A Clockwork Orange by Penguin Essentials - Classic Dystopian Novel for Book Lovers & Collectors - Perfect for Reading, Gifts & Home Library Decor

Lets start with the book--"A Clockwork Orange."Anthony Burgess grew to hate this book, not because of its contents , but because it so overshadowed all of his other works. Burgess was a man of divers interests which he wrote about in both fiction and nonfiction. He was a superb writer. Words, for him, seemed to come easily.I must say, Burgess deserves mention as a sociological Jules Verne, a man who made stark predictions of future turns that have panned out.In "A Clockwork Orange," which he wrote fairly early in life, he created a deeply disturbing world in which young teens run free to commit violent crimes of all kinds at night. The opening pages of this book are filled with gang fights, muggings, rape, beatings, burglary, and car theft. Alex, the protagonist of this first-person narration, never shows even a smidgen of remorse about the crimes he has committed. He simply relates his tale, including a scene in which he rapes two girls he estimates to be pre-teen. The only violence the sociopathic Alex regards as problematic is violence against him.In the story, he is arrested and eventually introduced into an experimental new program that uses drugs and hypnotics to make people incapable of violence. Note, this does not mean he sees it as wrong, just that he cannot become violent without being sickened. He is a cat without claws or teeth that is placed back in a world filled with enemies (many of whom are the good people he tortured) and the results are as cruel as he is.The story is simple, the telling is sublime. Alex speaks "Nadsat," a slang language of Burgess's creation that mixes Russian words, rhyme, and English slang. A good portion of the novel is told in these words, so the reader needs to pay careful attention in the beginning, learn a new vocabulary, and apply that vocabulary to every paragraph.In my case, I was not a reader but a listener, and that enhanced the experience greatly. It enhanced the experience largely do to the amazing talents of Tom Hollander, a gifted character actor who injects so much into this book. You may know Hollander. He played the parson Mr. Collins in "Pride and Prejudice" and the officious Cutler Beckett in the second and third "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies. He generally plays the short guy with the big ego. If I had his reading ability, I'd have an ego the size of a mountain. Hollander adds a brash, boastful, cockney attitude to Alex. His range of voices and characters seems endless as he brings old men, politicians, prisoners. thugs, policemen, prison guards, priests, and psychologists to life.There have been a few perfect pairings of reader and text. If you try this audio book and agree with me, you might also want to listen to "The Anansi Boys" as read by Lenny Henry; "Memoirs of a Geisha," read by Bernadette Dunne--there are other productions of "Memoirs" with readers. I can neither recommend nor criticize other versions as I have not heard--I highly recommend holding out for Ms. Dunne's reading; and "The Green Mile" and "Freaky Deaky" read by Frank Muller.