In a metafictional touch, the husband is a writer working on a manuscript called ' A Clockwork Orange', and Alex contemptuously reads out a paragraph that states the novel's main theme before shredding the manuscript. Joyriding through the countryside in a stolen car, they break into an isolated cottage and terrorise the young couple living there, beating the husband and gang-raping his wife. They assault a scholar walking home from the public library rob a store, leaving the owner and his wife bloodied and unconscious beat up a beggar then scuffle with a rival gang. The droogs sit in their favourite hangout, the Korova Milk Bar, drinking 'milk-plus' (milk laced with the customer's drug of choice) to prepare for a night of ultra-violence.

Characterised as a sociopath and hardened juvenile delinquent, Alex is also intelligent, quick-witted, and enjoys classical music he is particularly fond of Beethoven, whom he calls 'Lovely Ludwig Van'. His friends ('droogs' in the novel's Anglo-Russian slang, ' Nadsat') and fellow gang members are Dim, a slow-witted bruiser, who is the gang's muscle Georgie, an ambitious second-in-command and Pete, who mostly plays along as the droogs indulge their taste for 'ultra-violence' (random, violent mayhem). Plot summary Part 1: Alex's world Īlex is a 15-year-old gang leader living in a near-future dystopian city. In 2022, the novel was included on the ' Big Jubilee Read' list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors selected to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II. It is considered one of the most influential dystopian books. The original manuscript of the book has been kept at McMaster University's William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada since the institution purchased the documents in 1971. In 2005, A Clockwork Orange was included on Time magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923, and it was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. According to Burgess, it was a jeu d'esprit written in just three weeks.

The book is partially written in a Russian-influenced argot called ' Nadsat', which takes its name from the Russian suffix that is equivalent to '-teen' in English. The teenage protagonist, Alex, narrates his violent exploits and his experiences with state authorities intent on reforming him. It is set in a near-future society that has a youth subculture of extreme violence. Print ( hardback & paperback) & audio book ( cassette, CD)Ī Clockwork Orange is a dystopian satirical black comedy novel by English writer Anthony Burgess, published in 1962. Science fiction, dystopian fiction, satire, black comedy

A clockwork orange novel book buy