Review: A Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Unless you read Cockney English just watch the movie and skip this book. This is one of the rare times when it can be said that the movie is better then the book.

First, it's written badly. Not poorly, badly. You have to translate into a variant of English just to guess what is being said. When you get the hang of it that's when this terrible lead character a.k.a. the narrator comes in. Not only is he a horrible person who commits crimes like murder and rape just for fun, he's also an idiot. When he gets caught and made to pay for his crimes he somehow manages to become even more unsympathetic.

In the end the author tries to make this a coming of age story. The narrator turns eighteen and decides it's time to grow up and be an adult. Instead it just makes you wonder, why aren't you still locked away in prison? Reading this book was a prison sentence. Skip reading this and just watch the movie. Even the author thought the movie was better. If that doesn't tell you something, nothing else will.

Keep in mind unlike other reviewers I'm only reviewing this story based on the book alone. Many others will rate the book and movie as one story. This is only a review of the novel that the movie was based on.

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