Book Seventy Four 2014:

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

I’m of a sufficient vintage that I first saw Stanley Kubrick’s movie of the book when it was still banned in Ireland (on a pirated VHS with Dutch subtitles, now that you ask) but I’ve never made it to Anthony Burgess original book until now.

What kept me?

It’s a towering masterpiece of SF (unlike so many reviews I read, I tend to never use the “M” word). A tricky, slippery cavalcade of partly made up language with bastardised Russian telling the compelling story of 15-year-old Alex and his droogs, and asking the grand existential question of whether it’s better to have a human with free will you can’t control (and all of the uncertainty that entails), or one with none who is little more than a drone but behaves himself.

From the absolute top drawer of SF and a piece of genius.