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

"All right, all right, eh? What a superb device he can be, this boy. If anything, of course, he could for preference look even iller and more zombyish than he does. Anything for the cause. No doubt we can think of something."

I did not like that crack about zombyish, brothers, and so I said: "What goes on, bratties? What dost thou in mind for thy little droog have?" And the F. Alexander swooshed in with:

"Strange, strange, that manner of voice pricks me. We've come into contact before, I'm sure we have." And he brooded, like frowning. I would have to watch this, O my brothers. D. B. da Silva said:

"Public meetings, mainly. To exhibit you at public meetings will be a tremendous help. And, of course, the newspaper angle is all tied up. A ruined life is the approach. We must inflame all hearts." He showed his thirty-odd zoobies, very white against his dark-coloured litso, he looking a malenky bit like some foreigner. I said:

"Nobody will tell me what I get out of all this. Tortured in jail, thrown out of my home by my own parents and their filthy overbearing lodger, beaten by old men and near-killed by the millicents – what is to become of me?" The Rubinstein veck came in with:

"You will see, boy, that the Party will not be ungrateful. Oh, no. At the end of it all there will be some very acceptable little surprise for you. Just you wait and see."

"There's only one veshch I require," I creeched out, "and that's to be normal and healthy as I was in the starry days, having my malenky bit of fun with real droogs and not those who just call themselves that and are really more like traitors. Can you do that, eh? Can any veck restore me to what I was? That's what I want and that's what I want to know." Kashl kashl kashl, coughed this Z. Dolin. "A martyr to the cause of Liberty." he said. "You have your part to play and don't forget it. Meanwhile, we shall look after you." And he began to stroke my left rooker as if I was like an idiot, grinning in a bezoomny way. I creeched:

"Stop treating me like a thing that's like got to be just used. I'm not an idiot you can impose on, you stupid bratchnies. Ordinary prestoopnicks are stupid, but I'm not ordinary and nor am I dim. Do you slooshy?"

"Dim," said F. Alexander, like musing. "Dim. That was a name somewhere. Dim."

"Eh?" I said. "What's Dim got to do with it? What do you know about Dim?" And then I said: "Oh, Bog help us." I didn't like the look in F. Alexander's glazzies. I made for the door, wanting to go upstairs and get my platties and then itty off.

"I could almost believe," said F. Alexander, showing his stained zoobies, his glazzies mad. "But such things are impossible. For, by Christ, if he were I'd tear him. I'd split him, by God, yes yes, so I would."

"There," said D. B. da Silva, stroking his chest like he was a doggie to calm him down. "It's all in the past. It was other people altogether. We must help this poor victim. That's what we must do now, remembering the Future and our Cause."

"I'll just get my platties," I said, at the stair-foot, "that is to say clothes, and then I'll be ittying off all on my oddy knocky. I mean, my gratitude for all, but I have my own jeezny to live." Because, brothers, I wanted to get out of here real skorry. But Z. Dolin said:

"Ah, no. We have you, friend, and we keep you. You come with us. Everything will be all right, you'll see." And he came up to me like to grab hold of my rooker again. Then, brothers, I thought of fight, but thinking of fight made me like want to collapse and sick, so I just stood. And then I saw this like madness in F. Alexander's glazzies and said: "Whatever you say. I am in your rookers. But let's get it started and all over, brothers." Because what I wanted now was to get out of this mesto called HOME. I was beginning not to like the look of the glazzies of F. Alexander one malenky bit.

"Good," said this Rubinstein. "Get dressed and let's get started."

"Dim dim dim," F. Alexander kept saying in a like low mutter. "What or who was this Dim?" I ittied upstairs real skorry and dressed in near two seconds flat. Then I was out with these three and into an auto, Rubinstein one side of me and Z. Dolin coughing kashl kashl kashl the other side. D. B. da Silva doing the driving, into the town and to a flatblock not really all that distant from what had used to be my own flatblock or home. "Come, boy, out," said Z. Dolin, coughing to make the cancer-end in his rot glow red like some malenky furnace. "This is where you shall be installed." So we ittied in, and there was like another of these Dignity of Labour vesh-ches on the wall of the vestibule, and we upped in the lift, brothers, and then went into a flat like all the flats of all the flatblocks of the town. Very very malenky, with two bedrooms and one live-eat-work-room, the table of this all covered with books and papers and ink and bottles and all that cal. "Here is your new home," said D. B. da Silva. "Settle here, boy. Food is in the food-cupboard. Pyjamas are in a drawer. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit."

"Eh?" I said, not quite ponying that.

"All right," said Rubinstein, with his starry goloss. "We are now leaving you. Work has to be done. We'll be with you later. Occupy yourself as best you can."

"One thing," coughed Z. Dolin kashl kashl kashl. "You saw what stirred in the tortured memory of our friend F. Alexander. Was it, by chance -? That is to say, did you -? I think you know what I mean. We won't let it go any further."

"I've paid," I said. "Bog knows I've paid for what I did. I've paid not only for like myself but for those bratchnies too that called themselves my droogs." I felt violent so then I felt a bit sick. "I'll lay down a bit," I said. "I've been through terrible terrible times."

"You have," said D. B. da Silva, showing all his thirty zoobies. "You do that."

So they left me, brothers. They ittied off about their business, which I took to be about politics and all that cal, and I was on the bed, all on my oddy knocky with everything very very quiet. I just laid there with my sabogs kicked off my nogas and my tie loose, like all bewildered and not knowing what sort of a jeezny I was going to live now. And all sorts of like pictures kept like passing through my gulliver, of the different chellovecks I'd met at school and in the Staja, and the different veshches that had happened to me, and how there was not one veck you could trust in the whole bolshy world. And then I like dozed off, brothers. When I woke up I could hear slooshy music coming out of the wall, real gromky, and it was that that had dragged me out of my bit of like sleep. It was a symphony that I knew real horrorshow but had not slooshied for many a year, namely the Symphony Number Three of the Danish veck Otto Skade-lig, a very gromky and violent piece, especially in the first movement, which was what was playing now. I slooshied for two seconds in like interest and joy, but then it all came over me, the start of the pain and the sickness, and I began to groan deep down in my keeshkas. And then there I was, me who had loved music so much, crawling off the bed and going oh oh oh to myself and then bang bang banging on the wall creching: "Stop, stop it, turn it off!" But it went on and it seemed to be like louder. So I crashed at the wall till my knuckles were all red red krovvy and torn skin, creeching and creeching, but the music did not stop. Then I thought I had to get away from it, so I lurched out of the malenky bedroom and ittied skorry to the front door of the flat, but this had been locked from the outside and I could not get out. And all the time the music got more and more gromky, like it was all a deliberate torture, O my brothers. So I stuck my little fingers real deep in my ookos, but the trombones and kettledrums blasted through gromky enough. So I creeched again for them to stop and went hammer hammer hammer on the wall, but it made not one malenky bit of difference. "Oh, what am I to do?" I boohooed to myself. "Oh, Bog in Heaven help me." I was like wandering all over the flat in pain and sickness, trying to shut out the music and like groaning deep out of my guts, and then on top of the pile of books and papers and all that cal that was on the tablein the living room I viddied what I had to do and what I had wanted to do until those old men in the Public Biblio and then Dim and Billyboy disguised as rozzes stopped me, and that was to do myself in, to snuff it, to blast off for ever out of this wicked and cruel world. What I viddied was the slovo DEATH on the cover of a like pamphlet, even though it was only DEATH to THE GOVERNMENT. And like it was Fate there was another malenky booklet which had an open window on the cover, and it said: "Open the window to fresh air, fresh ideas, a new way of living." And so I knew that was like telling me to finish it all off by jumping out. One moment of pain, perhaps, and then sleep for ever and ever and ever.

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