What a book hath Burgess written, O my brothers. When I take a deep-sounding of the worldview underpinning the story, I am not sure how well it hangs together. I thought the "I am cured" part toward the end (what was originally *the* end of the American edition, on the basis of which Kubrick made the movie) was a little arbitrary and rather thinly drawn, and perhaps same goes for the actual, rather more uplifting end of the book in the last chapter. So it ain't perfect.

But it is all kinds of disturbing and suggestive, I'll give it that. It took me awhile to get into the nadsat speak, but after a time I came to enjoy how its Edwardian flourishes --these seemed to me to pick up in frequency later in the book-- contrasted with its pure punk sensibilities. This book is so punk that I cannot believe it was written in 1963. Alienation? Check. Anomie? Check. Violence? Check. Good, evil, indidividual vs societal responsibility, and questions of freewill? Check, check, check, check, O my brothers.

Well worth checking out, enjoyed it very much.

Anyway,