Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange

I had a friend who did a presentation on this book his Sophomore year. Not only did he disturb the entire class, but he also horrified the teacher. He thought their reactions were funny because, to him, it was the reaction of the typical person to something disgusting when they can’t look further.

There’s no doubt about it; A Clockwork Orange is disturbing. It passively dissects the psychology of a sociopath through descriptions of his conduct. Alex’s behavior is monstrous. He manipulates, beats, steals, kills, and rapes innocent people. He and the rest of his “droogs” partake in this activity nightly. Eventually, he is sold out by his friends and becomes the government’s problem.

Burgess never condones Alex’s behavior, and he has Alex grow out of it to show that his behavior was immature. However much Burgess may disapprove of Alex’s behavior, he disapproves of the government’s actions even more. By taking away Alex’s free-will, he is not rehabilitated, he is controlled. That is not the right of the government and is very much an abuse of power. Alex did agree to try it, but he was not informed of everything the treatment would entail. Many would consider what they did to Alex torture.

When Alex meets up with the people that want to use him to demonstrate the immorality of the government’s actions against him, they also misuse Alex. Albeit, they had ample reason to. Alex had brutally raped and caused the death of one of the men’s wife. They drove Alex to a suicide attempt, in the process of protesting the government, and, in turn, became just as bad as the oppressive and immoral force they were facing.

The government proved themselves better than these people by balking. Whilst Alex was in the hospital for his injuries they reversed the treatment that made him unbearably ill every time he thought about violence. He wakes up the normal, garden-variety sociopath he had always been.

One of the points of the book is that when people push things and achieve them through corruption, things fall apart. The government forced Alex into behaving, then people forced him into jumping out of a window to prove a point. At the end of chapter 20, the government conceded, and Alex was just the way he had always been. The government failed, and the people who wanted to demonstrate against them got a criminal. It’s only at the end of chapter 21 that Alex moves on from who he was on his own, through gradual maturity and growing up. These things can’t be forced or rushed. Alex’s plight is the result of too many conflicting forces pushing for things that shouldn’t be done to be done.

Vladimir Nabakov’s Lolita

“It’s no use, he sees her, he starts to shake and cough. Just like the old man in that book by Nabakov.” Ah, yes The Police. You can always count on Sting to make things awesome with an allusion to one of the most taboo books in history.

What’s amazing about Lolita is the sheer hatred that the reader has for every character. Humbert Humbert because he’s a pervert, Dolores because she is a manipulative coquette, and her mother because she’s an annoying twit. What’s worse, is that the reader identifies and relates with each character, despite the disgust they cause.

People understand Humbert, because who doesn’t lust after youth and beauty. Yes, there is more to Humbert’s fascination than that, and he is undoubtedly a pedophile, but his attraction to Dolores, or Lolita, is not purely sexual. He sees her faults, and cares for her anyway. Even after she has lost her appeal to him, he still offers to take care of her. He does love her, and that’s the worst part. The fact that he can love her and still steal her innocence because he cannot help it. His fantasizing about her from the very beginning proved to the reader that he would stop at almost nothing, including killing his wife, to have her. Weirdly, his plot to kill his wife was a rather amusing part in the novel. Nabakov’s detached and yet passionate description of Humbert’s idea astounds the reader and strikes one as funny.

Dolores/Lolita is the object of Humbert’s passion. He is also the object of her school-girl and unassuming crush on him. This is where things get interesting and tricky. She is innocent because she is young and cannot possibly understand the full implication of her actions. And yet, she is the one who purposefully seduces Humbert. He wouldn’t have initiated intercourse with her if it were not for her actions. He might have, but she pushes the matter as a manipulation technique. Eventually this evolves into her using it as a tactic to get whatever she wants from Humbert. And it works. One can understand Dolores, because everyone has had those crushes and passions that one would die to have realized. It’s complicated because the reader sees that she knows what she’s doing, that she knows just how much she affects Humbert, but you can’t blame her. She is immature and infantile and uses whatever methods will work the best and the fastest. This continues with other men as well, and the reader can’t tell if Dolores would’ve naturally turned out this way or if it’s a product of Humbert’s actions, for Humbert is her victim at least as much as she is his.

Dolores’ mother is one of the most tragic characters in the novel simply because of her unending ignorance. She is blind towards Humbert’s feelings towards her daughter. She finds evidence of it and doesn’t really have any concern for her daughter, only for herself and for the fact that Humbert’s feelings towards her may not be genuine. So selfish a woman has not been seen, that would care for herself and her feeling of being loved more than the safety and well-being of her pre-adolescent daughter. It’s confounding. One is amused at the thought of her death, simply because of the weird poetic justice of it all. The reader would loathe Humbert even more if he were to be the cause of her death, but in the end, he has nothing to do with it and the reader is actually relieved by her death, because she is no longer hindering Humbert. He is one understandable anti-hero, and that is irritating and also interesting to see how an author can make that happen. If anything, one should feel compassion for Dolores’ mother and Dolores herself, but because the novel is from Humbert’s point of view, the reader can’t help but want him to succeed.

The events that unfold within Lolita leave the reader uneasy, uncomfortable, squeamish. Mostly because you’re rooting for Humbert. He is sensitive, guilt-ridden, and easily affected. It’s easily seen that Dolores is taking advantage of him, and that’s what makes the reader so upset. The fact that Humbert truly cares for her and that she’s just using him is…uncomfortable. It makes Humbert be almost the better person. “If only he had more self-control!” one thinks. Which is really the crux of the matter… everyone wishes they had more self-control, don’t they?

Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club

“The first rule about fight club is you don’t talk about fight club. The second rule about fight club is YOU DON’T TALK ABOUT FIGHT CLUB!” Yeah, we know. Most people have seen the movie, but not everyone knows there is a book. Thankfully, there is, and I get to write about it!!!

A friend of mine was surprised that I liked the book, because I am a pretty average girl, and this book is very much about the male psyche. But it’s also about destruction, and anyone who has ever wanted to tear apart the world and watch it burn can relate to it.

Palahniuk says in the novel that fight club is for a generation of men raised by women. These men have never been in a real fight before, but as soon as Tyler Durden says, “I want you to hit me as hard as you can,” that all changes. Tyler Durden gives men a place to vent their frustrations, to be men, to be able to be animals and beasts, to let loose those surpluses of testosterone. Tyler Durden is chaos, insanity, and destruction personified. And yet, his purpose is a logical one: to make people live.

Tyler’s lessons do take on a semblance to brain-washing. This is evident in the way the Narrator repeats “I know this because Tyler knows this.” Later, this takes on a different significance, but it’s the repetition that drills it into the reader’s brain. That, and Tyler’s projects and homework assignments take control of the men and their lives. It is fascinating how Tyler’s extraordinarily dangerous and destructive homework assignments grew out of pranks that a teen-aged boy would pull. Peeing in banquet food, splicing genitalia into movies, etc. are just immature stunts. But they grow and they fester and they turned into something much more menacing and deadly. The mentality that almost every male has as a teenager morphed so easily into something horrifying.

The destruction in this book is one of the main reasons I liked it. Anyone who has been dissatisfied or disaffected with the world knows exactly how the Narrator feels. To be perfect and content is to be less human. One would like themselves less if they were content. There is a beauty in the dissolution of the world. There is a beauty in insanity, for nothing to make sense, for a return to nature. There is a beauty in fear making people live like they were going to die. There is beauty in nihilism and in having nothing, in being nothing but an entity.

Marla Singer is another example of this destruction. Tyler and the Narrator are attracted to her because she is walking destruction. She tries to kill herself, she lives horribly, she allows herself to be abused, in a sense. Just like the Narrator does. Tyler’s kiss is proof of that.

Palahniuk raises several interesting points about the psychology of man. One I found particularly interesting was his assertion that if you are a white male living in the US then your image of your father is your image of God. Since many of these men grew up without a father, they grew up without a god, and thus they feel abandoned, alone, angry, frustrated, and unloved by everyone.

Fight Club is about the male psyche and its progression into chaos under the right circumstances. Give an abandoned man a leader, and he’ll follow him anywhere. It’s also about the digression of society into anarchy in order to make people live their lives fully. It’s about finding beauty and value and violence, it’s about finding security in manufacturing destruction. It’s a book about man.

D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterly’s Lover

Considered pornography, this book was unavailable in its full text until 1960. I was helping my grandparents sort out their bookshelves when I stumbled across it. I asked my grandmother if it was any good, or was it famous simply because it was scandalous, and she replied, “Oh, Lawrence is very good. You should read it.” And I did.

I thought it was interesting because it wasn’t nearly so bad as everyone said. Yes, there’s sex, and yes, Lawrence goes into pretty graphic detail, but it’s a very technical description. There were no “heaving bosoms” and “turgid shafts.” There really wasn’t a whole lot of passion or fever, either. It was simply about a want and a need and two people fulfilling it. Society made it seem that this act was unnatural, but it’s not, and that was made abundantly clear in the book. Sex is animal-like, yes, but humans are, essentially, animals, and it’s completely normal to want to have sex.

I found more important to the premise of the novel was the Industrial Revolution in England. Lady Chatterly’s Lover was a commentary about how industry and technology drained man of his natural instincts and pleasures, turning him into an unthinking, wearied automaton, who does nothing more than work. Clifford is the embodiment of the Industrial Revolution. He takes advantage of the lower classes for his benefit. While it’s true that Clifford is innovative, his prowess is overshadowed by the people he’s taking advantage of. Clifford is also a crippled and childlike man who is emotionally immature, though he is logical. These characteristics of Clifford make apparent the fact that technology does not breed sensitive, emotional, passionate, and insightful people. If it can be created and controlled by a man like Clifford, then a man like Mellors (the hero of the novel) can not thrive in that situation.

Mellors is a rough, intelligent, passionate, and natural man. He is a gamekeeper and works with animals and nature. He is different because he prefers his privacy and enjoys working in the woods, and would most likely never work in the pits. He accepts Connie for what she has to offer and doesn’t offer anymore to her than he can give. He takes things as they come, the bad with the good.

Connie, meanwhile, just wants to be free. It’s true that she finds her freedom in another, in Mellors, but that doesn’t change the situation. She doesn’t want to be trapped in a pointless marriage with Clifford anymore. She wants to be able to love as she sees fit and to bear the fruit of that love. Clifford, in fact, doesn’t mind if she takes a lover, or even has a child, as long as that lover is of good-breeding. But Connie cannot be restricted in her love in any way, or it will not feel real. You can’t choose who you love. Connie is also discovering herself and becoming a woman. She’s doing this both sexually and mentally, by finding someone she can be herself with and that she wants to be with.

All in all, it’s a book about humanity. Sex is a part of that, but so is love, passion, caring, and sensitivity. The Industrial Revolution hindered those traits and stopped letting nature pervade society, and so society’s natural instincts started to dwindle. And yet, in this time, Connie and Mellors blossomed naturally into the best they could be under each others care.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment

Another book I read for AP Lit. One of our “Big Books.”

One of the things that amazes me most about this book is the fact that Raskolnikov proves himself right by failing. He presents a theory that only a great man can commit a crime without feeling guilt because he is worthy of it and it’s necessary. His success will mean more than the trespass committed. A lesser man would fall ill after committing a crime because it was not necessary, he was not worthy, and he feels guilty. In determining a great man, there is a thin line between someone who does things because he must and the sociopath. Raskolnikov thinks he is a great man, that he has something new to say, and he commits a crime because he believes he has to to survive. He is wrong. He falls ill almost immediately and runs around half-mad playing cat-and-mouse with detectives.

Raskolnikov also tries to detach and separate from his friends and family. He goes to Razumikhin’s for help, changes his mind, and gets upset when Razumikhin ends up taking care of him and getting a doctor for him. He is upset with his mother and sister as well, and hates his sister’s fiance and ends up causing the end of their engagement. All he really wants is to be left alone. He doesn’t want anyone to help him and he doesn’t want a doctor. He wants to suffer. He wants to be ill and to play his games with the detectives. He believes he is smarter than them, though is suspicious that they’re catching on. He does not think they will catch him, but he fears that. Subconsciously, he wants to be caught. He wants to be punished, because deep down he knows that he’s not a great man, and that more than anything else, he cannot bear. There is the guilt and illness caused by his crime to be considered in the equation, but there is first and foremost the shame he feels that he is unworthy, that he is a lesser being than what he aspires to be.

Proof that he did not need to commit this crime to survive is the fact that he never used the money and goods he stole. He never used it to buy food or pay rent or anything. And he was fine. Oh, he was ill and he was mentally unwell, but his family and friends took care of him, though it was difficult. Rather than calling on the compassion of them, because it was shameful, he resorted to violence and theft to continue his existence.

Despite his crime, Raskolnikov is not an insensitive man. He was driven by poverty and his utmost assurance in himself and his theory; he did not do this out of hatred or cruelty, though it is true he did not like the woman. He helps Marmeladov home, and leaves money for his family after he dies and checks up on them. He begins a sort of relationship with Sonia, and they do care for each other.

This novel delves into the psychology of a crime committed by a person who was not meant to be a criminal, but driven to it, by circumstance and his beliefs. It shows us what happens before and after the crime and the consequences, both self-induced and enforced by the law. It also examines the sociology of Russia, and connects people and stories to make one vast picture. Every character has a background and a connection to someone else in the story. They have a history and a purpose, and the lack of extraneous detail makes the novel that much more realistic.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

My friend once recommended this book to me, saying it was one of his favorites. When it popped up on my outside reading list for AP Lit. I decided to give it a go. So, I headed over to Barnes and Nobles and read half of it while sitting there sipping a chai latte, and then finished it later that night before I went to bed.

I didn’t like it, at least I didn’t until the end. Its dry writing style and lack of emotion frustrated me, as did the characters’ senseless immaturity and materialism. I couldn’t understand these characters motivations, because the only one I could relate to was Gatsby. I also didn’t understand Fitzgerald’s motivation until the end of the book.

This was a book where love didn’t matter. The characters were too caught up in socializing and guaranteeing their well-being. The only one who loved, who had compassion for others, who was not self-centered and completely materialistic was Gatsby. Perhaps this is because of his background. He had attained wealth, he was not born with it; maybe he wasn’t as afraid of its loss, which can certainly be gathered from the way he throws his money around. For Gatsby, the only thing that truly mattered was Daisy. He lived his life for her. Everything he did was for her. Did she return the favor?

No. And that’s why I hated her. She had a man who loved her immensely, and she stayed with her adulterous husband for the security it brought her. All Gatsby asked from her was to be loved in return and she abandons him so completely it’s disgusting. And the rest of the characters are like her. Nick becomes too caught up in their lives, he wants what they have too. Tom cares about no one but himself and his pleasures, and has no respect for his marriage. Daisy’s friend just doesn’t care what happens to anyone as long as she’s alright. It’s frustrating to see all of these characters hinder themselves from having what could possibly be a spectacular experience because they are afraid of the outcome.

At the end of the novel, it becomes apparent why this was all necessary. The style and tone, the lack of emotion, the characters, everything. The Great Gatsby is a social commentary about how society is becoming more materialistic as time progresses and society’s emotional digression into stoicism. It also recognizes that society stops the man from feeling by beating him down and killing him and the last vestiges of true emotion. Fitzgerald recognized a tendency of self-involvement and envisioned an extreme example to show the world where this lack of concern and compassion could lead.

Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights

Proof that, though they are similar, you can not generalize the Bronte sisters’ work: my mother positively detested Jane Eyre, but couldn’t put Wuthering Heights down. I brought it with me on my trip to Paris, because I’d been meaning to read it, and in the sleepless, jet-lagged nights, I did. It left quite an impression on me, and later on my mother as she read it on the plane ride home. My mother and I have very different tastes in books, but this was one that we agreed was fantastic.

I’ll admit that it is difficult to immerse yourself in. The diction is both intelligent and grandiose. That, and you’re bombarded with Joseph’s vernacular almost from the get-go. The frame story, once begun, is so compelling, however, that you soon find yourself enthralled. The story of Heathcliff and Cathy is unique, horrifying, and disastrously romantic.

These are two of my favorite anti-heroes. Heathcliff is a sadistic plotter, bent on ruining everyone’s happiness if he cannot secure his own. He lusts after revenge and the downfall of anyone who has slighted him or anyone connected with them. He cares for no one but himself and Cathy. He is manipulative and takes advantage of situations as they are presented to him and twists them so he gets his way in the end. Cathy is selfish and a snob. She is pretentious and cares more about position and good-breeding than even love. She cannot bear to be connected to a man who cannot maintain or better her position in the eyes of society.

Eventually, these character flaws destroy them respectively. Cathy cannot handle the competing affections of both Heathcliff and her husband (she wishes for them to get along, for her sake) and falls ill, though it is more a psychological illness than anything else. Heathcliff, rather than wishing peace for Cathy, refuses to let her rest. He doesn’t care if she walks the world for all eternity, haunting him as a ghost, but he cannot bear for her to leave him. He wishes no peace for her, only for the selfish consummation of his needs.

Heathcliff does not stop at Cathy. He takes advantage of Rebecca’s affection towards him, and twists that situation to fit his needs. He demeans Hareton to the point of depravity. He manipulates his own son, and Cathy’s daughter in an effort to ruin all of their lives, especially to get revenge on Cathy’s husband. His occupations in these matters consume him, until all he can see is Cathy and the tangled webs of everyone’s lives and how they correlated to his plots. Eventually, he is to the point where his plans could be realized.

These characters are immature. Critics have claimed they are not fully developed. That is true in a way, but not what was meant. These characters are not fully developed, because they’re not supposed to be. They are not well-adjusted socialites. They were the victims of life, warped and abused by circumstance since infancy. They know nothing else, and they act accordingly. They have never known acceptance, caring, or compassion. They have only experienced, rage, violence, and passion, which can only lead to a tempest of emotion, not the adult relationship they would be expected to have. These characters are realistic in the fact that they are depraved and maladjusted. They are humans, and humans have their difficulties and their faults. It makes their passion that much more believable.

George Orwell’s 1984

A treatise against socialism, often mistaken as being pro-anarchy, as evidenced by my friend who has “FREEDOM! FOREVER!” tattooed across her collarbones (in honor of V for Vendetta) loving this book. This is the type of girl who would spend her lunch hours eschewing her peers and ranting to a teacher about how ”the man” was keeping her down. She complains so much and has so little to complain about. She doesn’t understand Orwell’s message and she only has a basic understanding of politics and has no concept of the subtleties. She’s a raging liberal, airing on the side of socialism, who thinks she’s an anarchist, and Orwell is her favorite author. How can this man be so misunderstood? It’s beyond me… Orwell has a healthy respect for government in moderation, and believes that socialism gives the government too much power.

Orwell’s view of socialism is clear throughout the entire work. The fact that the government calls itself “Big Brother” shows that the nature of socialism is to present itself as helpful, to make one believe that it has the people’s best interests at heart, which initially, the movement did. The fact that Big Brother is always watching evidences Orwell’s fear of socialism, that given that much power, the government will abuse it. Once commerce is controlled, the next logical step, to Orwell, would be personal lives, so that the government would be able to maintain this power.

A main tool that Big Brother uses to maintain their power is ignorance. The only people who have a remote chance of becoming aware of the hypocrisy and corrupt nature of the government is the bureaucracy. The proletariat hardly matters, because they have no power. Those in the bureaucracy, however, do have a minimal sense of power because they have greater access to information. An example of the government abusing their power to keep both the bureaucracy and the proles ignorant would be one of the great lessons of the book: “He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.” Events were changed, documents destroyed, to prove that Big Brother was meeting it’s goals, that they were benefiting the people. Because they had no proof to contradict what they were being told, the people were easily and readily lied to.

Much of the book was remniscient of Stalin’s regime in that documents were falsified to convince the people that there was a surplus. People were going without boots, but according to the government there was an overabundance of things like this. The people could not be starving, they could not be without boots and clothing, because Big Brother said that they weren’t. Big Brother said that they were taken care of.

Another way the government controlled the people and maintained power was through distraction. They were always at war. Always. And their enemy had always been their enemy, even if they weren’t. The war actually switches between enemies, but every time that happens, the government denies any switch and said they had always been fighting that war. War brings a kind of unity to a country. The people feel patriotic and united in their fear and hatred of their enemy. This is exemplified with the Five Minutes Hate. One cannot help joining in the hatred, to giving into the animalistic tendencies to hate their oppresser or potential oppreser. Unfortunately, very few are intelligent enough to realize who they are really being oppressed by, and those who are, are terminated, or tortured into submission. They are broken beyond repair, to the point where there is no will to fight, no will to be free. They are also unified with the many group functions that are practically mandatory, and by the usage of the word “comrade” in reference to anyone. That’s straight Russia, right there.

Big Brother also uses propaganda abundantly. In the Five Minute’s Hate, in their portrayal of Capitalists, in their groups, slogans, posters, movies, books. It’s everywhere. No one can escape it. This, again, unifies the people, gives them a common enemy, gives them a purpose: to hate.

Their are some who are intelligent enough to rebel, but as I’ve stated, they are beaten down, psychologically and physically. The proletariat are too unintelligent, or too unaware to resist, should they even want to. And why would they? No matter the governmental regime, they are still in the same place, making barely enough to exist. One can argue that under capitalism, that may change, but under capitalism, the gap between the proletariat and the bourgeosie theoretically grows. The Iron Hand is not fair to all, but picks favorites among the people who already have the resources to succeed. The proletariat lack these resources, and are thus happy in their ignorance. If they cared enough to change things, even for ideological reasons, it wouldn’t get them anywhere worth going, and may even make things worse for them in the interim. They are not taken care of now, but that might be better than some new and unexpected evil if they were to change things.

1984 is not anti-government, it’s anti-despotism. It’s a political and social satire warning against the dangers of too much power invested in the government. I don’t believe George Orwell vehemently supports capitalism, but I do think he prefers it to socialism, communism, and facism, where one group holds too much power. Capitalism allows a free-market, and, theoretically, because the government doesn’t control that, they don’t control the people’s personal lives because people at least have freedom in commerce.