A Clockwork Orange: The Times Book Review

This review of A Clockwork Orange appeared in The Times on May 17, 1962. A Clockwork Orange is undoubtedly the most publicized piece of work produced by the British novelist and critic Anthony Burgess. It is a terrifying, futuristic portrayal of gang violence, and earned Burgess a huge amount of publicity, particularly following Stanley Kubrick's powerful film version of the book in 1972. The book addresses the philosophical dilemma of whether it is morally right for the state to sublimate the free will of the anti-social individual in order to achieve the greater good of a violence-free society. The title of the book alludes to the deliberate mechanization of a living thing, taken from the Cockney phrase “as queer as a clockwork orange” in reference to something or someone that is as strange as can be.