No. And no and no and never and no.

Naked Lunch has earned the dubious honor of becoming the first book I refused to finish because it was just too disgusting to continue. And if I had any idea what half of the slang words William Burroughs used actually meant, I would probably be even more icked out (incidentally, reading about Burroughs' accidental murder of his wife was more interesting than the book itself).

Gentle reader, if a man ripping out another's man's eye so that he can then have intimate relations with the eye SOCKET sounds a bit much for you, don't attempt this book. Seriously, that was my breaking point, and I don't even know what further nastiness might have followed.

He may look like a nice old man. Don't be fooled.

If anyone out there has any idea why this book was included amongst the greats of literature, please let me know. I am not that squeamish. I made it through A Clockwork Orange! But this was too much. This I cannot do.

Why does this book even exist?

Image found here.

Deep and Hard Questions

I've been pondering for the last three days on what I wanted to write about A Clockwork Orange. My mind's been in overdrive since I finished it Thursday night. Perhaps it's that the book coincided with the end of one year and the promising start of a new one; perhaps it's that I'm enjoying an unusual amount of solitude while my husband visits family in California; perhaps it's that I saw Black Swan yesterday and now I have to think about something else or I get the creeps. In any case, I'm struggling to find the right words to describe a novel that I didn't really like, and yet somehow loved. Yes, this one deservedly makes the Personal Best List.

Jake tries to help me collect my thoughts.

Burgess poses a tough problem with Alex's forced conversion to model behavior. Clearly he finds the government's power to snatch away free will to be more terrifying than Alex's brutal, destructive nature. In a sense, I understand that - the enormity of that power and the ability to inflict it even on those who do not need "reform" is quite disturbing. And yet...I'm not quite buying it either.

My version of the book included the "controversial" last chapter, which was not published in the original U.S. edition and thus not included in the Kubrick film's ending. Essentially the last chapter sees Alex grow out of his hedonistic ways and voluntary choose the straight and narrow, to the point that he now focuses his energies on finding a mate and perhaps starting a family of his own. Errr...wait. Wait. WAIT. So, murder, rape, beatings, etc. are just the product of youth's folly??? I'm sorry Mr. Burgess. I see that you might want to end the book on a more positive, upbeat note, but really, this ending is a cop out. It's much more unsettling, and I think realistic, to end the book with Chapter 20, wherein Alex is cured of his conditioning and able to terrorize the night once more.

Perhaps it's too American Puritan of me, but I want consequences when someone chooses to inflict harm on others. It's galling to me that Alex brutally murdered at least two people, raped children, and attacked old men, and the only punishment he may potentially suffer is having a child that will go through the same "stage" of violent behavior? I don't think he even feels remorse for what he's done, just boredom with it all and readiness to move on to something new. Murder is so old hat, you know.

Despite all of that, I liked the questions that the novel put forth. I like that it really made me think carefully about the nature of good and evil and the motivations for our actions. A Clockwork Orange reminded me that our free will is a terrible and wonderful gift. And so, with that, I shall leave you with one of my favorite quotes from the novel as spoken by the prison chaplain (or charlie):

"It may not be nice to be good, little 6655321. It may be horrible to be good. And when I say that to you I realize how self-contradictory that sounds. I know I shall have many sleepless nights about this. What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some ways better than a man who has the good imposed upon him? Deep and hard questions…" (2.3.13)

Clockwork Musings

Over the hustle and bustle of the holidays, I somehow managed to squeeze in the first part of A Clockwork Orange. I have to admit I was fascinated, both by the author's invented futuristic slang and by the protagonist's (not really sure Alex can properly be called a protagonist, but I will go with it) wanton destructiveness of everything surrounding him. As I pause before delving into the next section, I'm wondering...what is it exactly that qualifies a book to be among the best?

Certainly a writer's style has something to do with it, and I'd say that a good number of books on this literary pilgrimage have been included simply for the fantastic and occasionally mind-bending feats that the authors performed with language. I doubt that is what captivates me about A Clockwork Orange.

I haven't seen the movie, nor have I read the book before, so I don't know how it ends. Perhaps my opinion will change before all is said and done. For now, I'm left wondering - can a book include a character so evil that we are completely fascinated with it? And if that's true, does that elevate it to the Best or Greatest? It seems counterintuitive to offer the lowest example of human nature as the highest example of written art, but perhaps the ability to create such fascination somehow justifies the subject matter. I'm simply not sure. I can say that I want to know what happens to Alex, just as much as I had to know whether Humbert Humbert would succeed in running away with his Lolita.

What do you think? Why do you remember A Clockwork Orange?

Holly Jolly Christmas

Just dropped by the library to pick up A Clockwork Orange for Christmas vacation reading. If I was hoping for something that wouldn't lead relatives to question my sanity and/or taste, well...

Epic fail. Nothing like a screaming face and flames to spread the holiday cheer! And wow, the light at my office is really yellow.