Emily Whalen

Book Review
4/3/17
A Clockwork Orange is an amazing book written by Anthony Burgess in 1962. The
book is set in England in a futuristic manner. The main characters, at least in the
beginning, are Alex DeLarge, Dim, Pete and Georgie. Alex DeLarge is a fifteen year old
boy who is fascinated with classical music and has been to corrective schools in the
past to try and reform him from his violent ways. Dim, Pete and Georgie are all Alexs
friends who basically go along with whatever Alex says. At nights, Alex and his three
friends go out on the streets. They steal, beat up civilians, take drugs, and partake in
other various acts of ultra violence.

The characters in the book are very dynamic. Every single one of Alexs friends
become completely different at the end. Alex is the protagonist throughout the story with
his friends as the antagonists. However, Alex is the one who goes through most of the
horrible changes. Alex, being the leader of the group, orders his friends to go out and
steal a Durango 95, which is a car, and drive around the night. He has an idea of what
to do then; Alex and his friends stop at an isolated house. Alex walks up to the door and
asks a woman from inside if he could use their telephone to call an ambulance for his
friend that is dying in the middle of the road. She hesitates and finally lets him inside.
However, when she closes the door to unlock it, Alex puts on this mask to hide his face.
He and his friends all go inside and perform various acts of violence. Then shortly
afterwards, they go to the Korova Milk Bar. Here, they sold milk laced with drugs. Alex
always seems to pick of Dim a lot because he wasnt all that bright. The following
morning, Georgie and Dim have a talk with Alex about the new way and how Alex
wasnt going to give Dim any trouble anymore. Later on in the day, Alex beats up
Georgie and Dim and takes them to a place to talk. Georgie tells Alex about an idea he
had for one of the following nights. He explains that there is an old lady who lives with
just her cats in a mansion a bit out of the town. He also says that she keeps a lot of
jewels around, too. Alex agrees that this is a good idea, so that night they went to the
old ladys home. Alex tried to ask her to open up the door but she ultimately refuses.
She then returns upstairs as Alex breaks into her home. Little did he know, she had
phoned the police asking them to come by. Alex accidentally kills her and leaves. When
he gets outside, however, his friends smash a milk bottle over his eyes, blinding him
and sending him plummeting to the ground. While his friends escape, he is left to be
caught by the police. They take him to the State Jail and is charged with murder and
sentenced to 14 years in prison.
After being the State Jail for about two years, he hears of a Ludovico Technique that
gets you out of prison in a fortnight and makes people good. Alex confronts the prison
Charlie, or Preacher about it and asks if he can be a part of the experiment. Soon, a
man of the Government takes him into another building across from the State Jail to
begin the technique. The technique consisted of Alex being forced to watch films of
horrible violence with music synched to play along with it. While Alex was seeing the
Emily Whalen
Book Review
4/3/17
films, he begins to feel very ill. A nurse explains to him that he feels this way because
healthy people react harshly to violence. After watching these films for about two weeks,
Alex is finished with the treatment and every time Alex is subjected to any sort of
violence, he begins to feel extremely sick and almost suicidal. A lot of people dont
approve of the technique itself, though. The Preacher from the State Jail states that he
has no morals or the ability to make choices for himself anymore. Alex is then released
from the Treatment Center and free to venture out into a drastically different world than
he remembered. He returns home to find a man, Joe, who is a lodger, staying in his
room. Upset and depressed about that, he wanders around the town in search for
something to do. He goes to a local library to read a book . As he was finding a book, an
old man recognizes that Alex is the one who had beaten him up and torn up his books a
few years prior to now. He begins to beat Alex up but is soon stopped by police. Alex
looks up to see his old friend, Dim and his enemy, Billyboy. Billyboy was a man who was
previously in a gang that was fighting against Alex and his friends. The two take him out
in the middle of nowhere and beat him up even more. After they get through with him,
they leave him there to die. Alex searches for a place to go, coming to a home nearby.
He noticed the he had been there before, in the beginning of the story. The man living
there now, with his wife being dead from the horrible things Alex had done in the past,
lets him in and makes him feel comfortable. The man knew that he had seen Alex
sometime before and decided to do something about it. He called a few people and they
took Alex to another house and locked him inside. While locked inside, Alex is forced to
listen to a symphony done by a Danish composer, and it kept me hooked from
beginning to end,

A Clockwork Orange is an excellent read. I would read it again any day. Although, at
some points, it was rather difficult to understand the language, it was pretty easy with
using context clues and having seen the film multiple times. I would definitely give it five
stars because of the language, the characters and the main theme of the book. The
language, I thought, was real interesting. I loved reading every bit of it. As for the
characters, I felt as if I was actually there with Alex DeLarge throughout the entire story.