3. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Anthony Burgess' cult novel follows the narrative of Alex - a violent, psychopathic juvenile delinquent who runs with a gang of boys called 'The Droogs'. Utterly without a conscience, Alex and the Droogs embark on a night of 'ultra violence' - this includes such acts as robbing a store and and beating up the owners, assaulting a derelict, joyriding to the countryside and beating up a writer and raping his wife. Despite these crimes, Alex is charismatic, witty and clever, with a love for the music of Beethoven. But he is a dyed in the wool sociopath. More horrible deeds are perpetrated by Alex, including the rape of two ten year old girls and the Droogs busting into an old lady's house. It is for that crime that Alex is finally apprehended. In prison, he is just as big a psychopath until he agrees to undergo The Ludovico technique, which is a form of aversion therapy. This renders Alex nauseated at the thought of violence. He is deemed a successfully reformed character and he gets out of prison early. Alex is however, miserable as sin and contemplates suicide. Before he gets to do the act, he is beaten up by one of his prior victims, and the police who come to his assistance are former Droogs who just beat him up all the more. He ends up at the writer's house in the country again - the writer is called F Alexander and he doesn't recognise Alex as when he was beating up him and his wife, he was wearing a mask. The writer wants to use Alex as an example of state brutality, but the more Alex talks, the more F Alexander realises he was the assailant in the gang rape of his wife. This act of violence killed her. Alexander and his friends try to goad Alex into suicide and eventually they succeed in making him jump out of a window. He wakes up in the psychiatric ward. There are hard issues facing Alex though. Has he been thoroughly cured? What will he do with his life now? Burgess brings the narrative of Alex alive through Nadsat - a language derived from Slavic phrases, rhyming slang and words Anthony Burgess invented himself. Throughout the novel we are treated to Alex's version of events. He never tries to justify his acts of violence - he just talks about them in a casual way. It is clear that Alex has a compulsion to act in a psychopathic manner. Is all the ultra violence his fault or is he a slave to Sociopathic Personality Disorder? By the end of the book, Alex develops a slight conscience and starts to wonder what purpose does the violence really have? And also what is the point of having children if the cycle of violence continues. He may be a very very bad boy (in the novel Alex is 15) but there is hope for him at the end. It is quite an experience to read a book with such an amoral, matter of fact narrator.