Literature Circle Response

Since I am quite familiar with the general plot structure of the book "A Clockwork Orange", I cannot make a truly speculative prediction in terms of the direction that the book is taking. I know that Alex will proceed to be mentally proccesed through the Ludivco Technique in attempt to be converted into a model citizen.

When reading this book, I can only really imagine the world presented in terms of screenshots from the movie. I have not actually seen the movie, but I have seen stills from it, and therefore it has been rather difficult to formulate my own ideas of what Alex and his droogs actually look like. However, I do not have any idea of what Stanley Kubrick's vision of Alex's environment looks like, so that aspect has been left to my imagination. I envision Alex's world as one completely corrupted by material wants and greed, underscored by a rampant delinquent juvenile population. His world is overrun by selfish lawmakers and easily bribed policemen, and innocence is lost at a very early age. In this world, 10 year olds follow charming strangers into drunkeness and then their bedrooms, and laugh as they are drugged. The streets are incredibly unsafe, and schools for the negligent are filled to the brink.

This book is a very cynical take on a dystopian society, and in a twisted way seems to attempt to prove that human nature is the reason why utopia is never possible. Also, ironically, the glamorization of violence in this book reminds me of how the book itself is glamorized, and how Alex DeLarge is still a popular symbol in teen culture.

The only difficulty I had in reading this book was in deciphering the language of Nasdat, which is a dialect that Alex and his droogs use consistently, intermingling with regular English.

I solved this problem by researching the language and discovering multiple sites that serve as dictionaries. By seeing other peoples' translations of the dialect, reading the text became increasingly easier.