What's it to be then?

Rightly, A Clockwork Orange is viewed as a modern classic, if you'll permit search of oxymoron. It is an intensely moralistic study of society, and its right to judge. The basis for it can be traced to at Incident Perhaps in Burgess's own life, When his wife faced down to Alex and his droogs. In the novella, Alex, the antihero, Relates his adolescent experiences, and the effects he suffers at the hands of a civilized society. Some have accused the novel of being pornographic, violent, and downright distasteful. First, the sexual content is minimal, secondly we live in a violent society, and one person's concept of taste is inherently personal. Whether art Affects society or vice versa is a rich topic of debate for middle class dinner parties, not book reviews. Central to this plot is the concept of sin and redemption. Even the societies who manipualte Alex to Their Own ends are symbolic, eg the Pelagians. Ultimately one Could simplify it to the question of personal choice: to choose to be 'bad' or to be forced to be 'good'. I do not belive the book to be immoral. Undoubtedly there is an argument for being amoral Alex, after all, he is only obeying his own philosophy. (Alex, is, literally, without law.) We are forced to draw our own conclusions about the ethics we adopt. I think some of the other reviews are tainted by the factthat for a long time, A Clockwork Orange, in its proper format which not available in the States. The 21st chapter which removed without Burgess's permission. This spoiled the moral questions and so ruined the numerical unity of the book. The 21st chapter crucially deals with Alex rejecting his violent lifestyle. To fully understand how Burgess Suffered at the hands of the ill informed, Especially after the fiasco Kubrick, one should read the Enderby novel, A Clockwork Testament. The only thing to add is a warning: Nadsat is a difficult idiom to grasp, but the wordplay is a glorious exercise in the richness of language in all its forms. This is a rare book, One That challenges the reader and makes her / him think.