Genre: Fiction--Novel
Completed: 29 August 2016
Summary & Review:
Alex and his crew spend their evenings terrorizing everyone they encounter. Robbery, rape, murder, vandalism...it’s all on the table and all committed with no thought about right and wrong. When a robbery goes wrong, Alex is betrayed by his crew and ends up in prison. He spends two long years there before he is granted an opportunity for early release is he consents to be the first test subject in a new program designed to “cure” the impulse for violence and other anti-social behaviors. Alex jumps at the chance but soon regrets it.
This was a crazy book. First of all, Burgress wrote the whole thing in a fictional street slang which is laced with a lot of Russian influence and the story is told as if Alex were narrating it to you face to face. Second, there are some incredibly terrible things that happen but Alex describes them so matter of factly (ho, hum) that at first you don’t realize what you just read. But, within all this violence and slang is a discussion on free will and choice which I thought was pretty interesting. As Burgess writes, “A man who cannot choose ceases to be a man.” (115)
Rating: 7.0
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