Clockwork Orange

Burgess wrote his novel right after the doctors diagnosed him with a brain tumor and announced that he had only about a year to live. The author later said in an interview with Village Voice : “This damn book is a work thoroughly saturated with pain ... I tried to get rid of the memories of my first wife, who was brutally beaten by four deserters of the American army during World War II . She was pregnant and lost her child after that. After everything that happened, she fell into a wild depression and even tried to commit suicide . Later she drank softly and died. "

The title “A Clockwork Orange” was derived from an expression that used to be widely used in London Cockney - inhabitants of the East End working layers. Cockneys of the older generation about unusual or strange things say that they are “crooked like a clockwork orange,” that is, these are things of a whimsical and incomprehensible sense. Anthony Burgess spent seven years in Malaysia , and in Malay the word “orang” means “man”, and in English “orange” means “orange” ^[2]

The novel consists of four parts. In the first, the author introduces the reader into the terrible world of Alex. In the second, Alex ends up in Wandsworth Prison. Burgess shows the impossibility of correcting a person in prison.

Above the fire constellations
Brother, make a cruel feast
Kill everyone who is weak and sire,
To everyone according to morder - here is retribution!
In the ass kick voniutshi world!

- hereinafter - in the translation of Bosniak

Alex spent two years there, and suddenly an opportunity appeared to be set free: an amnesty is promised to anyone who agrees to conduct an experiment on himself. Alex, not really thinking about what they are going to do with him, agrees. The experiment is as follows: Alex is brainwashed, making him incapable not only of violence, but also of sexual intercourse. Even Beethoven’s music hurts him.

Alex ordeals after being released from prison make up the third part of the novel. In turn, all his victims meet on the path to Alex and take his soul on him. Burgess emphasizes their cruelty. Even those who see him for the first time do not miss the opportunity to abuse the defenseless teenager. After an unsuccessful attempt to bring Alex to suicide, he suffers from a concussion, and after treatment all the reflexes instilled in him disappear - Alex goes out healthy again. The following is a summary of everything that happens.

Part One

The protagonist is a fifteen-year-old teenager Alex (narrated on his behalf) and his fellow accomplices Tem, Georgik and Pete drink milk in the Cow bar and think about how to spend the evening. They begin their adventures with the beating of the Crystallography Fan, after which they throw him with scraps of paper torn from books that the Crystallography Fan took in the library, gutting his pockets, taunting the letters he found and breaking an umbrella. After the gang goes to the Duke of New York beer hall and orders food for several old women, supposedly out of good intentions, but the old women immediately dare that this is done in exchange for a promise that if the “cops” come in, the old women should say that Alex and his friends were in the bar all the time. After the “agreement”, the gang goes to the street, where a shop is robbing on the next street, after which it returns to the bar after 10 minutes, and continues to rest until the cops arrive. Grateful (or rather frightened) old women cover up Alex and the gang, confirming that they did not go anywhere from the bar.

The gang finishes gatherings in a bar, meets an old drunkard and beats him. Zabuldyga screams that it’s better to kill him, because he does not want to live in a world where the young people do not respect the elderly, where it is possible to send ships into space, but it is difficult to respect the Law. After that, the gang of Alexa is faced with the gang of Billiboy, who is having fun with a ten-year-old girl, and between them there is a fight in which the gang of Alex wins. A girl who managed to escape in the heat of battle calls the police. Alex and the gang hastily leave the scene. Then they steal a car, come to the village and go to the cottage under the name "House". The gang, under a false pretext, enters the cottage, begins a pogrom there, beats and cripples the writer F. Alexander and rapes his wife. After which Alex, Tem, Georgik and Pete stoke the car in a ditch and, using the train, return to the Cow bar. They do not favor the train either: they gut the seat upholstery and break the window with a chain.

There is a skirmish between Tem and Alex in the bar because Tem is mocking the girl’s singing from television. Alex tells Tyom that he must know his place. Georgyk stands up for Tyoma and questions the authority of Alex as the leader of the gang. But thanks to the intervention of Pete, accomplices are reconciled. Tem still harbored resentment at Alex and no longer considers him to be his friend.

At night, Alex goes home, in his room he includes classical music, including listening to Mozart's Jupiter and Bach's Brandenburg Concert. He knows that their parents are fast asleep in their room, that the music is bothering them, but they cannot persuade Alex to remain silent. The combination of love for classical music and aggressive behavior is a distinctive feature of Alex, which will surprise people who deal with Alex afterwards. The next morning, Alex refuses to go to school because of a pain in his head. Parents go to work, and Alex has a dream, as if he suffers humiliation from George, who has become older and stricter. Then comes the educator and overseer Alex P. R. Deltoid. He knows about Alex's tricks last night, but he has no evidence. Alex already had problems with the Law, and the teacher tells him that if he does something else, he will be sent to a correctional colony more seriously than the one he was in before. Alex frankly taunts the teacher’s attempts to appeal to his conscience and set him on the right path. After the departure of Deltoid, he reflects on the origins of his aggression and justifies it by the fact that it is peculiar to every person by nature, just some have learned to hide it and pretend to be good, but in fact, good people are not better than himself.

In the afternoon, Alex walks into the Melody music store and picks up the recently-released Beethoven ’s Ninth Symphony . There he meets two girls and lures them to his home under the pretext of listening to music on good equipment. Listening to music ends with a rape orgy.

In the evening, friends come to Alex, and Tem begins to laugh at him due to the fact that his head hurt, and offers him to sleep again. George and Pete say that Alex is no longer the leader of the gang. Alex swallows a grudge, and Georgy says that everyone in the gang wants to grow and commit crimes bigger. He says that a very rich woman lives in one mansion, and the gang goes there, on the way Alex thinks about what Tim and Georgik began to tell him what to do. And by chance, for inspiration, Beethoven’s ninth symphony is heard from one window of a neighboring house. Alex beats his friends and injures Tyomu’s hand. After that, the gang begins to obey its “leader” again. Upon reaching the place, the gang tries an old trick that allowed them to enter the writer’s house, but it does not help them. Then Alex sneaks into the mansion and, desiring to do everything himself, accidentally kills the woman, and when he leaves, the accomplices blind him, after which he is detained by the police. In the police station, he is charged with murder and sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Part Two

Two years have passed since Alex was sent to prison, and now he is not Alex, but prisoner No. 6655321. In prison, he tells the reader that this institution is full of perverts who are ready to abuse the young man. One of these decided to caress him at night. 6655321, together with his cellmates, decides to punish him, but does not calculate his strength and kills him. Prior to this, 6655321 managed to get close to the prison priest and hear about an experiment on treating a person from violence. The Padres and the entire prison leadership are against such inhuman experiments, but the incident and the new Minister of the Interior (the “new broom”) lead them to believe that 6655321 is incorrigible and treatment should be carried out. He is injected with a drug under the guise of "vitamins" and forced to watch films that showed rape, fights and murders to classical music. Alex is "cured." As soon as he begins to think about sex or tries to beat someone or listen to the ninth symphony, he begins to have an attack of nausea. However, he is unable to resist the violence used against himself, and he has to humiliate himself so that the pain caused by the conditioned reflex will go away. He believes that the doctors turned it into A Clockwork Orange - that’s the name of the manuscript of the new book by the writer F. Alexander, destroyed by Alex. For some reason, Alex remembered her name and applied it to himself, and it was not by accident: with this book, the writer protested against the treatment method that Alex underwent.

Part Three

After recovering, Alex goes home, but finds out that his parents refused him, and a tenant named Joe lives in his room. All things Alex took the police to recover the cost of maintaining the cats of the old woman he killed. Alex has nowhere to go, he wants to commit suicide and goes to find out the best way to do it in the library, in which he is recognized by a "crystallographic enthusiast." Together with other same old men, he beats Alex, he is saved by the police, but it turned out that the two “cops” were Tim and Biliba. They take Alex to the forest and brutally beat him. Alex wanders to the village and goes to the cottage called "House". The owner of the "House", which is the writer F. Alexander, invites the guy to the house, not realizing that this is the rapist of his wife. After a couple of days, he tells Alex about the incident, and that his wife committed suicide because of this. However, the writer Alex does not recognize, although he is tormented by speculations, but the robber nature of Alex is given out by nonsatical phrases .

The writer decides to use Alex to expose the new regime. He invites his friends, introduces them to Alex, and together they decide to settle him in a hotel room. Alex understands that he will not be able to escape from his new company, he is just a pawn in their game. The writer’s friends ask Alex if he led the rape of the wife of F. Alexander, and he admits it. The rebels lock Alex in a room and, either by accident or purposefully, in the next room, a classic sounds, namely, the Ninth Symphony by Ludwig Van Beethoven. Alex is thrown out of the window, but does not die. He breaks his leg and arm, injures his back and gets a concussion. He is given a blood transfusion. Alex realizes that what happened was tweaked by his new friends to show how the government mutilated him with his attempts to cure him. At the hospital, Alex's parents apologize and say that Joe has left, so Alex can return home. Alex is visited by the minister and newspaper men. They report that the writer was admitted to a hospital with a diagnosis of mental illness. They also inform him that they cured him of the previous “treatment”. Alex understands that the result of the treatment has disappeared, and he can again have sex, fight, listen to classical music, and there are no more bouts of vomiting from this. The minister gives Alex a new stereo system, as well as a position in the national record archive, and Alex enjoys listening to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

Part Four

A year later, Alex has a new gang, they are sitting in the Cow bar, but Alex has no desire to destroy, he no longer sees the point. Alex leaves the gang and goes for a walk. Suddenly he meets his friend Pete, who says that he got married and found a job. After this conversation, Alex begins to think about his life. Alex decides to follow Pete's example. He thinks that it would be nice to warn his future son so that he would not repeat his mistakes, but he concludes that it is useless, and that young people will continue to rebel, stepping on the same rake over and over again.

• Alex is the central antihero , teenager , the epitome of teenage aggression and rebellion. Alex is the leader of a youth gang, which, along with others like him, loiters through the night streets, fights with other gangs, attacks defenseless passers-by, cripples people, and robs shops. Alex gets great pleasure from the beatings and rape. He stimulates his aggression with drugs and listening to Beethoven’s music. Alex is incorrigible, he will be amused by the attempts of others and the state to make him law-abiding and manageable.
• Tim is an accomplice of Alex and his, possibly, antipode. " ... And really the guy is dark " - hence the nickname. In the original, his name is Dim (from English dim (inaccessible link) ). It does not differ in quick wit and education, although it is physically developed: " ... The one who, for all his stupidity, alone cost three in anger and possession of all the vile tricks of the fight ." Alex describes him with obvious disgust. Tyoma’s favorite weapon is the chain with which he hits the enemy’s eyes. As a result, he leaves the gang and becomes a policeman, not in order to maintain order, but because strength and power are on their side.
• Georgy , a friend of Alex, was envious of his dominant role in the gang, which caused a conflict between them. Subsequently, this conflict became the cause of excessive bravado of Alex and he, having overestimated his capabilities, killed an old woman and ended up in prison. Georgik was killed while trying to rob the house of the "capitalist".
• Pete is the calmest and friendliest person in Alex's gang. Subsequently, he leaves the gang and marries. The fates of Tyoma, Georgika and Pete reflect three possible ways that a teenager in the world of Alex can go.
• Crystallography lover is one of Alex's victims. A feeble old man, first attacked by a gang of Alex, and then attacked by a "cured" Alex in the company of the same old people. Burgess introduces him in order to emphasize the helplessness of the “cured” Alex, his inability to fend off even the weak old man.
• Dr. Branom is one of the scientists who set up an experiment to cure aggression on Alex. In general, scientists are presented in the novel as ruthless in relation to the experimental subject (Alexa is called “our object”). As for Dr. Branom, he bribes Alex with ostentatious friendliness, a smile - "such a smile that I kind of immediately believed him." Bran tries to gain confidence in Alex, calls himself a friend. It is possible that the prototype of Branom was Joseph Mengele , who was credible with his experimental subjects to make it easier to work with them.
• Dr. Brodsky is the principal in the Louis project.
• Joe is the lodger of Alex's parents until his release from prison. He was not just a tenant for Alex’s parents: “... they are like relatives to me, and I’m more like a son to them than just a tenant.” Toward the end of the book, Joe goes home for treatment because he was beaten by policemen (possibly Tim and Billyboy).
• P.R. Deltoid is a policeman assigned to Alex to pacify him.
• F. Alexander - the writer to whom Alex inflicted great trauma - raped his wife with his friends during his death (she died from injuries). F. Alexander is the author of the book A Clockwork Orange based on the plot of the work. He is the alter ego of Burgess himself (in real life, four American deserters beat and raped the wife of Burgess, and later she “quietly drank and died”).

• Vinyl (1965, directed by Andy Warhol )
• A Clockwork Orange (1971, directed by Stanley Kubrick )

Burgess, wanting to revitalize her novel, saturates it with slang words from the so-called “ natsata ”, taken from Russian and Gypsy languages. At the time when Burgess was thinking about the language of the novel, he ended up in Leningrad , where he decided to create a kind of international language, which was the attack. The main difficulty in translating the novel into Russian is that these words look as unusual for the Russian-speaking reader as they are for the English-speaking one.

V. Bosniac invented to type these words in Latin letters, thus distinguishing them from a text in Russian. Here, for example, Alex's hassle with the leader of an enemy gang:

Who I see! Wow! Really fat and smelly, really vile ours and sneaky Billyboy, koziol and svolotsh! Как поживаешь, ты, kal в горшке, пузырь с касторкой? А ну, иди сюда, оторву тебе beitsy, если они у тебя ещё есть, ты евнух drotshenyi!

В переводе Е. Синельщикова «русские» слова переведёны на английский и даны в тексте кириллицей.

При виде незваных гостей девочка сделала ярко накрашенный ротик буквой «О», а молодой мэн в роговых глассиз поднял голову от тайпрайтера и недоумённо взглянул на нас. По всему столу перед ним были разбросаны шитсы пейпера. Справа от тай-пера они были сложены в аккуратный колон. В тот вечер нам везло на интеллигентных мэнов.

Перевод Синельщикова также характерен тем, что сделан по сокращённому американскому варианту произведения, вследствие чего в нём опущены подробности многих сцен, фразы героев становятся шаблонными и теряют колорит, а также полностью отсутствует 21-я глава. Проблема же перевода Бошняка в том, что его сложнее читать, и многие жаргонные слова, использованные Бёрджессом, на самом деле либо литературные, либо общеупотребимые, и настоящая молодёжь всё же выражалась бы несколько иначе. С одной стороны, в устах подростков они звучат нелепо, с другой — это формирует своеобразный шарм и неповторимый стиль романа.

В основном в романе персонажи в качестве жаргонных используют обычные русские общеупотребимые слова — «мальчик», «лицо», «чай» и т. д.

Из-за того же « надcата » Стэнли Кубрик завещал показывать в российском прокате фильм «Заводной Апельсин» исключительно с субтитрами .

• Роман «Заводной апельсин». Издательство «АСТ», серия «Эксклюзивная классика», Москва, 2011. Перевод В. Бошняка. ISBN 978-5-17-080109-1
• Роман «Заводной апельсин». Издательство «Художественная литература», Ленинград, 1991 год. Перевод с английского В. Бошняка. ISBN 5-280-02370-1

• Tyurin Yu. P. Triumph // Burgess E. A Clockwork Orange: Novel, Kesey K. Above the Cuckoo's Nest : Novel. - M .: Patriot , 1993 .-- S. 376-380. - 381 p.