A Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess

Jun 2007 · HarperAudio · Narrated by Tom Hollander

About this audiobook

A vicious fifteen-year-old droog is the central character of this 1963 classic. In Anthony Burgess's 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. And 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 and Burgess's introduction "A Clockwork Orange Resucked."

Ratings and reviews

An excellent graphic reading of a cleverly written novel. the narrator does a swell job at keeping the tone believable and thrilling with the bits of macabre humor taken into account. I enjoyed the inclusion of the final chapter as well as the author's foreword about the controversy surrounding it's inclusion. The slang was incredibly jarring but to the book's benefit, making the read feel wonderfully in-character, giving you the perspective of Alex's perception of violence within his life.

I quickly grew a strong hate for this book. It's disgusting. Terribly written violence let's you know the writer had a screw loose. Those who can invision the brutal beatings, stabbings, and rape of an innocent man's wife should be guilty of the crime themselves. Didn't even make it an hour in this book. I will never pick it up again.

The audio book stop after part 2 chapter 2, there was no more audio after that.

About the author

Anthony Burgess is the author of many works, including The Long Day Wanes, The Wanting Seed, The Doctor Is Sick, Nothing Like the Sun, Honey for the Bears, and Re Joyce.

Tom Hollander has starred in such films as Gosford Park, Pride and Prejudice, Possession, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3, as well as on Broadway and the West End.