A Clockwork Orange

Before I had read the book I had already seen Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange twice. I was fascinated by the character of Alex and the strange alternate world they lived in. And not until I picked up the book did I remember the strange gibberish that was used as the basis for the dialogue (although I am completely surprised, upon a third viewing of the movie after I had read the book, I can’t believe I even knew what was going on. Perhaps I merely understood by visual as opposed to audio. Though of course, now that I had read the book I understood everything perfectly, I just didn’t understand how I had understood before!)

A Clockwork Orange’s gibberish of course was based on a rather casual patois of Russian. My favorite part of reading the book was slowly figuring out what was being said. When I first started reading I had no idea what was even being talked about, particularly in the nouns (such as parts of the body…like “gulliver” and “rookers”) and the verbs. Luckily, about two thirds of the way through reading I looked up on the internet a Clockwork Orange dictionary site and quickly learned all the words that I just couldn’t figure out even with repeated usage.

I was surprised as well about the author’s note that came at the front of my book. Burgess’s note stated that he was very upset about the first publishing of his book in America where they left out the last chapter, and how the movie adaptation as well had left out the last chapter, and because of this his character Alex no longer had an arc, which the last chapter intends to do, to show one’s ability to move on. However, upon reading this legendary last chapter I found it rather perpetuated the image that’s painted of him in the first place. The fact that he carries a picture of a baby around in his pocket, with an urge to find a wife to impregnate in the end. I found it a rather creepy ending to the story. I don’t believe the movie suffered too much from the elimination of this story point, particularly because it is a few years later and not directly afterwards. I find the author perhaps was just sore about his work not being completely represented in its entirety, however if you compare the adaptation of A Clockwork Orange from a book to a movie with other movies created from books, this one comes incredibly close and he should be happy it wasn’t as butchered as the fate of some other books.