Looks like there is no danger of the party starting without me. The book
is divided into three sections of about seven chapters each, so I thought
that worked well enough to begin rambling. It is probably a bit
predictable, but I will begin with part I.
My copy of the book came with a glossary (of sorts) in the back, which I
used extensively for the first chapter and then stopped using it altogether
as the flow of the writing was really interrupted by constantly flipping to
the end and starting sentences over and over. At first I thought that the
slang-that-never-was was going to be a huge distraction... but seven
chapters into it and I can see that it is done very horrorshow. It gives
the book a very "trendy" feel, but not one that would feel dated a week
from now.
Burgess does a very good job of creating a thoroughly inexcusable and
simultaneously sympathetic hero in Alex, which is no mean feat. While Alex
performs detestable actions and does not seem to have any goals or
ambitions (or any thoughts far beyond himself and his own appetites), he
seems to have developed highly refined ideas about what is and is not done
in the world (For instance, punching Dim in the face for being rude to the
singing girl in Chapter 3, pounding an old drunkard in Chapter 2 for making
intestinal noises, apologising for vomiting after having been beaten by the
police in Chapter 7). He seems to have almost a foppish concern for
appearances and the degree of offense he takes to body odours seems a bit
misplaced for a young hoodlum (His disgust with the police in Chapter 6
seems almost entirely centered on the way they smell, and it is Billyboy´s
smell and overweight appearance that sets him off in Chapter 2). Where
does Alex come by these "refined" sensibilities? He seems to be conscious
enough of his speech and mannerisms to be able to effect a "gentlemanly"
composure to disarm his victims (at the writer´s house and again at the old
cat lady´s house), so he must be perfectly conscious of his posturing. It
is just not made clear (so far) where that posturing comes from.
Actually, that question might be close to the heart of what the book seems
to be about. There is no "where it comes from". Chapter 4, in which Alex
is visited by Mr. P.R. Deltoid, asks this question fairly directly. "This
biting of their toe-nails over what is the cause of badness is what turns
me into a fine laughing malchick. They don´t go into what is the cause of
goodness..." A lot of proposed solutions are raised to be knocked down
again, including the laughable "Devil-made-me-do-it defense (which Burgess
correctly points out is a convenient excuse for any action in the world.
It doesn´t really ANSWER anything, it simply absolves anyone of any
personal responsibility).
Even someone unfamiliar with the book can see where the author´s sympathies
lay. In Chapter 2, The writer who is beaten and is forced to watch the
rape of his wife is conveniently writing an essay on this very issue. The
book, also titled "A Clockwork Orange", rails against "...impos(ing)...
laws and conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation". Obviously,
Burgess is suggesting that it is better to be bad and to have free-will
than to be made into an automaton with no will, but this begs a question.
Does Alex have free-will to begin with? Alex states in Chapter 4 that he
does what he does because he likes to, but is it possible that he is
conditioned to like to do bad things?
This might very well be the case, as we see in Chapters 6 and 7 that the
"good guys" (police) also revel in violence. Actually, Burgess has not
presented the reader in part I with a single individual that we might be
able to call "good" without being forced to put a question mark in front of
it. Alex does not seem to be "evil", in so much as he enjoys inflicting
pain and suffering on thinking, feeling beings... he simply objectifies
everyone in the world and only views them as being there for his own
amusement. That might be why Alex is so uncomfortable when Mr. Deltoid
dehumanises him in the same way that he has done to everyone else in the
past in Chapter 6. "He looked at (Alex) with cold glazzies like (Alex) had
become a thing and was no more a bleeding very tired battered chelloveck".
That realisation might be Alex´s first steps into the realisation that he
is not the center of the world. We shall see. I am, I was, I will be
~Monolycus.
____________________ "I believe that woman is planning to shoot me again."
Kira
Member
Posts: 149 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 17/9/2002 at 08:42 AM
Alrighty...let´s say that everyone who wants to discuss A Clockwork Orange
should be through the first 3 chapters by the end of this week.
If you´ve already read it, that will be easy. But if anyone out there is
reading it for the first time, it takes a little while to get used to the
lingo.
I was thinking we would do Siddharte next, but I think there´s no reason we
couldn´t do them together...
____________________ Wind me up and make me crawl to you, tie me up until I call to you.
Monolycus
Fanatic
Posts: 580 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 17/9/2002 at 01:43 PM
I apologise, Kira. I thought that "first three chapters" suggestion was
more a guideline than a rule... I should have checked with everybody. I
decided to post about the first part (seven chapters) because
a.) I thought the chapters were fairly short
b.) I thought it might be easier to discuss broken into the segments that
the author used, and
c.) I was beginning to suspect that nobody else was actually going to post
anything and I was trying to light a fire under them.
I understand completely that some people read more quickly than others and
that this particular selection uses some different language choices. I was
not trying to one-up anyone, I was just trying to get the ball rolling.
Hope I haven´t offended.
~M.
____________________ "I believe that woman is planning to shoot me again."
Abbadon
Fanatic
Posts: 499 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 19/9/2002 at 11:47 AM
I don´t mean to taint your enjoyment of the book, as I feel that it can be
especially pertinent to the attentions of a minority group such as this
site is aimed at, but I feel that by reading the book as a non-English
reader you will loose some of the more subtle political undertones that can
be percieved by somebody growing up in the shadow past English political
events.
____________________ Light is changing to shadow, and casting a shroud over all we have known.
Comedian
Fanatic
Posts: 213 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 19/9/2002 at 01:02 PM
Maybe we should read a novel pertinent especially to the atrocities of our
English brothers across the pond, such as "Kim," or maybe "Lord of the
Rings." To get a perspective. Wops? Wargs? You tell me the difference!
____________________ Make way for the bad guy!
Monolycus
Fanatic
Posts: 580 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 19/9/2002 at 02:53 PM
Abbadon: That is what makes a discussion group so enlightening for
everyone. Don´t tell us that we won´t get it. Try to explain it (unless
you are just being cryptic without really having a point... I don´t suspect
that is the case). I can hear in the corner of my mind a recorded speech
from some stuffy British politician... "We conservatives have always
maintained the need for an experiment with a tougher regime for depriving
young football hooligans of their (can´t recall the words)... I am pleased
to announce today that the experiment planned in our election manifesto
will begin in Surrey. These will be no holiday camps! We will introduce on
a regular basis drills, parades and inspections..." Is this to what you
are referring?
Think of this as a seminar. If you have something enlightening to share,
please do. I am, I was, I will be
~Monolycus.
____________________ "I believe that woman is planning to shoot me again."
Monolycus
Fanatic
Posts: 580 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 30/9/2002 at 03:30 PM
If you listen closely you can just make out the sound of me throwing in the
towel on this whole idea. I´ve done all I can. I´m out.
~M.
____________________ "I believe that woman is planning to shoot me again."
KatB
Fanatic
Posts: 241 Registered: 16/7/2002 Status: Offline
posted on 1/10/2002 at 01:28 AM
Aw, c´mon, I´ve just managed to buy the book in English!!!
____________________ All stressed out and no one to choke...
Monolycus
Fanatic
Posts: 580 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 1/10/2002 at 01:16 PM
Okay, KatB... if you are seriously interested in
discussing/debating/dissecting and actually staying remotely on topic, then
show us your tits. I´ll be waiting for you to post. If you want to
respond to my questions/observations or pose some of your own, I will be as
happy as the proverbial scatological porcine. Maybe you can shame some of
the others into putting their library cards where their mouths are.
~M.
____________________ "I believe that woman is planning to shoot me again."
SindelChaos
Occasional Poster
Posts: 46 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 8/12/2004 at 02:08 PM
I've already read it Good book.
Monolycus
Fanatic
Posts: 580 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 8/12/2004 at 03:40 PM
A two year wait before a brief announcement that someone has read it wasn't
exactly the calibre of discussion I was hoping for here. I've read it,
too. Was there anything about it that you actually wanted to discuss,
appraise or critique apart from mentioning that it was "good"?
~M.
____________________ "I believe that woman is planning to shoot me again."
SindelChaos
Occasional Poster
Posts: 46 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 10/12/2004 at 02:42 PM
quote:A two year wait before a
brief announcement that someone has read it wasn't exactly the calibre of
discussion I was hoping for here. I've read it, too. Was there anything
about it that you actually wanted to discuss, appraise or critique apart
from mentioning that it was "good"?
~M.
Yeah, I wasn't aware of the date until after I posted it. It's sad how
long it takes for a new topic to be put up on this forum. You would think
people would be more active on the site. I read the book two years ago.
nostalgiaforinfinity
Occasional Poster
Posts: 33 Registered: 5/12/2004 Status: Offline
posted on 10/12/2004 at 03:56 PM
The main theme behind A Clockwork Orange is freedom of choice. Alex does
not really have or exercise any freedom of choice until the very end of the
book when he feels he has matured into someone capable of making meaningful
choices having shaken off the shackles of violence and the conditioning
imposed upon him by society- discuss. what confused me slightly here was
whether or not alex did have freedom of choice at the start of the book? At
the end he talks about how he was too immature at that point to make any
real choices. And how society had 'wound him up' like the object of the
title. Do people agree with this? Or did he perhaps have more choice in the
matter than he would like to admit? Is he just trying to excuse his
violence by saying that society had left him no real alternatives?
Also, on the translation thing, how does the title translate? Does it
retain it's english connotations of an organic being turned automaton?
And why do you think Burgess used a russian basis for the slang in the
book? Perhaps having a dig at the dictatorial regimes of Stalin etc and
their attempts at dehumanising?
[Edited on 10/12/2004 by nostalgiaforinfinity]
____________________
Monolycus
Fanatic
Posts: 580 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 11/12/2004 at 01:22 AM
The story that I have heard regarding the use of the Russian slang is that
Anthony Burgess (né Jon Anthony Burgess Wilson, AKA Joseph Kell) was beaten
by three drunken Russian sailors one evening when he allowed them into his
home... and this incident was the entire basis for the novel. Might be
apocryphal, but makes entirely more sense than his having a dig at
Stalinism... esepcially since Khruschev was premiere of the Soviet Union at
the time the novel was published (1962).
What is it in the text that makes you feel that Alex is incapable of making
meaningful choices before being subjected to the Ludovico Treatment, and
why do you feel he was capable of meaningful decisions after he was
"reconditioned"...? Wasn't he always, at some point or another, a
Clockwork Orange?
~M.
____________________ "I believe that woman is planning to shoot me again."
nostalgiaforinfinity
Occasional Poster
Posts: 33 Registered: 5/12/2004 Status: Offline
posted on 11/12/2004 at 01:23 PM
The story about him being beaten up comes from a period in the late 50s
early 60s when Burgess was visiting the USSR. The sailors were causing
trouble outisde his hotel, but when he went to leave they let him pass. It
turned out they were waiting for someone else and not planning on attacking
the corrupt capitalist. Another inexplicably popula (and slightly more
ridiculous)r myth is that he had some involvement in some top secret CIA
dehumanisation programme.
Although Stalin's purges and the Red Terror were past by the time Burgess
visited Leningrad these are not something that a people would forget
quickly and undoubtly the scars were fresh in minds and hearts and still
plain to see. It seems likely to me that a lot of the inspiration for his
books about totalitarian regimes came from his visit to Russia.
At the very end of the book, when alex is reflecting on his past exploits,
he talks about being too ignorant in his youth to make any real choices.
At some point he asks himself something like, would God prefer a man who
chose violence over a man who had goodness imposed upon him. He is
obviously struggling to excuse his violence and the statement seems to
contradict the idea that he had no choice but to do violence. Although he
may have had some superficial freedom compared to the period after his
conditioning he feels in some ways he 'knew no better'.
However, in the final chapter, he makes what is probably the only positive
choice he makes in the whole book-to get married have children etc. Alex
seems to view this as the first real choice he has ever made, and perhaps
suggests that he has finally found some personal freedom and respite from
the harsh society in which he lives and from his violent past.
[Edited on 11/12/2004 by nostalgiaforinfinity]
____________________
Devin
Administrator
Posts: 317 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Online
posted on 11/12/2004 at 04:47 PM
I'm not sure if it's common knowledge, but there are two versions of the
book. The american version leaves out the last chapter.
____________________ So Sayeth Me
Monolycus
Fanatic
Posts: 580 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 11/12/2004 at 05:59 PM
Devin: I was aware of that, actually, but it is a good thing to mention
again. It should have been mentioned before now, but I had been waiting for
the discussion to "catch up" to that point per the original agreement to
discuss the book in sections (which I still think would be the most
beneficial way to do things... provided people actually wanted to
discuss anything). Wasn't the final chapter posted here on Shmeng at one
time? If so, this could be a good place to re-link it.
Without the final chapter, the book doesn't really have much of a message
in my opinion. It could still be argued that Alex's "choices" about
settling down when he is older are the result of social conditioning, just
as his youthful "choices" were not really, in the final analysis, within
his control. He does not come across as a wiser character in the final
chapter (to me), but he does read as a more mature one.
This still begs the question regarding free will. Older people make
different "choices" than younger people, to be sure. Often, the decisions
of older people are seen as being more informed due to their experiences
and insights. But (and I am straying from the text itself and into its
implications now), if older people make uniform choices and younger people
uniform choices (within statistical parameters, of course), what proof do
we have that these differences have any more to do with insight and the
exercise of sense? Could it not also be possible that older people are
simply conditioned to make a different set of "decisions" and it is only an
illusion that they are more free of social conditioning than their younger
counterparts?
NFI: Thank you for that background context. I hadn't heard it before. I
don't see A Clockwork Orange as a book about Totalitarianism in
the same sense as Orwell's 1984 , but the germ of it is there. As
for the ridiculousness of the rumour regarding Burgess' involvement in the
CIA... I agree that it is entirely unlikely that the author had anything to
do with that organisation. That the CIA engaged in experiments involving
"mind control" and behavioural modification, however, is a matter of public
record. They were ordered to pay restitution by the US Supreme Court for
their "MK ULTRA" series of experiments.
~M.
____________________ "I believe that woman is planning to shoot me again."
nostalgiaforinfinity
Occasional Poster
Posts: 33 Registered: 5/12/2004 Status: Offline
posted on 11/12/2004 at 07:16 PM
M: I like your point about free will and social conditioning. I would agree
that all of our choices areaffected or controlled by our social
conditioning, but this raises something of a conceptual difficulty. it is
hard (if not impossible) to imagine any type of choice or free will being
exercised outside of some kind of social structure and so the whole idea of
freedom of choice becomes something of a moot point. Without some kind of
structure in which to make choices, can will be exercised at all? The book
does explore the fact that society affects ALL of our choices, but I think
Burgess was also trying to say that this was not always a bad thing, that
there are degrees of freedom within a society, freedom that comes partly
from 'insight and common sense'.
Anyway, I would quite like to discuss the book if anyone is interested?
Sorry if i jumped the gun on the sections thing Mono, am quite happy to go
back to the beginning. But I probably won't have much to say until next
weekend as i have exams at the mo, plus i'd quite like to reread the book
as it's been a while.
Why was the final chapter missing from the American version? I knew the
film ending had been cut, presumably because Mr Kubrick felt it was too
nicey nicey.
____________________
Monolycus
Fanatic
Posts: 580 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 11/12/2004 at 08:20 PM
NFI: No apologies about "jumping the gun on the sections thing"... as long
as you are actually discussing the text itself, I could give a shit about
which part of it you are discussing. One of the sorest spots I have had as
a community member here was about people's apparent inability to do
something like read and discuss a book even after vocalising that it is
what they wanted to do.
I honestly have no idea why the final chapter was expurgated from the
American version. it seems to be a marketing decision, but, if so, it is an
especially crappy one and makes the book a bit pointless and voyeuristic
("Hey, look! He's violent, but if we make him un-violent, he gets
victimised!"). Seems like something a Disney exec would decide to do.
The "free will" question is really unanswerable, but if one hasn't already
had the internal debate, I think it is high time that they did. Obviously,
we do not have unlimited "free will" ("why don't you just "decide" that you
want to walk upside down on the ceiling, smart ass?"), but we should learn
to recognise the extent to which we are conditioned (as far as that is
recognisable).
Another factor in this equation is that Alex and his group were in
ostensible violation of explicit social mores and thought they
were "pushing the envelope" (as the youthful like to imagine they do), so
how is this behaving in accordance with social conditioning? I propose that
the irony (real irony, not Alanis Marmoset irony) is that violence was
tacitly incorporated into the social mores of which Alex & co were
allegedly in violation. This is illustrated by the authority figures such
as the police being as brutal and objective to their victims as the street
punks were to theirs. From this standpoint, Alex & co were more upright
conformists to their world than the writer in Chapter 2, who was a
provocateur and a destabilising factor.
~M.
____________________ "I believe that woman is planning to shoot me again."
nostalgiaforinfinity
Occasional Poster
Posts: 33 Registered: 5/12/2004 Status: Offline
posted on 11/12/2004 at 08:32 PM
I agree with the idea that alex and his group acted as a kind of mirror for
the brutality of the society in which they lived, that they were
reflecting/reinacting the violence of the police etc who brutalised them
and so brutalised those lower in the pecking order. Also, off the top of my
head, you could argue that youth is a society apart. That it has it's own
hierarchy, do's and don'ts and it's own forms of social conditioning. I'll
away sleep on it.