A Clockwork Orange

I only picked up this book because there was a sale going on and I've heard of this book having a sort of cult following. Supposed to be a rather shocking piece of work. Wonder what it says about me, since I didn't find it all that shocking. Sure, the beatings, the rapes, the break-ins... well, maybe it's a different era I suppose given what we see on TV and in the news these days.

The nadsat-talk “slang” was pretty easy to follow - you get the gist of the meaning. It was kinda interesting at first, but towards the end, I got weary of it.

The author seems to railing against the impetuousness of youth, uncontrolled youth at that, painting a dystopian society which turns almost lawless during the night. The violent narrator is an example of such a youth, one who got caught, was forcibly redeemed, and then reverted back. None of the other characters were ever much fleshed out; it was like they were all more symbolic, given what seems to be stereotypical characters - the backstabbing comrade, the brtual police, the self-serving politician, etc.

I don't really have much else to say about the plot. It wasn't all that interesting, except for that “redeeming” process, but then again, that isn't all that unheard of anymore, in this day and age. I also read the author's foreword rant, where he lamented the exclusion of the final chapter in the first edition. Neither endings felt satisfactory to me. One was sort of dangling, the other was a liitle too “eveything's ok now.”