THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => ENJOY => Topic started by: iliketodraw on 13 Jul 2007, 15:45
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Does anyone else think that the movie remake of this book does it absolutely no justice whatsoever? I read the book before watching the film and if it had been the other way around i would've never read the book, however, i'm glad i did. In my opinion one of the single best pieces of 20th century literature, even if you don't like the content the skill of the author has to be admired. I would recommend this book to anyone, especially people who fear the "young".
P.s - Can anyone point me in the direction of anything like this at all? everything i read recently seems to be spawned from the same dreary egg. Thanks :-D
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I would urge you to read Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace. Not because it has anything whatsoever in common with A Clockwork Orange (about which I concur with everything you said) but because it cannot be said to be "spawned from the same dreary egg" as basically any other work of fiction anywhere.
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Thanks, i'll pop down to the library tomorrow and get myself a copy....
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I have heard that Naked Lunch is another zany book/movie. Never had a chance to read/watch either, though.
As for the book, I got halfway through and then it was due back at the library. I quickly forgot about it, I was busy reading other things. I'll have to borrow it again.
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The whole random ass language-slang-jive derived from eastern European languages thing was done much, much better in the book. Besides that I honestly need to go back and re-read it and watch the movie again to make a good comparison. Then again, when do book based films EVER do the original literature justice?
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Man I totally love both. I just hate hate hate hate HATE that they fucked with the ending of the book for the movie. It ruins the entire message of the novel.
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Anthony Burgess is a brilliant writer. I tend to find his books quite difficult to cope with but I definitely preferred the book to the film. Nadsat is a great system of slang although I did find it irritating that it took me four chapters to work out what they were on about despite the fact I study Russian at school.
I'd recommend other books by Anthony Burgess as he's a great writer no matter what he's writing about. For differentness, Life of Pi by Yann Martel is a good read. It's bizarre but really interestingly so.
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Naked Lunch is a pretty fun book, but it will also make your brain melt from time to time.
There is a really great gay sex snuff rape scene though.
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I shall commit the cardinal sin of the intellectual and say that the film is better.
The book's ending is weaksauce. Oh, he was only acting like that because he was a teenager, oh okay then, boys will be boys. Can't stand it.
I read the book first too and I do agree that the use of the slang is better used in it but that ending, argh!
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Make sure you get the book with all 21 chapters, and not the edited one with 20.
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Naked Lunch is a pretty fun book, but it will also make your brain melt from time to time.
There is a really great gay sex snuff rape scene though.
I made the mistake of reading this at work. Someone looked over my shoulder just as I was reading that scene. It was very hard to convince them that I wasn't reading some kind of freaky porno book. Which is hard, given how Naked Lunch is very freaky, often pornographic and, indeed, a book. The appendix describing the effects of a variety of drugs is absolutely fascinating too.
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Has anyone read Do androids dream of electric sheep? Apparently it's great but my library decided not to stock good books a while back...
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I saw the movie first, then read the book. The book does go deeper, but I guess I prefer the conciseness of the movie. Also, I'm familiar with the whole Chapter 21 mess, but like Yayniall, I still prefer the movie ending. If I had read the book first, I might not have bothered with the movie. How's that for a turnabout?
Has anyone read Do androids dream of electric sheep? Apparently it's great but my library decided not to stock good books a while back...
I've wanted to read that for a while, but have never run across it. Blade Runner was very interesting (also, be sure to check out the Director's Cut or Special Edition or whatever, with the different ending), and I'd love to read the source material.
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A Clockwork Orange is a great book, well worth reading. Certainly better than the movie, in my opinion anyhow.
Naked Lunch is incredible, but nothing like A Clockwork Orange. Not really anyhow. Naked Lunch will make your brain shrivel up and die. In a good way. Also, if you want to understand it, you'll need to read a couple of William S. Burroughs earlier books. Plus be insane.
Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? seems like a much more similar book. It is really amazing, easily my favourite science-fiction novel other than Dune. Blade Runner is also an incredible movie based on it, though it is deliberately different from the book.
Last Exit To Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr. is kind of similar as well, but far more graphic, far more violent, and not set in the future. I also happen to think it's better, but that's entirely subjective.
I'll see what else I can think of a bit later.
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First, Naked Lunch, to me, seems pretty different in literary writing styles, if that's what you're looking for. Burroughs has this jigsaw story structuring that annoys some people tremendously. I like it, personally. I think Naked Lunch is an amazing book, but if you were to open the book to a random page, quite often you are opening the book to some sort of highly detailed rape scene of sorts. That is how it differs from Clockwork the most. It's a lot harsher.
Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, the book used for the movie Blade Runner is an awesome read. It is different from the movie in a multitude of ways. The biggest difference being that it has more symbolism and themes going for it than the movie. Philip K. Dick is one of my favorite authors because his books mess with the human condition, instead of expressing opinions, he just changes ideas in his own world. I recommend it. I also recommend Naked Lunch if you're up for it. Another good Dick book is A Scanner Darkly, which just had a movie made after it.
On Clockwork Orange, the reason why the movie left out the last chapter of the book is because it was made in America. Why is this different? The American publisher forced Burgess to keep the last chapter out of the American version of the book when it was originally printed here. It would be a different story now because they added the chapter in current editions of the book, but that's the reason why.
It's hard to watch a movie you've read the book for without expectations, and vice-versa, but they are both different mediums, so they'll be different. Watch a movie like a movie. Read a book like a book. Although movies are much more often criticized for the lack of things that were present in the book.
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P.s - Can anyone point me in the direction of anything like this at all? everything i read recently seems to be spawned from the same dreary egg. Thanks :-D
I haven't read Requiem For A Dream, but I've heard that the book has no quotation marks and is a bit hard to understand. but it flows in the correct way. And since the movie is one of the best movie's i've seen, the book has gotta be spectacular.
I'm going to try to read it sooner or later. And I've been meaning to read a Clockwork Orange someday.
my ex-girlfriend had the entire dictionary of weird words written in the front of the book so she could understand it better, I almost think that is cheating, though.
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Honestly, though the language seems daunting at first, you pick it up pretty quickly.
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True. He whips out some strange words, but there's always a context, and you do pick them up without much fuss. It's also kinda funny, too. Just a weird part of Alex's personality.
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I remember when I read it for class, our professor gave us a cheat sheet of all the funky slang. Wish I'd hung onto that....
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well, i just bought the book today. I gotta finish One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, first, though.
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I don't see why people can't work out the slang terms, it's really not that hard and always in fairly obvious context. I also finished Infinite Jest today, not a bad book but the ending (non-ending?) was a little anti climatic.
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well all the slang was use as a filter because there is alot of nasty stuff that happens in the book, if he havent use the slang, the book probaby been banned because of the graphicness of the novel.
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Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh, or the very different sequel Porno.
You'll know who is talking by the dialect...
they are the black bohemian rye bread of reading-- rich, leaving you warm and sated.
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well all the slang was use as a filter because there is alot of nasty stuff that happens in the book, if he havent use the slang, the book probaby been banned because of the graphicness of the novel.
Good point. I hadn't thought of that, but it makes sense. Still, how hard is it to figure out "giving her the old 'in-out, in-out'"?
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WHAT DOES THAT MEAN!? :?
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"in-out in-out", something that goes in then out then in again then out again and its something that has to do with sex.
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oh.
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Anyone who liked this book, or the film for that matter should deffinitely see If...., Malcolm McDowell's first film and the reason he was cast in CWO.
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well all the slang was use as a filter because there is alot of nasty stuff that happens in the book, if he havent use the slang, the book probaby been banned because of the graphicness of the novel.
It was banned.
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I remember when I read it for class, our professor gave us a cheat sheet of all the funky slang. Wish I'd hung onto that....
Bit of a bump, but... there is a full Nadsat wiktionary here (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Concordance:A_Clockwork_Orange), if it helps.
Also, I seriously doubt that the slang was any attempt to stave off banning of the book. In the case of A Clockwork Orange, I felt as though it not only makes Alex a distinctive voice, it also lends to the unsettingling familiarity of the dystopia--even though Nadsat is foreign and initially incomprehensible for most English and American readers, you quickly grow used to the words and thus find yourself in cahoots with these ultraviolent kids. That said, I felt both the book and movie have been over-hyped and inexplicably fetishized; it was good, but not that good.
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It's not just a matter of being good, because you're right; it's not that good. But it broke some barriers, broke a lot of new ground, and was close enough to mainstream to make a lot of people nervous. I remember when the movie came out in the U.S., and the stir it caused. It was indeed justified, because there wasn't anything else like it at your local theater. Heck, XXX movies were still being played at mall and shopping center theaters. It was still early; it hadn't yet occurred to the powers-that-be to start "limiting" (read "censoring") what's out there.
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Okay, can I just say..I read the book first, and I loved the movie just as much...Right up until the end. WTF?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Seriously, the fucking point of the end of the book is that after Alex gets some new droogs, and then sees his old droog in some shop and sees that he has like a wife and a baby, and shit, he decides then to stop. And he realizes how life is more beautiful.
The movie ending where it did sucked any meaning or moral right out of the whole story.
I kicked my dog after the movie was over.
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P.s - Can anyone point me in the direction of anything like this at all? everything i read recently seems to be spawned from the same dreary egg. Thanks :-D
Read Catch 22 by Joseph Heller! Seriously, there's nothing else like it.
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that was a book? oh great, I feel so betrayed. (i've only seen stanly kubric movie)
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The Kubrick movie captures the spirit of the book very well. It follows the main storyline as best as you can expect (since it's non-linear) and preserves that whole disorientation thing. Also, as with the book, it starts off kinda silly, poking fun at the insanity of war and what the men have to do to get through it, then slowly gets darker until at some point you realize it's not really a comedy anymore, but more a dark social commentary.
If you've never read the book, definitely find a copy and read it, especially if you liked the movie. Catch-22 is unusual in that both the movie and book are excellent, quite different from each other, yet both still faithful to the author's vision and tone.
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I loved the movie and the book both, but honestly I detested Chapter 21.
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The main bastardisation of the book in the film was that the film pretty much missed the main point of the book.
It misses out a HUGE part of Alex's life and with this you miss the transformation made from boy to man, he is never really a boy in the film and alot of artistic license is taken so you miss out on what Burgess tries to say in the book.
I need to read the book again and watch the film I guess. I did not really like the film but the book was viddy viddy horrorshow.
Just my dva pretty polly.
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Actually, the movie ending is simply trying to enforce the notion of the title (which is skipped in the movie when they're with the writer... that pissed me off quite a bit).
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Yeah, something about sweet orange juice.
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As for the whole "21st Chapter" hubbub, keep in mind that Kubric claims to have not even known about the 21st chapter until he was almost done with the screenplay, if memory serves.
Personally, I enjoy both the book and the film, and try to keep the two as separate tellings of the same story in my mind. A great book will never really be done direct justice by its film adaptation, which is a good thing in a way. I'd be a bit unsettled if any director, even Kubric, could match my imagination.
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That's correct. Kubrick was working from an American publication of the book, which did not include the last chapter, so it's not like he was trying to totally change the message of the book. Even after hearing about the final chapter, his vision for the movie was already set.
I don't know; if it were me, and someone pointed out to me that there was this "final chapter" I'd missed out on, I'd probably read it, but after having already absorbed the story as I understood it, I'd likely dismiss whatever I read as epilogue. And if it turned out to totally change the message, I might even reject it outright. This is not right, but it's human nature.
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I preferred it without the 21st chapter, to be perfectly honest.
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See, there ya go.
This kinduv reminds me of the situation with Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener". I'll say up front that I hated the story, and find Melville incredibly boring, but I had to read it in junior high and then - ARGH! - again in high school.
Anyway, people were apparently unhappy with the whole Bartleby thing. Why was he the way he was? Was he naturally an extreme introvert, or was there some horrible thing in the past that made him that way? So Melville added an epilogue to the story, first person by Bartleby's boss (same as the rest of the story), explaining how he'd dug a little into Bartleby's past, and found out why. He then explained it all to us. It was totally lame! I didn't like the story anyway, but at least it had this bizarre character and we had no idea why he acted that way. Sometimes you meet people, have to interact with them, and you never find out why they're so nucking futs. Melville caved, and made a crappy story even worse by trying to explain everything.
Hmm, I guess it's not really the same thing as with A Clockwork Orange after all. But it reminded me of it.