A Clockwork Orange

the book and the movie
by Anthony Burgess and Stanley Kubrik

Cred ca este pentru prima data cand nu pot sa separ cartea de film si tot pentru prima data consider ca filmul este esential pentru intelegerea cartii.
Atat din film cat si din editia americana lipseste ultimul capitol al cartii and in my opinion is only for the better. In ultimul capitol Alex se cuminteste, devine un baiat normal, iese din adolosenta si isi doreste o viata linistita, o sotie, un copil; deja se simte cum usor usor isi pierde si vorbirea nadsat. This final chapter may lead you to believe that all this strange language is just a metaphor for the generation gap; the teenager who is unable to communicate with his parents. Because of this metaphor one may also believe that all the violence described in the book is again a metaphor for the unjustified, strange range that captures us and makes us unrecognizable when we are teenagers.
But the book is much more than this; it's a critique to any totalitarian system and to any attempt from the part of the government to control the people, hence the metaphor of the clockwork orange, the mechanical human being, trained to respond to stimuli. It raises the question of the free will and of good and evil and also of choice.
It is no wonder to me that the book came to raise violence and groups of young people were inspired by it; Alex is no loser. And although by the subtle comparison with Christ we might see him as a victim of the system in the eyes of many he may perfectly pass as a hero. As Alex, my husband, says the book and the movie were the starting point of the punk mouvement and it's strikingly strange how in the last pages Burgess anticipates even the hairstyle of the punks.