mystery to the narrativ...