J.C. Maçek III The World's Greatest Critic! What's it going to be then, eh? Sit back, O my Brothers, and viddy the words I've penciled from my rot! Pull up a like long big plushy seat next to old Kneumsi the Large and have yourself some Korova moloko for a Skorry bit while thou slooshy me, that is Kneumsi! Just finished that chelloveck Anthony Burgess' malenky novel A Clockwork Orange, I did, droogs (Bog and public biblio be praised)! Had a horrorshow time getting it through my rassoodock O My Brothers, though truth, it's a skorry viddy, it is! That veck's complained till his death that that So what exactly is a "clockwork orange?" What does that title mean? Many question what such a strange title could possibly mean? Is it a mechanical color? A Robotic Fruit? Some even argue that this means mechanical man, suggesting that it's not "Orange" at all, but "ourang" that being the Malay word for "Man" as heard in "orangutan" (Literally "Jungle Man"). In the apocryphal introduction to this novel "A Clockwork Orange Resucked" Anthony Burgess gives in to the wonderings and explains what he means. As the Author-within-the-novella (F. Alexander) and later the Droog Alex himself, uses the term, a clockwork orange is the result of society's socialization of man from a sweet and oozing thing of God into a Mechanical Creation. Burgess explains that this name is taken from old-London slang (not quite Nasdat) for a bizarre thing that is "queer to the limit of queerness." For this purpose, the translated titles, specifically the later-on and really quite incorrect ascription of Maylay (shudder, shudder) just don't capture Burgess' Cockney intent. As he puts it, "I mean it to stand for the application of a mechanistic morality to a living organism oozing with juice and sweetness." -Anthony Burgess, "A Clockwork Orange Resucked" Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange. Waterville, Maine: Thorndike Press, 2002. [Published in 2002 by Arrangement with W.W. Norton and Company, Inc.] Stanley Kubrick had ruined his story 'bout that malchick Alex and his droogs, but I'm thinking he was a malenky bit high on the old vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom or one or two other vesches when he said that because his viddy's much the same as old Aay Bee's pile of paper. True old Ess Kay did leave off the Gloopy last chapter, which made for a bleaker film, O My Brothers, but I govoreet it makes horrorshow sense this does! All the American versions of that Gloopy old title did the old ultraviolence on Burgess' uplift too making it all a malenky bit of a downer when Alex says he's cured all right! American versions are as complete as Old Ludwig Van's Unfinished I pony, least he says so in his Intro "A Clockwork Orange Resucked" Burgess does! I say Kubrick's old slice of Sinny, O My Brothers, can't hold up to viddying the old Text, but a good piece of Sinny it was, vecks. McDowell's much better cast than some Mick Jagger droog or something. Not to say that old malenky chapter the last isn't needed. Says I the old razres razres of Chapter the Last goes down like so much smashing the gulliver of poor, poor Aay Bee. Don't tolchock the sinny though. Dénouement smashed though it may be, good, it is, what's there! In skorry, O my Brothers, A Clockwork Orange is the dobby 21 chapter horrorshow Horror Show detailing the fall, then further fall, then malenky rise, then fall again, then rise of our Humble Narrator Alex. A bit of a like thuggish Gangleader, Alex is, a small gang though it be at the highth of fashion in clothes, trends and speechifying. As the whole novel is told as if you're viddying the book as written by that Droog, Alex, none of it falls into what we chelloveks now know as the English Language! Instead, Alex's grahzny future is told in fluent Nasdat. Nasdat, O My Brothers, is a teen-slang and rhyme-ridden Russified version of our own King's Tongue, which is a treat for the old gulliver if thy glazzies don't reject it. Truly artful like veshch in Language this booky-book is, O My Brothers, and not a bit of it for the Dim. Not a bit of it for the Squeamish either, friends. Too much for the old glazzies was the sinny version? Burgess' own wordy-words are so horrorshow Horror Show that even the most starry among thou readers might want to tolchock the book from thy rookers! No Hero is Alex, much to his own contrary. He and his droogies (Pete, Dim, and Georgie) engage in such ultra-violence that my Litso felt drained of my old red-red kroovy, little brothers. Some of the actions, especially committed on Devotchkas and ptitsas makes one cry for the old law and order of the millicents, it does! Alex is the dobby product of starry and like modern times! Though more than thirty years prior to my penciling, these times are not too removed from our own, droogs! The thought that he's done wrong, Alex can't even pony rightly, though he's a smart droog, for sure. The idea of the consensual old in-out is lost on him, and rape is his sex. Though catering to the most starry horrorshow base of like urges, Burgess too makes us all hate our Humble Narrator, though he's let us in. Richard III, Alex is not. By the famous re-conditioning in the old Staja, thou, the audience, like loves the idea that Alex might suffer. Yet, amazingly, like Burgess must have planned, thou begin to pity the young Droogie at only 15 he is, after all. Ludovico's "Cure" which involves the physically painful responses to ultra-violent and in-out stimuli is on the surface well-deserved, yet deeper is all like horrorshow Ashcroft in its razres razres of the old humanity. To spice the old gulliver's rejection of the mental floss our Humble Narrator and now friend goes through, accidentally is included the striking music of old Ludwig Van, the favorite composer of old Alex being Beethoven, it is! Pony if thou wilst, devotchkas and chellovecks the pain and sickness worse than like flu when witnessing any ultra-violence, or in-out being applied liberally to one's own enjoyment of like music too? Horrorshow. Still, Alex is like amoral, and no protagonist is he save in literary name only, borthers! Truth, it's his goal to antagonize at all stops and to let the old red red kroovy flow like Moloko, that being Milk! Takes, it must, a writer-veck like Burgess, with the skill to manipulate our gullivers like he does and carry us on with old Alex. From the invention of the old Nasdat, to the like irony so heavy, to the inability thou hast to pull such a booky-book from thy rookers, Burgess is a Genius worthy of a viddy. And at thirty-two novels, a volume of verse, two plays, sixteen works of nonfiction and a horrorshow amount of like musical compositions in Jazz, Opera and Symphony, there's no excuse, O my Brothers, not to Viddy, or even slooshy old Aay Bee! Far be it from your Humble Reviewer to let slip the controversial chapter the last! Let me stay grahzny spoiler-free, droogs. My rot will say, though that the like bleak finality of Kubrick's sinny-version is lost in favor of more ponying for thou, the readers and only friends. That aside, I pony what Burgess might have been intending as that old Moral Lesson? Me believing in moral absolutes, I pony that there aren't many good droogs in this litso at all, no! In truth the Government is the Lewdie as much as old Alex is. So as the citizenry ponys its own morality, are we to take away "Boys will be boys!" from this? Tolchock that, O my Brothers! Lewdies are lewdies! Like love him or like hate him, Alex prevails throughout so much of his own Malchick days and beyond, so one, if morally inclined might set his or her glazzies on what Moral Lesson Burgess like promises us, Brothers! No morality is easy, I pony, so the moralistic weight of the modern world might just be on thy pletchoes, Brothers! Four Stars out of Five, O My Brothers, for Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange! When both the Malchicks and the Inferior Interior are both part of the like problem, where is the Solution? Like in Fight Club and American Psycho, friends, society is pinned with the devolution of the urban bored white male into the old ultra-violence. It takes a village to raise a Malchick, O my Brothers, but is the modern world all to blame, or does a Lewdie malchick deserve some of the old Ludovico, or at least a stay in the staja too? Ask Michael Moore! This Droog is busy boosting a Durango Ninety-Five for some noochie fun! That's what it's going to be, then!