![]() On his motivations for writing the novel, Burgess says in an interview: According to Burgess, the premise for the novel was inspired partly by the delinquency of 1950s and 1960s Britain, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and the rise of the science fiction genre at the time. Alex, the protagonist of the story, leads one such gang on a merry rampage through the city, alternately beating and raping the victims they come across and causing general mayhem. Published in 1963, A Clockwork Orange depicts a near-future society overrun by young gangs who commit violence and sex crimes at night. Despite the dismissive remarks, the novel remains a compelling work of transgressive literature. In fact, Burgess considers A Clockwork Orange “too didactic to be artistic,” a statement that I will address more fully later in this presentation (xiv). ![]() Taking a grudging responsibility for the book, Burgess cites Stanley Kubrick’s film version as the reason for the enduring fame of what was meant to be a more offhand work of art. So Anthony Burgess’s begins his introduction to his most widely read – though apparently somewhat unendorsed – work, A Clockwork Orange. I should myself be glad to disown it for various reasons, but this is not permitted.” (Burgess ix) ![]() ![]() ![]() “I first published the novella A Clockwork Orange in 1962, which out to be far enough in the past for it to be erased from the world’s literary memory. ![]()
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