a Clockwork orange third response

The last third of A Clockwork Orange is probably my favorite. In the last third of the book Alex is released into everyday life, for better or for worse. When he is released his first destination is his parents house. His arrival is a surprise to his parents who thought he was going to be in jail for quite a few more years. In his house there is an unusual man sitting at the table. It is explained to Alex that in order to help pay the bills they rented out his old room, his parents say that they cannot just kick the man out of the house. Alex then guilt trips his parents, saying that they don’t love him and such, and leaves to find his own way.
Of course his first stop is the Korova milk bar. He drinks some milk plus and many a psychedelic apparition flit through his mind. When he leaves he is confronted by two police officers, none other than his old droog, Dim, and his old rival, Billy boy. The two recognize him and decide to accost him; they take him out to the country and beat him senseless. Alex then makes haste to a nearby house to seek refuge; this house is none other than the house he visited in the beginning of the book when he raped and beat the wife of the writer who lived inside. Because he was wearing a mask the writer doesn’t recognize him, but he does recognize him from the papers, for his treatment. He takes Alex in and explains to him the organization who he is a part of who is utterly opposed to governmental control, including the Ludovico technique that was used on Alex. the members of this group get Alex a hotel room to stay in, but the writer seems to suspect that it was Alex that raped and beat his wife, who later died from her injuries. When Alex wakes in the morning he hears Beethoven music, which he used to love but because of the Ludovico Technique makes him feel pain as though he was doing someone harm. He realizes that he is locked in the hotel room with no way to escape. He decided that the writer must have recognized him and was playing the music to torture him. He is in such utter pain that the only way to escape it that he sees is to kill himself by jumping out the window. He jumps but is not high enough to die from the fall.
When he wakes up he is in a hospital with many a guest around him. One of the guests is the minister of the interior, who decided to use to Ludovico technique on Alex. he apologizes to Alex profusely and explains to him that he is cured, and will no longer feel pain when hurting people or listening to classical music.
The twenty first chapter, which was left out of the original American publication and the movie version, is probably the most interesting of the book. He is out and about with his new droogs, causing general mayhem as per usual, except this time Alex feels slightly dejected, a little out of it. He decides to walk around on his own and think about things. He goes into a coffee and tea shop to get some tea and sees a very beautiful woman in a stall sitting with a man. He describes the woman as the sort you might want to have a relationship with and not just rape, like most of the women he has had. When the man who is sitting with the girl turns his head Alex realizes that it is Pete, his old droog. He goes and talks to pete and finds out the he is married to this woman and has a regular job. At this point Alex realizes that the less destructive feeling he has been having toward people is just a result of growing up, therefor keeping Alex from being a clockwork orange.
The interesting part about this section of the book is that the reader feels as if Alex has been punished enough and yet he is only punished more in this section of the book, thus making the reader feel sorry for him even more. Anthony Burgess, the writer of this fine book, describes a clockwork orange as something that looks alive and juicy from the outside, like an orange, but behaves like clockwork, to be wound up by god or the devil. in other words a person who doesn’t have choice and is forced to always perform good or evil. Without the last chapter Alex is a clockwork orange, always performing evil and never changing, but with the last chapter he becomes human, with the ability to change. Anthony Burgess has written a culturally relevant book that is one that says something about a very core aspect of humanity, and a warning that only bad things can happen if you take that choice away from people.

A Clockwork Orange second response

Luckily for me this book is already divided up into three distinct sections, each one in a different setting. The first is about an unchanged, free Alex, the second about Alex's imprisonment and "treatment", and I have yet to read the third.
In the first part of this section Alex is in a regular jail. Alex has been in this jail for two years and in that time shown himself to be a good inmate, sucking up to the right people and manning the music for the prison church. He seems to be slight friends with the preacher of the prison and greatly enjoys still being able to listen to good music.
The cell Alex stays in is over crowded; there are four people and only three beds. One night the person who is forced to sleep on the floor tries to sleep with Alex, and you get the impression that he also puts his hands on Alex. Needless to say Alex kicks the man out of his bed and somehow all the people in the cell decide to teach the man a lesson. They all beat the other man up and go back to sleep. When the inmates wake up they realize that the man is dead. In true prison fashion everyone blames to crime on Alex. Alex then gets sent to an experimental treatment center where after only a month of treatment he will be released into the free world. Unsurprisingly he is very excited. The "treatment" Alex receives consists of forcing him to watch many films of extremely violent and horrible acts while he is under the influence of a certain drug. This treatment causes him to feel physical pain whenever he thinks about or does a violent act, thus causing him to refrain from violence.
The title of the book, A Clockwork Orange is meant to describe something that looks alive on the outside, such as a sweet and juicy orange, but has no choice between good and evil, like clockwork. This is an interesting moral dilemma, is it better to have no choice and always do well, or have a choice and choose evil? In this part of the book it is clear that Alex is not "cured" of violence because he wants to hurt people and things, but his body is opposed to it. It seems that wanting to do evil doesn't matter as long as you body won't let you do evil.
Another interesting occurrence is the language of this section of the book. Alex still speaks in his russian-british slang but it seems out of place in this sanitary treatment center. Like if you heard someone on a big boat talking like a pirate it wouldn't be too out of place but if you heard a Wal-Mart employee talking like a pirate you might be a little amused.
Overall I have greatly enjoyed this book, there are many ambiguous moral issues that this book faces, and it faces them well.

Parkour

In the 1980’s in Lisses, France, a suburb of Paris, there was a young man named David Belle. David wanted to emulate his father, Raymond Belle, a military firefighter. His father was known for his strength and agility, Raymond could navigate urban landscapes as if he had evolved to do so. Raymond Belle was fascinated by the “Method Naturelle” a personal fitness method invented by Georges Hebert. The Method Naturelle grew from the idea of functional fitness, training to aid you in survival. David greatly respected his father and in wanting to gain his approval he started training himself to move quickly and efficiently throughout his landscape. He would imagine emergency situations, such as running from someone dangerous or saving someone in peril. He would act out these situations and try to find the quickest route from one point to another. In order quickly move he would run up walls, vault over low obstacles, and drop from height. On these foundations Parkour was built. The word Parkour comes from the French word Parcours meaning obstacle course. Parkour is usually practiced in an urban setting but people often train in a forest environment.
People often liken Parkour to other urban sports such as skateboarding or BMXing. The major difference between them is philosophy, Parkour has a central philosophy of improving oneself mentally and physically, and of course efficient movement. Many people who practice Parkour have applied a similar mindset to other facets of life, you must break down the steps of a move to execute it perfectly, a method one can use for many people face in life. A male Parkour practitioner is called a Traceur, female a Traceuse. As one can imagine Parkour takes a great amount of Physical strength, and because it uses your entire body you must have balanced strength. There is also a great importance for conditioning, a ten foot drop puts an enormous strain on joints and muscles. Parkour is an individual’s sport, even though many train in groups the progression is with only yourself. There has been some talk of Parkour competitions but because of the individual nature of the discipline most of the community agrees that competition is against the spirit of Parkour.
In the early days David and his friends practiced this discipline around their town never expecting it might one day gain global attention. At the peak of their training they were practicing for 4-6 hours every day. Around ten years into his training David was suggested to video some of his discipline and show it to people. After this he filmed a short video of himself and the word of Parkour soon spread. Soon after there was a report on him in the French news, the news team followed him around his town while he explained Parkour and demonstrated it. It didn’t take long for more publicity to come, there were some very funny Nike commercials he and his friends did. After that the momentum only got larger, the director, Luc Besson, was very interested in him and allowed David to play the lead role in the French motion picture, B-13, which was released on November 10, 2004. The movie was fairly reminiscent of Jackie Chan movies, with a neutron bomb aimed right at Paris.
What really garnered Parkour an audience outside of France was the British documentary,”Jump London”, which featured one of David’s childhood friends, Sebastien Foucan. The documentary, which aired September 9, 2003, focused on foucan and his compatriot Jerome Ben Aoues doing parkour in and on many famous London landmarks. After all this exposure the word of Parkour quickly spread, mainly through Internet forums and videos. Many people joined the discipline in Europe and it still has the largest Parkour community. The discipline is slowly starting to trickle into American consciousness, being featured in movies such as the James Bond movie, Casino Royale, as an amazing chase scene through a construction site.
Parkour is only gaining momentum, with articles in magazines such as TIME and The New Yorker dedicated to spreading the word. Parkour has a very central philosophy of growth and individual achievement. Tracuers are not encouraged to compare their skills, mainly because of the non-competitive nature. A Traceur trains for personal gain, not for the approval of others.

A Clockwork Orange

This is the first of three journal entries on the book A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess.

This book takes place either in an alternate present or the future. The technology of this book seems slightly greater than what we have now but it also seems to be written under the context that Russian and British cultures merging to a point. This book takes place in London where the adolescents rule the nighttime streets, stealing and fighting with hardly any interference by the law. Alex, our protagonist, along with his three “Droogs” makes up one of the small street gangs that rape and steal for fun.

The language used in the book is extremely interesting; it is a fictional British slang that merges Russian slang and English to create the vocabulary of the street urchins. The book refers to men as "malchicks", girls as "devotchkas" and "ptitsas", Teeth as "zoobies", milk as "moloko" the face as a "litso" and so on. This language completely saturates the novel, as it is written in the first person from Alex’s point of view. In the beginning it is a little hard to understand what they are saying but the book puts the words in context well so at this point I, for the most part, know what they are saying.
Alex is very definitely the leader of the four-man group that he hangs out with. I get the age that Alex is somewhere around 15-18 because he goes to school during the day and still lives with his parents. During the night time Alex and his three friends, Pete, Georgie, and Dim, cause trouble by stealing and generally harassing the public. One of their regular hang out spots is the Korova Milk+ bar, a bar that serves milk spiked with fictional mind altering substances such as synthemesc. After drinking their milk they go on generally making trouble, stealing money from people, fighting other gangs, stealing cars, and all manner of trouble making.
I find this book extremely interesting, the protagonist is a very intriguing character, a smart teenager who has a good appreciation for the arts but is totally evil. the writing style and fictional dialect do well to help the atmosphere of the book, the setting almost seems post apocalyptic but there was no apocalypse, more off a dystopia than anything. This book is very cleverly written, it is almost reminiscent of jack the ripper's letters, a very smart person narrating his raping and pillaging. The writing style during the action pieces of the book is also interesting, he never lets up on the language of the book causing the scene to seem almost dreamy, as if Alex were watching his fight in slow motion and commenting on it. Overall I enjoy the book a good bit