A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
I enjoyed this book, not for the story because it’s very violent, but for the questions I asked myself after reading it. 1.) How far are you willing to go to make a monster good before you become the monster? And 2.) What does it mean, if anything at all, that the book was released differently to Americans than it was to Europeans? I’ll explain…
I have the version with 21 chapters (signifying Alex’s age). When this book was released in the U.S. the 21st chapter was left off. Once you read it, you will see how drastically different the story ends if you cut it off at chapter 20. I don’t want to give it away, but Stanley Kubrick used the American version as well. Does that mean that Americans are more cynical? Less forgiving? Do we not believe that you can redeem yourself after a certain point? What does it say about the readers when it was released? I have no answers….just curious.
I remember feeling so sorry for the monster that I sort of got nauseous. So HAVE FUN with this one!