Passage 9

Passage: “ ‘It’s a book,’ I said. ‘It’s a book what you are writing.’ I made the old goloss very coarse. ‘I have always had the strongest admiration for them as can write books.’ Then I looked at its top sheet, and there was the name-A CLOCKWORK ORANGE-and then I said: ‘That’s a fair gloopy title. Who ever heard of a clockwork orange?’ Then I read a malenky bit out loud in a sort of very high type preaching goloss: ‘-The attempt to impose upon man, a creature of growth and capable of sweetness, to ooze juicily at the last round the bearded lips of God, to attempt to impose, I say, laws and conditions appropriate to a mechanical creature, against this I raise my swordpen-‘ Dim made the old lip-music at that and I had to smeck myself. Then I started to tear up the sheets and scatter the bits over the floor, and this writer moodge went sort of bezoomny and made for me with his zoobies clenched and showing yellow and his nails ready for me like claws. So that was old Dim’s cue and he went grinning and going ere r and a a a for this veck’s dithering rot, crack, crack, first left fistie then right, so that our dear old droog the red- red vino on tap and the same in all places, like it’s put out by the same big firm- started to pour and spot the nice clean carpet and the bits of his book that I was still ripping away at, razrez, razrez.”

This passage was extremely important to this novel, for it distinguishes the narrative hook. For the past couple of chapters the author has been giving information about Alex and his gang, and what they do; their background. But now a reader begins to see how the book begins to form. Alex and his gang are once again roaming around, creating havoc on other people’s lives, when they stumble upon this man and his book. A book that clearly has the same title as the one I am reading. But the irony of this is not the title, but of the contents of which Alex reads. He briefly reads about the law and conditions our world has imposed upon us, a structure Alex so desperately tries to destroy. Not only is this passage ironic, especially due to the fact that the author even makes fun of his own title through a character, but it also has great strength to foreshadow future events. Something has to get in Alex’s way for him sustain the proceeding chapters, and this brief passage allows us to see how the law will come between Alex one way or another in this novel. I also would like to point out the author’s use of onomatopoeia, his sounds help to describe the characters and his work. The repetition and sounds are significant, for they emphasize the brutality of Burgess’ main character.