A Clockwork Orange: A Play with Music
Dust jacket from the first edition
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| Author | Anthony Burgess |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Barry Trengrove |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language |
English Nadsat |
| Genre | Science fiction, Satire, Dystopian fiction |
| Published | 1962 (William Heinemann, UK) |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) & audio book (cassette, CD) |
| Pages | 192 pages (hardback edition) & 176 pages (paperback edition) |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 4205836 |
A Clockwork Orange is a dystopian novel by Anthony Burgess published in 1962. Set in a near future English society featuring a subculture of extreme youth violence, the teenage protagonist, Alex, narrates his violent exploits and his experiences with state authorities intent on reforming him. The book is partially written in a Russian-influenced argot called "Nadsat". According to Burgess it was a written in just three weeks.
In 2005, A Clockwork Orange was included on Time magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923, and it was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. The original manuscript of the book has been located at McMaster University's William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada since the institution purchased the documents in 1971.
Alex is a 15-year-old living in near-future dystopian England who leads his gang on a night of opportunistic, random "ultra-violence". Alex's friends ("droogs" in the novel's Anglo-Russian slang, 'Nadsat') are Dim, a slow-witted bruiser who is the gang's muscle; Georgie, an ambitious second-in-command; and Pete, who mostly plays along as the droogs indulge their taste for ultra-violence. Characterised as a sociopath and a hardened juvenile delinquent, Alex also displays intelligence, quick wit, and a predilection for classical music; he is particularly fond of Beethoven, referred to as "Lovely Ludwig Van".
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