A Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess

Apr 2025 · W. W. Norton & Company

About this eBook

One of Esquire's 50 Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time
"A brilliant novel.... [A] savage satire on the distortions of the single and collective minds."— New York Times

In Anthony Burgess's influential nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, a teen who talks in a fantastically inventive slang that evocatively renders his and his friends' intense reaction against their society. Dazzling and transgressive, A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil and the meaning of human freedom. This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition, and Burgess's introduction, "A Clockwork Orange Resucked."

Ratings and reviews

I wanted to read this book after seeing the movie. I'm left with a hundred questions about the dialogue and the flow of the story, not being able to make out half of what is said. For people my age who value Kubrick's visual representation, this story without that prominent feature of Clockwork Orange is completely different, much more predictable and tame in bare bones, but more engaging by virtue of YHN's constant connection with the reader and lingo, which becomes more familiar the further read.

Note that this is just my review of this, and just that, an opinion. Now, this book is a very weird book that is little to none possible to understand without its slang dictionary in the back. However, this book falls really flat with repetitive dialogue and overall a poor storytelling of an actually good story. This book annoyed me greatly, but many other people will find it abstract and creative due to its storytelling.

Recommend this book if you are a fan of the movie which I saw initially. Hard to read at first with the slang, or "slovo" used but after the first few chapters it all makes sense.

About the author

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) is the author of many works, including The Wanting Seed, Nothing Like the Sun, and Re Joyce. A Clockwork Orange is one of the "100 best novels" of both Time magazine and Modern Library and is on David Bowie's Book List.