February 26, 2006

Appy-polly-loggies! An excellent Clockwork Orange review

Theodore Dalrymple has written an extremely interesting and insightful review, "Oh, to Be In England: A Prophetic and Violent Masterpiece", of A Clockwork Orange, contrasting Anthony Burgess's novel with Stanley Kubrick's film.

From Dalrymple's review:
The author of the book, Anthony Burgess, a polymath who once wrote five novels in a year, came to dislike this particular work intensely, not because of any practical harm to society that the film version of it might have caused but because he did not want to go down in literary history as the author of a book made famous, or notorious, by a movie. Irrespective of the value of his other work, however, A Clockwork Orange remains a novel of immense power. Linguistically inventive, socially prophetic, and philosophically profound, it comes very close to being a work of genius.
Memorable quote:
There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence.
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