A Clockwork Orange

By: Anthony Burgess

Narrated by: Tom Hollander

Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

A vicious 15-year-old "droog" is the central character of this 1963 classic. In Anthony Burgess' nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal, invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology.

A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. When the state undertakes to reform Alex to "redeem" him, the novel asks, "At what cost?"

This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition, as well as Burgess' introduction, "A Clockwork Orange Resucked".

©1962, 1986 The Estate of Anthony Burgess (P)2007 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

"I do not know of any other writer who has done as much with language as Mr. Burgess has done here - the fact that this is also a very funny book may pass unnoticed." (William S. Burroughs)

Great bulgy yarblockos to you

Welly welly welly well... having seen the movie countless times as well as read the book, I will say that this audio book was very very entertaining. I laughed out loud numerous times, thanks to the narrator’s accent and presentation adding to the text a certain sarcasm and dry dark humor. Of course the differences between the book and the movie are interesting as well. I’ll likely listen to it again more than once, on down the road. Viddy well little brothers, viddy well.

Fun Listen

The slang made it even more enjoyable. Couldn't stop listening. Add it to your list!

Fair, but tough to keep listening to.

I think it would have been better if I were more familiar with English from Great Britain. The slang and heavy accents made it kind of tough to stay engaged in the story.

amazing 👌

narrator was superb and story was deep philosophically and interesting overall. Recommending to everyone in my family

Truly a Show of Horrors

Listening to the book, in this invented language of Anthony Burgess made it possible to get through the story. The language used to tell the tale of Alex always made me feel like reading it would be a chore of my patience and attention. Listening, I will tell you, was all the enjoyable I expected reading it I would miss. The specifics of each moment, shrouded in Burgess' creole, washed over me and, without even meaning to or having to pay the story any extra mind, I found myself following along. I even found myself thinking that more books needed to be written in some Malchick code or other, to break up the monotony of knowing what's happening all the time. Sometimes, it felt like the story would have been too over-the-top if it were plain English; but that isn't quite right. My imagination wouldn't have had as much to do with traditional text, and it felt good to stretch it. I think it would feel good to stretch it once in a while, so more text like this would be nice. The narrator was spot-on. For this version, do not overlook the 22nd chapter, where Burgess himself reads portions. I always find the text in the author's voice revealing, and this certainly was. Highly recommended.

Alex lives again! and all that cow.

To me, this is truly an inspired performance by Tom Hollander. Of course I had read the book and seen the movie more than once. However, Alex had never felt as real as he does in this audio book. I even found myself respecting him as a person, even though he was doing horrible things. He was smart, intelligent and never betrayed his ideas. These are all things that, in another context, we would highly value. The fact that law enforcement did even worse things than he did, was more obvious too. The whole idea of choice and the importance of choice were much more clearly brought out here as well.
All of this, to me, because Alex became a fully fleshed out person because of this reading. Thank you Tom Hollander.

Listen to the sample and see if you agree.

Note: I had no idea about the edited and shortened version of the book being released here in the US. That is what the movie was made from. So I was very glad to find out this is the full version. It also contains a forward and selected chapters read by Anthony Burgess.

Review

Although Alex is a horrible person, shown repeatedly through his actions, he has a certain charm that makes him loveable, though undeniably vile.
A Clockwork Orange poses an important question: what truly makes a man “good”. His action? Yes, definitely. But more than that his ability to do good by choice, not by force.

The performance of Alex in this reading is done very well. Many have found the written slang in this book difficult to read on page, but when read aloud, for me anyways, is much easier to understand. Well done :)

Brought to life

The narrator really brought the book to life. I'd give it ten starts if I could.

Awesome

Big fan of the film and the book so the audio book was a must have, excellent listen.

Amazing!

Outstanding, so well read!!! One of the best audio books out there! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!