Saturday, July 16, 2011

What's it going to be then, eh?

The question that makes the title of this post is used throughout Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. Each time it's asked, the main character, Alex, is being presented with a choice. Sometimes seemingly mundane, but always leading to whether or not he's going to continue his life of violence and crime or...not.

The theme of choice and particularly choosing to do good or bad, is raised throughout the book. The question is actually asked outright in the book: If someone only can do good through compulsion, that is, without really having a choice in the matter, are they really good? Are they really human if their ability to choose is taken away? And at what price to society?

I really enjoyed the story. As a character, Alex was engaging and interesting even if not likable. There were no other truly main characters, just people who pop in and out of Alex's life. The book is said to be dystopian, which it is, but it certainly doesn't get into details about the society as a whole. That being said, I certainly still got a feeling that the times Alex was living in were bleak and dreary. Also, because the story focused on one character and had a few prominent themes, the writing felt precise and the book was certainly not too long.

The novel is known for its heavy use of made up slang. After the first few paragraphs I wondered how many people quit reading at that point and considered it gibberish. The language was a distraction at first but it did have the effect of making you feel like you were in a completely different place. It also forced you to concentrate down to the word level while reading. And it was an interesting exercise to realize how quickly person can adapt to different terminology. Within a few pages certain words were understood and their meanings incorporated into the sentences without too much extra thought.

One thing I noticed is that the language seemed to blunt the effect of the ultra-violent scenes. When my brain had to process a little bit longer to say, "Ok, that word means blood, and that one means face..." the picture then didn't pop up as clearly in my mind. Whether the fact that the violence didn't always come across as horrendous as it was, was a good thing or not, I'm not sure.

The last chapter was originally omitted from the American publications of the novel. The publishers had their reasons and my feelings are that it should have been published as a whole from the beginning. If someone doesn't like the work of an artist, they can make a derivative work or an abridged version, but it should not be recreated with parts missing and still titled with the original name. That being said, I was a little dismayed when I finished the book and realized that I didn't particularly care for the last chapter. I really wanted to be able to love the real ending so that I could internally sneer at those publishers.

Alex goes through a change in the last chapter and it seemed too contrived. All throughout the story, Alex pushes the blame for his problems out to others. Time and again when he was responsible (sometimes solely so) he finds a way to rationalize his situation to be other people's fault. He blames his friends, his parents, the government, the police. Granted, there was some blame to be spread around, but Alex pushed it all off.

It was hard to buy into the idea that a person can go from raping and murdering his way through his teenage years to suddenly discover around age twenty that he just wasn't into it anymore.

So rather than a sudden change from ultra-violent to non-violent, I would have liked Alex to suddenly realize the negative affect he had on people's lives. Once he came to that realization, then he would have made a choice to stop being violent. Instead, he just grew out of it without learning anything or really making a choice; he just didn't feel like causing violence anymore.

But I'll still take the real ending with my complaints over the trimmed story for the sake of hoping to sell more copies.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Torey -

Clockwork Orange was a great movie!!!

Alex...What a dude...

Retz