6. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

'"It’s a book," I said. "It’s a book what you are writing... I have always had the strongest admiration for them as can write books." Then I looked at the top sheet, and there was the name – A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.' Thus Burgess’s anti-hero Alex mocks a writer whose home he has broken into, before beating him up and raping and killing his wife. Burgess claimed the title derived from ‘an old Cockney expression used to describe anything queer’, and it seems likely that such an expression was current around the time of the Second World War, and not just in London. Burgess uses the phrase to symbolize a creature ‘capable of sweetness’ but which has been made into an automaton, deprived, as Alex is, of free will. One further influence on the title was pointed out by Burgess: in Malaysia, where he had lived, the word for a human being is – orang.

See a clickable index of all titles covered