A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess
 Alex, a teenager living in near-future England, leads his gang on nightly orgies of opportunistic, random "ultra-violence." Alex's friends ("droogs" in the novel's Anglo-Russian slang, Nadsat) are: Dim, a slow-witted bruiser who is the gang's muscle; Georgie, an ambitious second-in-command; and Pete, who mostly plays along as the droogs indulge their taste for ultra-violence. Characterized as a sociopath and a hardened juvenile delinquent, Alex is also intelligent and quick-witted, with sophisticated taste in music, being particularly fond of Beethoven, or "Lovely Ludwig Van." The novel begins with the droogs sitting in their favorite hangout (the Korova Milkbar), drinking milk-drug cocktails, called "milk-plus", to hype themselves for the night's mayhem. They assault a scholar walking home from the public library, rob a store leaving the owner and his wife bloodied and unconscious, stomp a panhandling derelict, then scuffle with a rival gang. Joyriding through the countryside in a stolen car, they break into an isolated cottage and maul the young couple living there, beating the husband and raping his wife. In a metafictional touch, the husband is a writer working on a manuscript called "A Clockwork Orange," and Alex contemptuously reads out a paragraph that states the novel's main theme before shredding the manuscript. Back at the milk bar, Alex punishes Dim for some crude behaviour, and strains within the gang become apparent. At home in his dreary flat, Alex plays classical music at top volume while fantasizing of even more orgiastic violence. Alex skips school the next day. Following an unexpected visit from P.R. Deltoid, his "post-corrective advisor," Alex meets a pair of ten-year-old girls and takes them back to his parents' flat, where he administers hard drugs and then rapes them. That evening, Alex finds his droogs in a mutinous mood. Georgie challenges Alex for leadership of the gang, demanding that they pull a "man-sized" job. Alex quells the rebellion by slashing Dim's hand and fighting with Georgie, then in a show of generosity takes them to a bar, where Alex insists on following through on Georgie's idea to burgle the home of a wealthy old woman. The break-in starts as farce and ends in tragic pathos, as Alex's attack kills the elderly woman. His escape is blocked by Dim, who attacks Alex, leaving him incapacitated on the front step as the police arrive. Sentenced to prison for murder, Alex gets a job at the Wing chapel playing religious music on the stereo before and after services as well as during the singing of hymns. The prison chaplain mistakes Alex's Bible studies for stirrings of faith (Alex is actually reading Scripture for the violent passages). After Alex's fellow cellmates blame him for beating a troublesome cellmate to death, he agrees to undergo an experimental behaviour-modification treatment called the Ludovico Technique. The technique is a form of aversion therapy in which Alex receives an injection that makes him feel sick while watching graphically violent films, eventually conditioning him to suffer crippling bouts of nausea at the mere thought of violence. As an unintended consequence, the soundtrack to one of the films—Beethoven's Fifth Symphony—renders Alex unable to listen to his beloved classical music. The effectiveness of the technique is demonstrated to a group of VIPs, who watch as Alex collapses before a walloping bully, and abases himself before a scantily-clad young woman whose presence has aroused his predatory sexual inclinations. Though the prison chaplain accuses the state of stripping Alex of free will, the government officials on the scene are pleased with the results and Alex is released into society. Since his parents are now renting his room to a lodger, Alex wanders the streets and enters a public library where he hopes to learn a painless way to commit suicide. There, he accidentally encounters the old scholar he assaulted earlier in the book, who, keen on revenge, beats Alex with the help of his friends. The policemen who come to Alex's rescue turn out to be none other than Dim and former gang rival Billyboy. The two policemen take Alex outside of town and beat him up. Dazed and bloodied, Alex collapses at the door of an isolated cottage, realizing too late that it is the house he and his droogs invaded in the first half of the story. Because the gang wore masks during the assault, the writer does not recognize Alex. The writer, whose name is revealed as F. Alexander, shelters Alex and questions him about the conditioning. During this sequence, it is revealed that Mrs. Alexander died from the injuries inflicted during the gang-rape, and her husband has decided to continue living "where her fragrant memory persists" despite the horrid memories. Alexander, a critic of the government, hopes to use Alex as a symbol of state brutality and thereby prevent the incumbent government from being re-elected. Eventually, he begins to realize Alex's role in the happenings of the night two years ago. One of Alexander's radical associates manages to extract a confession from Alex after removing him from F. Alexander's home and then locks him in a flatblock near his former home. Alex is then subjected to a relentless barrage of classical music, prompting him to attempt suicide by leaping from a high window. Alex wakes up in hospital, where he is courted by government officials anxious to counter the bad publicity created by his suicide attempt. With Alexander safely packed off to a mental institution, Alex is offered a well-paying job if he agrees to side with the government. As photographers snap pictures, Alex daydreams of orgiastic violence and realizes the Ludovico conditioning has been reversed: "I was cured all right." In the final chapter, Alex has a new trio of droogs, but he finds he is beginning to outgrow his taste for violence. A chance encounter with Pete, now married and settled down, inspires Alex to seek a wife and family of his own. He contemplates the likelihood of his future son being a delinquent as he was, a prospect Alex views fatalistically.