Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange (UK Version)

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange (UK Version)» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию без сокращений). В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Жанр: Современная проза, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.

A Clockwork Orange (UK Version): краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «A Clockwork Orange (UK Version)»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

In Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, Burgess creates a gloomy future full of violence, rape and destruction. In this dystopian novel, Burgess does a fantastic job of constantly changing the readers’ allegiance toward the books narrator and main character, Alex. Writing in a foreign language, Burgess makes the reader feel like an outsider. As the novel begins, the reader has no emotional connection to Alex. This non-emotional state comes to a sudden halt when Alex and his droogs begin a series of merciless acts of violence. The reader rapidly begins to form what seems to be an irreversible hatred toward the books narrator. However, as time progresses, Burgess cleverly changes the tone of his novel. Once wishing only the harshest punishments be bestowed upon him, it is these same punishments that begin to change how the reader feels. In fact, by the end of the book, one almost begins to have pity for Alex. The same character that was once hated soon emerges as one of many victims taken throughout the course of the book. Throughout Alex’s narration, Burgess manages to change the readers’ allegiance toward a once seemingly evil character.
Alex is the type of character one loves to hate; he makes it all too easy to dislike him. He is a brutal, violent, teenage criminal with no place in society. His one and only role is to create chaos, which he does too well. Alex’s violent nature is first witnessed during the first chapter, and is soon seen again when Alex and his gang chose to brutally beat an innocent drunkard. This beating off the homeless man serves no purpose other then to amuse Alex’s gang. The acts committed were not performed for revenge, the one reason given was that Alex did not enjoy seeing a homeless drunk, “I could never stand to see a moodge all filthy and rolling and burping and drunk, whatever his age might be, but more especially when he was real starry like this one was”. Alex continues to explain his reason for dislike, “his platties were a disgrace, all creased and untidy and covered in cal”, from this explanation one realizes his reasons for nearly killing a man are simply based on pleasure, desire, and a dislike toward the untidy. By the end of the second chapter Burgess’s inventive usage of a different language to keep the reader alienated from forming opinions about Alex ceases to work. At this point in time Alex’s true nature is revealed, and not even his unfamiliar Nadsat language can save him from being strongly disliked by the reader.
The more the reader learns of Alex, the more and more he is disliked; Alex’s relationship with his parents only builds on ones already negative opinions toward Alex. Coming from a normal family and a sturdy household free of domestic violence, there is no excuse for Alex’s violent nature. In fact, Alex’s loving parents are just as baffled by his immoral personality as the reader, although because of their naivete, they know much less of what he does. This leaves the reader uninformed and wondering: why is Alex the way he is? Fortunately, just as one begins to question Alex’s motives, Alex gives an answer, “badness is of the self, the one…is not our modern history, my brothers the story of brave malenky selves fighting these big machines? I am serious with you, brothers, over this. But what I do I do because I like to do”. He could not have explained it more clearly. While from one point of view Alex visions himself as a revolutionary, even simpler then that, he is basically admitting he commits violent acts because he enjoys doing so. Later in the book Alex offers another solution for his violent nature, “Being young is like being one of these malenky machines…and so it would itty on to like the end of the world”. These malenky machines he is referring to are very similar to the clockwork orange Burgess talks to in his introduction. Whatever reasons he gives, none of them are valid enough to prevent the reader from hating Alex.
In spite of all the hatred aimed toward Alex at this point, seemingly it is not enough to prevent the pity one begins to feel when Alex is abandoned by his “droogs”. Knowing he is the leader of his group, Alex constantly gives orders to his gang. Unfortunately it is due to his tendency to need leadership that a quarrel begins with his gang. After settling the original dispute that arises, Alex and his “droogs” are not so successful at ending their second squabble. Framed by his friends, Alex is arrested while they run away. Furthermore, he is beaten by the police, and sentenced to fourteen years of jail. It only takes two of them for the reader to realize the difficulties that Alex is living through. Throughout the first part of the book, there is in fact only one sign that Alex is not utterly evil, that being his music. Along with his abandonment from friends, it is the music that Burgess uses to help change the readers opinion, and eventually to have pity toward his young antagonist.
As the reader continues to pry deeper into Alex’s life it is shocking to learn of the music he listens to, it is because of this music and the actions taken against him that one truly begins to feel sorry for Burgess’s little Alex. The music that Alex chooses to listen is very ironic. While it causes him to do evil things, the fact remains that he listens to normal music, one of the first things he is not disliked for, “lying there on my bed with glazzies tight shut and rookers behind my gulliver, I broke and spattered and cried aaaaaaah with the bliss of it". His particular interest in Ludwig Van arises during one of his sessions while undergoing Ludivico’s Technique. Upon hearing what he perceives to be heavenly music Alex cry’s out about the injustice in the procedure, “I don’t mind about the ultra-violence and all that cal. I can put up with that. But it’s not fair on the music”. It is during this same treatment that the reader really begins to feel sympathy toward him. Striped of his ability to choose right from wrong, and now the same clockwork orange that F. Alexander earlier told him about, Alex becomes one of the governments’ machines. Forced to do exactly what they want him to, become their “true Christian”, Alex poses the question to his doctors, “How about me? Where do I come into all this? Am I like just some animal or dog…am I to be just like a clockwork orange?” Alex is all alone in the world, no longer capable of performing cruel deeds, he is denied by all whom he once knew. The same character one used to wish the harshest punishment upon received it, and when he got it, it becomes strikingly evident that it was much more then even the worst person would ever deserve.
Burgess does a magical job at making the reader quickly forget the horrible deeds Alex once committed. Instead by making powerful moral statements, Burgess goes so far that the reader not only turns the other cheek toward Alex’s crimes, but also feels genuinely sorry for him. Alex may not be completely cured, but that is not the issue at hand. Through means of pity and by playing with the readers’ emotions throughout the book, during A Clockwork Orange, Burgess is constantly playing with the reader’s allegiances.

A Clockwork Orange (UK Version) — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «A Clockwork Orange (UK Version)», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

"Wah wah. Boohoohoo. Cry, baby." Then he flick-flickflicked with his bolshy horny nail at my nose again, and I could slooshy very loud smecks of like mirth coming from the dark audience. I said, real desperate, trying to be nice to this insulting and hurtful veck to stop the pains and sickness coming up:

"Please let me do something for you, please." And I felt in my carmans but could find only my cut-throat britva, so I took this out and handed it to him and said: "Please take this, please. A little present. Please have it." But he said: "Keep your stinking bribes to yourself. You can't get round me that way." And he banged at my rooker and my cut-throat britva fell on the floor. So I said:

"Please, I must do something. Shall I clean your boots? Look, I'll get down and lick them." And, my brothers, believe it or kiss my sharries, I got down on my knees and pushed my red yahzick out a mile and half to lick his grahzny vonny boots. But all this veck did was to kick me not too hard on the rot. So then it seemed to me that it would not bring on the sickness and pain if I just gripped his ankles with my rookers tight round them and brought this grashzny bratchny down to the floor. So I did this and he got a real bolshy surprise, coming down crack amid loud laughter from the vonny audience. But viddying him on the floor I could feel the whole horrible feeling coming over me, so I gave him my rooker to lift him up skorry and up he came. Then just as he was going to give me a real nasty and earnest tolchock on the litso Dr. Brodsky said: "All right, that will do very well." Then this horrible veck sort of bowed and danced off like an actor while the lights came up on me blinking and with my rot square for howling. Dr. Brodsky said to the audience: "Our subject is, you see, impelled towards the good by, paradoxically, being impelled towards evil. The intention to act violently is accompanied by strong feelings of physical distress. To counter these the subject has to switch to a diametrically opposed attitude. Any questions?"

"Choice," rumbled a rich deep goloss. I viddied it belonged to the prison charlie. "He has no real choice, has he? Self-interest, fear of physical pain, drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement. Its insincerity was clearly to be seen. He ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice."

"These are subtleties," like smiled Dr. Brodsky. "We are not concerned with motive, with the higher ethics. We are concerned only with cutting down crime – "

"And," chipped in this bolshy well-dressed Minister, "with relieving the ghastly congestion in our prisons."

"Hear hear," said somebody.

There was a lot of govoreeting and arguing then and I just stood there, brothers, like completely ignored by all these ignorant bratchnies, so I creeched out: "Me, me, me. How about me? Where do I come into all this? Am I just some animal or dog?" And that started them off govoreeting real loud and throwing slovos at me. So I creeched louder, still creeching: "Am I just to be like a clockwork orange?" I didn't know what made me use those slovos, brothers, which just came like without asking into my gulliver. And that shut all those vecks up for some reason for a minoota or two. Then one very thin starry professor type chelloveck stood up, his neck like all cables carrying like power from his gulliver to his plott, and he said: "You have no cause to grumble, boy. You made your choice and all this is a consequence of your choice. Whatever now ensues is what you yourself have chosen." And the prison charlie creeched out:

"Oh, if only I could believe that." And you could viddy the Governor give him a look like meaning that he would not climb so high in like Prison Religion as he thought he would. Then loud arguing started again, and then I could slooshy the slovo Love being thrown around, the prison charles himself creeching as loud as any about Perfect Love Casteth Out Fear and all that cal. And now Dr. Brodsky said, smiling all over his litso:

"I am glad, gentlemen, this question of Love has been raised. Now we shall see in action a manner of Love that was thought to be dead with the Middle Ages." And then the lights went down and the spotlights came on again, one on your poor and suffering Friend and Narrator, and into the other there like rolled or sidled the most lovely young devotchka you could ever hope in all your jeezny, O my brothers, to viddy. That is to say, she had real horrorshow groodies all of which you could like viddy, she having on platties which came down down down off her pletchoes. And her nogas were like Bog in His Heaven, and she walked like to make you groan in your keeshkas, and yet her litso was a sweet smiling young like innocent litso. She came up towards me with the light like it was the like light of heavenly grace and all that cal coming with her, and the first thing that flashed into my gulliver was that I would like to have her right down there on the floor with the old in-out real savage, but skorry as a shot came the sickness, like a like detective that had been watching round a corner and now followed to make his grahzny arrest. And now the von of lovely perfume that came off her made me want to think of starting to heave in my keeshkas, so I knew I had to think of some new like way of thinking about her before all the pain and thirstiness and horrible sickness come over me real horrorshow and proper. So I creeched out: "O most beautiful and beauteous of devotchkas, I throw like my heart at your feet for you to like trample all over. If I had a rose I would give it to you. If it was all rainy and cally now on the ground you could have my platties to walk on so as not to cover your dainty nogas with filth and cal." And as I was saying all this, O my brothers, I could feel the sickness like slinking back. "Let me," I creeched out, "worship you and be like your helper and protector from the wicked like world." Then I thought of the right slovo and felt better for it, saying: "Let me be like your true knight," and down I went again on the old knees, bowing and like scraping. And then I felt real shooty and dim, it having been like an act again, for this devotchka smiled and bowed to the audience and like danced off, the lights coming up to a bit of applause. And the glazzies of some of these starry vecks in the audience were like popping out at this young devotchka with dirty and like unholy desire, O my brothers. "He will be your true Christian," Dr. Brodsky was creeching out, "ready to turn the other cheek, ready to be crucified rather than crucify, sick to the very heart at the thought even of killing a fly." And that was right, brothers, because when he said that I thought of killing a fly and felt just that tiny bit sick, but I pushed the sickness and pain back by thinking of the fly being fed with bits of sugar and looked after like a bleeding pet and all that cal. "Reclamation," he creeched. "Joy before the Angels of God."

"The point is," this Minister of the Inferior was saying real gromky, "that it works."

"Oh," the prison charlie said, like sighing, "it works all right, God help the lot of us."

Part Three

1

"What's it going to be then, eh?"

That, my brothers, was me asking myself the next morning, standing outside this white building that was like tacked on to the old Staja, in my platties of the night of two years back in the grey light of dawn, with a malenky bit of a bag with my few personal veshches in and a bit of cutter kindly donated by the vonny Authorities to like start me off in my new life. The rest of the day before had been very tiring, what with interviews to go on tape for the telenews and photographs being took flash flash flash and more like demonstrations of me folding up in the face of ultra-violence and all that embarrassing cal. And then I had like fallen into the bed and then,as it looked to me, been waked up to be told to get off out, to itty off home, they did not want to viddy Your Humble Narrator never not no more, O my brothers. So there I was, very very early in the morning, with just this bit of pretty polly in my left carman, jingle-jangling it and wondering: "What's it going to be then, eh?" Some breakfast some mesto, I thought, me not having eaten at all that morning, every veck being so anxious to tolchock me off out to freedom. A chasha of chai only I had peeted. This Staja was in a very like gloomy part of the town, but there were malenky workers' caffs all around and I soon found one of these, my brothers. It was very cally and vonny, with one bulb in the ceiling with fly-dirt like obscuring its bit of light, and there were early rabbiters slurping away at chai and horrible-looking sausages and slices of kleb which they like wolfed, going wolf wolf wolf and then creeching for more. They were served by a very cally devotchka but with very bolshy groodies on her, and some of the eating vecks tried to grab her, going haw haw haw while she went he he he, and the sight of them near made me want to sick, brothers. But I asked for some toast and jam and chai very politely and with my gentleman's goloss, then I sat in a dark corner to eat and peet.

Читать дальше
Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «A Clockwork Orange (UK Version)»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «A Clockwork Orange (UK Version)» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.


libcat.ru: книга без обложки
Anthony Burgess
Anthony Burgess - Enderby Outside
Anthony Burgess
Anthony Burgess - Inside Mr Enderby
Anthony Burgess
libcat.ru: книга без обложки
Anthony Burgess
Antony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange
Antony Burgess
Anthony Burgess - Tremor of Intent
Anthony Burgess
libcat.ru: книга без обложки
Anthony Burgess
Anthony Burgess - La Naranja Mecánica
Anthony Burgess
Отзывы о книге «A Clockwork Orange (UK Version)»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «A Clockwork Orange (UK Version)» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.

x