The Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge discussion

Hello,
A Clockwork Orange has won the September Vote by a clear majority.
I have read about half of it about 7 years ago and I remember the peculiar writing style and choice of words.
What edition do you have? Have you seen the movie?

I read it over ten years ago and had one of the penguin editions. I have also seen the movie which I thought was a pretty good adaptation.

Ive never read it or seen the movie. Which is why I picked it in the first place. I better try to find a copy.

I feel like the book could have used a glossary at the end! I heard that some versions have one but mine didn't. I really considered adding Malenky to my vocabulary.

https://www.yourcloudlibrary.com/ if you guys don't mind ebooks and have a library card you can probably use this site to get the book. They also have audio books.

I've been hesitant to pick this one up because of it's reputation for extreme violence, but I'm excited to finally get through it!

Just picked my copy up from the library! This is the first book I'll be reading from the Rory Gilmore list, I'm excited to start!
Editing my comment in case this helps anyone else: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Append...

Got my copy today too! Happy Reading 🙂

I got my copy yesterday and started last night. I watched the movie a long time ago, and remember very little of it. I'm interested in watching it once I'm done with the book to compare.

But I wanted to also mention that a lot of the words Alex is using are from Russian! I'm making a list of the ones I recognize that are from the Russian language, which are almost exact! Some are:

Zoobies - teeth
Devotchka - girl; usually young girl, toddler to young adult
Malenky - small
Groodies - breasts or chest
Slooshy - to hear/listen
Slovos - words

I'm going to keep updating the list as the book goes on. Does anyone else familiar with the Russian language notice these words? :)

Rachel wrote: "I got my copy yesterday and started last night. I watched the movie a long time ago, and remember very little of it. I'm interested in watching it once I'm done with the book to compare.

But I wan..."
I was thinking about that as I saw in the Appendix (linked above) that a lot of the words had Russian origins/meaning. I guess the future imagined here is one in which the UK and Russia are combined in some way. From the relations of the time I imagine it wasn't a positive future imagined by Burgess. But it's cool that he was so interested in how language/slang would evolve if the UK had Russian influences.

Nikolas wrote: "Rachel wrote: "I got my copy yesterday and started last night. I watched the movie a long time ago, and remember very little of it. I'm interested in watching it once I'm done with the book to comp..."

I didn't see the Appendix linked above, thank you! That's exactly what I'm thinking about, too - Burgess' imagined violent future having slang influenced by Russian, especially when the character only uses that Russian-influenced slang when talking to the reader or his gang.

I’ve owned the book for ages and haven’t started it yet. I’m hoping to get to it over the weekend. It’s always really interesting to see the differences with the film adaptations. I saw the movie years ago. Parts of it have really stayed with me.

(this is also my review, and spoiler alert!!) I am glad I got the version with the 21st chapter in it. I like the background from the author in the introduction to get more of a sense how he feels it compares to his later work. I can't believe how it's possible to end up feeling even remotely sorry for Alex, but it did happen. And then I kind of snapped out of it and remembered that he had every nasty thing coming to him.
I know the point is that you have to have freedom of choice in order to be good, but if you choose to be THAT BAD, murderously bad, I think it's right to get that freedom taken away. IDK maybe that makes me crazy.
I also enjoyed looking up the words to understand wtf he was saying and then realizing halfway through I didn't need to look them up anymore, I was understanding his language. It was really cool how language is played with the whole time, how others respond to it and how it evolves while he's in prison and then how it eventually reveals him to the man whose wife he killed. Language is powerful.

I think the free will thing is interesting. It made me think of the tree of knowledge from the bible. I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be punishment/rehabilitation for offenders. My worry is that it would start with violent offenders and then the line get moved until suddenly you’re in 1984.
Things about humanity and what makes people human fascinate me.

Alison wrote: "I think the free will thing is interesting. It made me think of the tree of knowledge from the bible. I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be punishment/rehabilitation for offenders. My worry is tha..."
I hadn't thought about the implications of the line moving until everyone was acting as a perfect citizen. You're right. As an individual I need the right to protest or go against the law for what I feel is right. Even if I would never be violent like Alex, I'm not always law abiding. Heck, think about how many people share my Hulu account, they would find a way to make us pay for every little thing if we got sick just thinking about pirating.

As Rachel mentioned , there are many Russian words. I am from Poland . We have two translation of CO. The translator is a really well-known , Robert Stiller.

Here`s version R with words derivating from Russian Mechaniczna pomarancza w.2020

Here`s version A ( English is "Angielski" in Polish") with words derivating from English

Nakręcana pomarańcza

So, we have two masterpieces in Polish libraries:)

I am so behind on this one, but I actually read this last year for my own Rory challenge that I'm doing! If you're interested, here's my blog post about it with some links regarding the multiple endings and also the dictionary to translate the wonky language!

My blog takes every book and places them to which episode and the scene it was mentioned! I was always interested in getting the most updated and accurate book list, so I started my own search! :) I love hearing you guys' thoughts here, too.

https://www.seecaroread.com/post/a-cl...

I read the first few chapters of this and I feel like its swill. Too much for me. Im not sure I want to read anymore. My Dad always said “garbage in, garbage out.” So, Im done with this one. 🤢 yuck.

It’s never a good idea to force your way through a book!

I'm taking my time with this book because it truly is a hard read (and I have perfectionism/control issues so DNFing makes me anxious lol). I'm avoiding the discussion because of spoilers, but I'm super curious what everyone has commented. I'll let y'all know my thoughts in about a month (that's how long it'll take if I continue at this pace!).

I think Burgess stated that he wanted readers to go into it blindly without any knowledge of the jargon used :)

I got through it pretty quickly but only because i didnt force myself to try and identify the meaning fo every word, if that makes sense? I sort of just worked my way through it and gathered the context of each scene and worked out how the language would fit in. Overall, its a pretty disturbing read but fascinating to analyse.