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A Clockwork Orange


            A Clockwork Orange stands as a great literary work, yet most copies weigh in at less than three hundred pages. Written by Anthony Burgess, it spans twenty one chapters and serves as a cult classic to this day.
             The first person story is told by Alex, a youth but of fifteen that spends his nights with his friends, or "droogs", terrorizing the public with their bits of "ultraviolence", and engaging in the old "in-out in-out". He is a contradiction of characteristics, as he sips milk (moloko) laced with drugs, and listens to Beethoven while in the midst of raping a young girl.
             While the story sounds graphic, and in reality is, the book is not explicit. Part of this arises from the author's brilliant language system, nadsat, which in fact translates to "teenager". Nadsat is a combination of altered russian and odd bits of slang, and is constantly being spoken by Alex and his droogs. The other characters in the book, like his parents, do not speak nadsat, nor do they fully understand what it is that Alex speaks at times.
             The novella is split among three books, each of seven chapters. The first details his crimes. He beats the elderly, fights other gangs, with a razor knife "britva", no less, rapes girls, drinks much moloko, and finally, assaults a woman, inflicting mortal wounds. He is betrayed by his droogs and is sent to prison., where he stays for two years. During those two years he had become the Prison Chaplain's pet. One part even told of Alex reading the Bible and daydreaming that he was a Roman soldier on the day of Jesus" crucifixion. Anyway, after about two years, Alex hears of this new thing where a prisoner can be out and supposedly reformed within a week's time. So, he jumps to volunteer and is warned against it by the Chaplain. Alex had no idea of what the treatment really was.
             So Alex is sent to the "Reclamation Treatment" building and is given a small room with a TV and nice accommodations.


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