A Real Horrorshow Orange

My thoughts on Anthony Burgess's classic novel

A Clockwork Orange was written by Anthony Burgess, originally published in 1962, and uses the constructed language of nadsat: a russian-inspired english used by Alex (Your Humble Narrator) and his droogs (friends). Anyone familiar with the reputation of the Orange knows it is a most disturbing piece, with the beating of peoples near to death, actually to death, r*ping of an adult and underage girls, and the punishment under which the Humble Narrator suffers. The last not being so disturbing to our morals and anti-violent minds, but to our ethics and beliefs of how the state should treat its citizens.

The word nadsat is the russian equivalent of the -teen suffix, as in thirteen or nineteen. The language is made of anglicized versions of russian words, blended or compounded english words, and well as childish takes on english words. What intruiges me most about nadsat is the way it is used to tell the story, and how this creates a sort of barrier to entry. While reading of the horrible things being done in the text, our brains are trying to figure out what a portion of the words even mean. There is no glossary, and there are only a few translations. We are left to puzzle it out ourselves in the midst of the action. It’s this play of “what is he saying?” and “oh lord, is he really saying that?” which makes the Orange so difficult to get through or put down. I found myself wanting to stop many times, but going on anyway because it was so interesting. A trainwreck in another language.

Now, the reason these first chapters are so hard to get through is because of this ultra-violence that goes on in them. The droogs go about and beat, r*pe, rob, and murder all for funsies, even fighting amongst themselves at a point, and a question the book leaves in the air is “why?” Why are these children so violent and cruel? I believe it’s because they aren’t parented. Furthermore, I believe it’s due to the lack of spiritualism and religion in the modern-day life.

I understand that religion has led to some nasty happenings in the world, yes it has, but it has given us a means to carry on through turmoil and hardship, as well. It gives us a place in the grand scheme of things, and indeed lets us feel comfort in the chaos and ambiguity of life. With the passing of the Enlightenment and rise of rationalism, the state has come to replace the old religions more and more, and this has led to even more horrors, beyond even those we have seen from religion. If there was a higher power watching you, perhaps you would go to war over a distance piece of land eight times, but if the only thing holding you accountable was the state you are a part of, then perhaps you might feel comfortable killing over 11 million people just because you don’t like their jibs. Burgess alludes to this in the Introduction to the 1986 edition, “A Clockwork Orange Resucked,” when he says this:

“...by definition, a human being is endowed with free will. He can use this to choose between good and evil. If he can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange - meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil or (since this is increasingly replacing both) the Almighty State.”

This also touches on the main idea of the book, that even if someone is a horrid, horrible person that makes a choice to be and do evil, then because a choice is being made of a freedom of will, it is good and okay. This power of choice needs to be preserved. When Alex, the evil horrible person, is conditioned into feeling horribly sick whenever he thinks of violence, that is taking away his ability to choose, and thus his agency and humanhood. In the story, those reconditioning Alex use classical music, namely Beethoven’s Ninth’s 4th movement, in the movies they show him, and he curses them and calls them sinners for using such beautiful music in such a horrid setting. Later, once released, he cannot hear the Ninth without getting sick. This alludes to the idea that, when someone can no longer choose, they can no longer enjoy beauty in the world. Even the Ludwig van that had given Alex great pleasure in the past now only serves to trigger the horrible sickness. It leads him to, at the climax of the book, leap from a window and, he hopes, to his death. A little later in the introduction:

“Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities.”

Moral choice only matters if the ability to choose evil exists. Perhaps the world might be a saner place if criminals were brainwashed into perpetual anti-violence, but what good is good if there is no chance of antigood? It is these two ideas conflicting, grinding against each other, that are exactly what their conflict is all about.

In conclusion, I believe humanity is at a turning point. We’ve been coming up to it since before Burgess wrote the Orange, and the pressure we feel from it grows more and more with every passing year. The religions of the past are too filled with baggage to be of use to us anymore. We are turning away from them, but the things we replace them with are not suitable, they don’t have the structure to sustain a human hope. The state, science, nature, the self, celebrity, all of these things only serve to shore up and weaken us. They make us shallow while we forget the things that affect us most. The state does not matter if we hate our neighbors. Science means nothing if we’ve not the wonder to look at what it means to us. Nature is beautiful, but we must have cars for society to advance, and the self and celebrity are merely frail, fragile simulacra of what humans really are. We are deep, thinking, feeling, trusting, and loving, as well as petty, cruel, violent, careless, and irrational. It’s this churning and turning of all aspects of us in this big human soup that really makes the world go round. Science has shown us that, but religion gave it to us.