A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

After reading this fine work of non-American literature, I realized that not only can I now vaguely talk old English slag, but also the way our generation behaves compared to the heartless marauders in A Clockwork Orange. Alex and his gang of droogs, consisting of Dim, Georgie and Pete, terrorize and plunder the streets at night, drinking and brawling with rival gangs, but these streets are not as "safe" as Alex wants them to be. One brake-in by Alex turns into a trip to a very "special" detention center and total abandonment by his minions. Here he is changed into a kind and heartfelt person, but only for a short period of time when he realizes that the entire world turned on him and the only escape is to end it all, which fails. I can obscurely sympathize with Alex on the thought that the world is against you but there are other means of escape. In his situation of a home that was sold out by his parents, corrupt police officers (one being a former droog, Dim), and crazy politicians who want to "use" Alex as an example to how they treated him in the correctional facility; so I can understand that in his situation your options are small and compared to our time and age we would believe that Alex has so many choices, but the only is to end it all. Something special about the copy I had was that it had an extra chapter that comes after Alex comes out of the hospital and creates a new gang with new droogs where he runs into an old buddy, Pete. Pete informs Alex that he is about to get married; now to Alex this comes as a shock because he is so young, but Pete replies that he is twenty years old, only two years older than Alex himself, and that he to must think about settling down and starting a family. Alex can not cope with the fact that youth has come and gone, he is not the little chelloveck he used to be. The idea of growing up is so distant and far away to him, maybe because he had been locked up and "corrected" or maybe it was something else. Something we can not explain that drives people to the edge, lets them jump, and then allows them to tell their story.