Anthony Burgess Stanley Kubrick and A Clockwork Orange Matthew Melia Full Chapter
Anthony Burgess Stanley Kubrick and A Clockwork Orange Matthew Melia Full Chapter
Anthony Burgess Stanley Kubrick and A Clockwork Orange Matthew Melia Full Chapter
Anthony Burgess,
Stanley Kubrick
and A Clockwork
Orange
Edited by
Matthew Melia
Georgina Orgill
Palgrave Studies in Adaptation and Visual Culture
Series Editors
Julie Grossman, Le Moyne College, Syracuse, NY, USA
R. Barton Palmer, Atlanta, GA, USA
This series addresses how adaptation functions as a principal mode of text
production in visual culture. What makes the series distinctive is its focus
on visual culture as both targets and sources for adaptations, and a vision
to include media forms beyond film and television such as videogames,
mobile applications, interactive fiction and film, print and nonprint media,
and the avant-garde. As such, the series will contribute to an expan-
sive understanding of adaptation as a central, but only one, form of a
larger phenomenon within visual culture. Adaptations are texts that are
not singular but complexly multiple, connecting them to other pervasive
plural forms: sequels, series, genres, trilogies, authorial oeuvres, appro-
priations, remakes, reboots, cycles and franchises. This series especially
welcomes studies that, in some form, treat the connection between adap-
tation and these other forms of multiplicity. We also welcome proposals
that focus on aspects of theory that are relevant to the importance of
adaptation as connected to various forms of visual culture.
Matthew Melia · Georgina Orgill
Editors
Anthony Burgess,
Stanley Kubrick
and A Clockwork
Orange
Editors
Matthew Melia Georgina Orgill
Arts, Culture and Communication University Archives and Special
Kingston University Collections Centre
Kingston-Upon-Thames, UK University of the Arts London
London, UK
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2023
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been
made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional affiliations.
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Acknowledgements
The editors of this book would like to thank the following for their
support: the staff of the University of Arts London: London College
of Communication, Special Collections and Archives, Stanley Kubrick
Archive especially manager Sarah Mahurter; the staff of the International
Anthony Burgess Archive especially director Professor Andrew Biswell and
archivist Anna Edwards; Professor Julian Rodriguez at Kingston Univer-
sity; the Higher Educational Funding Council for England (HEFKE)
whose funding allowed the conference out of which this book emerges to
take place; Mr. Jan Harlan; James Fenwick for being a sounding board;
and our families Jamie, Nikki and Charlotte for the time given to put
this book together. We would especially like to thank all those who have
contributed to the book for the timeliness, cooperation and especially
their chapter contributions!
v
Contents
Introduction 1
Matthew Melia and Georgina Orgill
vii
viii CONTENTS
Afterword 319
Index 323
Notes on Contributors
xi
xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
xvii
xviii LIST OF FIGURES
1 This Book
At the time of writing, it is nearly sixty years since the publication of
Anthony Burgess’s novel A Clockwork Orange (1962), and it is fifty years
since Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation was released in the US (1971). By
the time of publication and by the time you read this, it will be 50 years
since the film’s release in the UK in 1972, hence this is a landmark period.
Burgess’s book stands as a key moment of change in the landscape of
post-war English literature. It’s the dystopian tale of young Alex (played
memorably by Malcolm McDowell in the film adaptation), an intelligent
teenage thug and leader of a gang of “Droogs” who spend their evenings
M. Melia (B)
Department of Humanities; Department of Journalism, Publishing and Media,
Kingston School of Art School of Creative and Cultural Industries, Kingston
University, Kingston-Upon-Thames, UK
e-mail: m.melia@kingston.ac.uk
G. Orgill
University Archives and Special Collections Centre, University of the Arts
London, London, UK
e-mail: g.orgill@arts.ac.uk
Its impact on literary, musical, and visual culture has been extensive. The
novel is concerned with the conflict between the individual and the state,
the punishment of young criminals and the possibility or otherwise of
redemption. The linguistic originality of the book and the moral questions
it raises are as relevant now as they everywhere.1
2 A Clockwork Symposium:
A Clockwork Orange---New Perspectives
In November 2018, more than 50 academics, scholars and practitioners
from across a variety of disciplines (film and filmmaking, literature, fine
art and design, etc.) gathered for a major international conference, A
Clockwork Symposium: A Clockwork Orange—New Perspectives, at Univer-
sity of the Arts London (UAL), home of the Stanley Kubrick Archive.
This was the third time such a gathering had occurred. In 2017, the
International Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester held a similar
event marking Burgess’s centenary which engaged more broadly with the
author’s canon of work. Earlier, in 2012, the Burgess foundation hosted
the event Fifty Years of A Clockwork Orange dedicated to the novel’s
half century. The 2018 event was the second major international event to
deal specifically with A Clockwork Orange and the relationship between
Burgess and Kubrick, film, and novel. Several of the chapters included
in this collection are developed from papers given at this conference.
However, this book should not be classed as ‘conference proceedings’;
the writing within has been evolved and developed and is augmented
with a variety of chapters which were not presented at the event. The
book does, however, also offer a few “firsts” including a study by leading
Burgess scholar, author and director of the International Anthony Burgess
Foundation, Andrew Biswell. At the 2018 conference, Biswell discussed
4 M. MELIA AND G. ORGILL
In 1971 Stanley Kubrick made a film of this book. The title, admittedly
a fascinating one, made two appearances in Evening news headlines last
week: “Clockwork Oranges and Ticking Bombs” and “Clockwork Orange
gang killed my wife”. The second was an alleged statement of my own,
which I here and now refute. My first wife was indeed assaulted in blacked
out London by a group of American deserters, and it is conceivable that
the shock and injury she suffered led to her death 24 years later. The subtle
implication of the headline seems to be that by inventing certain characters
6 M. MELIA AND G. ORGILL
and a certain book title, I in a sense willed her injury and death and those
of victims assaulted as she was. In other words, the artist has a sort of
mystical responsibility for those events of the real world which he merely
transcribes in his art.6
In the years after 1959, the events which he referred to as his "medical
death-sentence" and "terminal year" became part of the performance that
he could be relied on to deploy for the benefit of interviewers - but the
details of what he said on these subjects are far from consistent. The
disappearing tumour was simply absorbed into Burgess’s extensive series
of half-reliable anecdotes, and the process of its fictionalization would bear
comparison with the wildly conflicting accounts that he gave of his family
history.8
of 2001’s opening hominid fight in the fight between the Droogs and
Billy Boy’s gang (on a floor which resembles a lunar landscape).9
A Clockwork Orange stands out in both the Burgess and Kubrick
canons for a variety of reasons. It is somewhat atypical of Burgess’s
writing. In over 30 novels, he only wrote two other outwardly dystopian
novels, The Wanting Seed (1962) and 1985 (1978) of which half is an
extended rumination on George Orwell’s 1984 and the other is a short
dystopian novella. If one buys the Burgess misdiagnosis story, one might
argue even that both novel and film were made as stopgaps in their author
and director’s body of work. Burgess would later say he wrote the novel
for the money, as well as calling it a “Christian sermon” (an example of
his habit of contradicting himself). Of all Kubrick’s films, it’s the one that
took him the least time to film (made in a year) and the only one not to
use the studio to film in.
Peter Kramer writes in detail about the events leading to its produc-
tion, reminding us that on 3rd February 1970, the New York Times had
reported that Kubrick would begin shooting in London in the summer
of that year and was “writing the screenplay himself” and that this film
was a “stop-gap measure caused by the delay of a much weightier film
project: Once A Clockwork Orange is completed, Mr Kubrick plans to
return to Napoleon, an epic scale treatment on which he had been working
since July 1968”.10 Kramer contends that rather than being a “stop-
gap” project, A Clockwork Orange was a project that had run parallel
to Napoleon and had been in the back of his mind since Terry Southern
had given him a version of the script during the filming of 2001: A Space
Odyssey. If it were not for the horde of pre-production research mate-
rial in the Stanley Kubrick Archive which services the finest detail in the
film, it would be tempting also to consider Kubrick’s film also as some-
thing of a stopgap, an in-between project, a film he had initially passed on
making in the 1960s and which he only returned to post 2001: A Space
Odyssey, and after the failure of his Napoleon project. Kubrick produced
the film in about a year from start to finish. The wealth of detailed pre-
production material at the Stanley Kubrick Archive dates from 1970 the
phenomenal rate at which both pre-productions, shooting and postpro-
duction was carried out—between 1970 and 1971. Reviewing the detail
and minutiae of the production, location, costume and design research
material at the Stanley Kubrick archive, the breadth of this achievement,
of getting the film together in such a small time, becomes clear—but it
8 M. MELIA AND G. ORGILL
The hero of both the book and the film is a young thug called Alex. I
gave him that name because of its international character (you could not
have a British or Russian boy called Chuck or Butch), and also because
of its ironic connotations. Alex is a comic reduction of Alexander the
Great, slashing his way through the world and conquering it. But he is
changed into the conquered—impotent, wordless. He was a law (a lex)
unto himself; he becomes a creature without a lex or lexicon. The hidden
INTRODUCTION 9
puns, of course, have nothing to do with the real meaning of the name
Alexander, which is “defender of men.”12
Under the headline ‘Clockwork Orange, London Perennial, now in its third
year’ an article in the American trade press reported in January 1974 that
the film was still playing in the capital, having generated ‘phenomenal box
office revenues during its extraordinarily long run’ (Daily Variety, 1974)14
He also notes that by 1974, it had played out, but its after-effects rico-
cheted across the British Press with reports of copycat violence, “about
young criminals, the BBFC and censorship, about the state of cinema, and
indeed about the state of the nation”. 15 Warner Brothers had planned a
re-release in 1976, but this was scotched by Kubrick himself. As Kramer
indicates, there was no archival evidence as to why this was, it was widely
assumed that:
In the wake of the controversy surrounding the film in the UK, in partic-
ular accusations that it – and thus its maker – was responsible for a series
of copycat crimes, Kubrick and his family received death threats and that
Kubrick had therefore ‘banned’ the film in this country.16
The film, like the novel before it, had gathered several very favourable
reviews as well as some that were less than favourable (it famously drew
the ire in the press of Christian conservative media campaigner Mary
Whitehouse). However (as Filippo Ulivieri covers in his chapter), one of
the reasons for Burgess’s turning against the film was that his novel from
10 years earlier was drawn into the slipstream of the film’s controversy.
The film drew a range of positive critical reviews, especially from Evening
Standard film critic Alexander Walker, a staunch defender of Kubrick’s
who the director had courted and invited onto the set of 2001: A Space
Odyssey, and A Clockwork Orange. Walker would later write an open letter
to the director in the press in support of the film, begging him to re-
release it and praising its urgency and contemporaneity.17 Walker also
wrote in support of Kubrick and begging him and his fellow American
directors not to leave the country (with their money) on account of the
then Labour government’s proposal to withdraw their tax exemptions.18
The film dominated public conversation. Peter Kramer has noted,
“I would be surprised to find any other film in recent decades which
managed to become as central to public discourse as A Clockwork Orange
did in the UK in 1972 and 1973”. Kramer notes that the increase in
press articles during this time were linked to an already existing growing
anxiety over youth violence and new youth subcultures, with these already
INTRODUCTION 11
present anxieties and growing conservative concerns over the film and its
effect on impressionable youth feeding into each other. Among the head-
lines praising the film where others which condemned it, implicating it
as a cause of copycat crimes.19 The Kubrick archive holds a wide variety
of press cuttings relating to the polarised reaction to the film. The more
reactionary and antagonistic reviews emerged from the more conserva-
tive provinces areas of North Wales20 or Doncaster for instance.21 In one
notable article, Mrs Cripps writes in the Evening News “The Last Film I
saw was Love Story: It couldn’t have been more different than this one”.
Given the tabloid media concerns surrounding the film, we must argue
that A Clockwork Orange not only pre-dates but also anticipates the
“Video Nasties” scare of the early 1980s—with media campaigner Mary
Whitehouse a catalyst in the fervour surrounding both. Kramer writes,
“That concerns about the negative impact A Clockwork Orange might
have on its audience gained prominence in the UK had a lot to do with
the perception that the film held up a mirror to British society”.22 In the
UK, it was released uncut with an “X” rating, however in the US Kubrick
conceded to minor cuts for an “R” release, leading to criticisms of him
compromising his vision. After Kubrick’s withdrawal of the film in the
UK, it would not see an official re-release until 2000, the year after his
death when it played again in cinemas with an “18” certificate. That is not
to say, of course, that it did not enjoy the occasional, secretive midnight
screening—especially at the Scala cinema, in London, which helped to
ensure its cult identity.
On its initial release however, the film did find a large audience among
young people on both sides of the Atlantic. The Stanley Kubrick Archive
contains an abundance of fan letters from the US regarding the film,23
as we well as press cuttings kept by Kubrick detailing its effect on youth
style and the emergence of Clockwork Orange Clubs—evidence of the way
the film became almost immediately part of the fabric of youth culture.24
The cultural legacy of both film and novel is explored later in this book
by Sean Redmond as he discusses its impact on the created personas of
singer David Bowie.
When the novel was released in 1962, Time Magazine wrote of it:
Anthony Burgess has written what looks like a nasty shocker but is really
that rare thing in English letters-a philosophical novel. The point may be
overlooked because the teenage monster, tells all about things in Nadsat,
a weird argot that seems to be all his own. Nadsat is neither gibberish nor
12 M. MELIA AND G. ORGILL
a Joycean exercise. It serves to put Alex where he belongs, half in and half
out of the human race25
I acclaim Anthony Burgess’s new novel as the curiosity of the day […] Mr
Burgess has written a fine farrago of outrageousness one which incidentally
suggest a view of juvenile violence I have never met before: that its greatest
appeal is that it’s a big laugh in which what we ordinarily think of sadism
plays little part […] There’s a science fiction interest here too, to do with
a machine that makes you good.26
In the second part of his biography, You’ve Had Your Time, Burgess
notes that in fact “No British reviewer liked it, but the producers of
the BBC television programme Tonight were interested enough to invite
me to be interviewed by Dennis Hart. They did more. The dramatized
much of the first chapter of my book very effectively and made more
of the language than the theme”.28 In response to the Times Literary
Supplement review which had criticised the use of “Nadsat” in the novel,
Burgess reflected somewhat hubristically (and pioneering the modern
art of the humblebrag), “I was considered an accomplished writer who
had set out deliberately to murder the language. It was comforting to
remember that the same thing had been said about Joyce”.29
and the omissions and changes that ensued. Again, issues of authorship
as well as language and adaptation are central here, and the authors take
a forensically scientific and linguistic approach in their investigation.
In ““Language, Language”: The Social Politics of ‘Goloss’ in Time
for a Tiger and A Clockwork Orange” Julian Preece, focusing predomi-
nantly on Burgess’s text, contextualises the novel and its modes of speech
against the earlier Malayan Trilogy. Preece connects the “language poli-
tics” of A Clockwork Orange to these three novels and more broadly to
Burgess’s knowledge and understanding of other languages. He sets out
to discuss how Alex’s uses of Nadsat are dictated by, and establish, a set
of power relations. Suggesting that the novel belongs to the picaresque
tradition, Preece argues that Alex adjusts his modes of speech and voice,
his “goloss” in order to place himself in a position of power and control.
He notes how Kubrick’s film gives Alex a Lancashire accent and, again
through voice, intonation and speech patterns, emphasises the story’s
class-based British setting, thus in some instances undermining the novel’s
“reactionary agenda”.
such writers as Freeman Dyson and Francis Fukuyama, Hothi asks what
we can learn in the twenty-first century from A Clockwork Orange as a
“cautionary tale in a moment of crisis”.
In Chapter 13, “A Clockwork Orange and its Representations of Sexual
Violence as Torture: Stanley Kubrick and Francis Bacon”, Karen Ritzen-
hoff, like Dijana Metlić, takes an art historical as well as a feminist
approach, considering the presence of the scream in the film. She not only
draws parallels with the twentieth-century British artist Francis Bacon but
considers the prescient contemporary issue of violence against women
and how we might view the film against the context of the #MeToo
movement. The chapter focuses on the Catlady sequence and considers
the representation of sexual violence, the use of artwork within the film
and the representation of the ageing and violated female body. The
chapter considers the strategies Kubrick uses to adapt the treatment of
sexual violence in Burgess’s novel, considering such representations from
a contemporary twenty-first-century perspective.
novel and film across the work of singer, musician and actor David Bowie.
Few musical artists can claim to have been as influenced by A Clockwork
Orange as Bowie (by both film and novel which finds a place along with
Earthly Powers in his posthumously published list of top 100 books).
Redmond offers a detailed discussion of Bowie’s extensive (inter) textual
referencing and quotation (in lyrics, style and performance) of A Clock-
work Orange between 1972’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the
Spiders from Mars and his final album, Blackstar, released days prior to
his death in 2016. Drawing upon a wide range of media interviews, song
lyrics, music videos, commentaries and performances, Redmond considers
the importance of A Clockwork Orange to the construction and composi-
tion of the many Bowie personas and suggest that “A Clockwork Orange
provides Bowie with the fashion and behaviour codes to be a rebel poseur,
resistant to heteronormativity”.
5.7 Afterword
Finally, renowned and leading Kubrick scholar Nathan Abrams, author
of Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual; co-author of Eyes Wide
Shut: Stanley Kubrick and the Making of his Final Film and co-editor of
The Bloomsbury Companion to Stanley Kubrick, has contributed a reflec-
tive afterword to conclude the book. He draws together the strands of
inquiry and contemplates how Kubrick adapted Burgess’s novel as a film
musical. Abrams locates the film within the lineage of studio film musicals,
adopting the visual language of the form.
Notes
1. International Anthony Burgess Foundation Website, https://www.anthon
yburgess.org/a-clockwork-orange/, Last viewed: 30/08/2021.
2. Kramer, P. (2011) Controversies: A Clockwork Orange, London: Palgrave
MacMillan, 102.
3. Clarke, J. (2017) The Aesthetics of Anthony Burgess: Fire of Words, London:
Palgrave MacMillan.
4. Fenwick, J. (2021) Stanley Kubrick Produces, New Jersey: Rutgers Univer-
sity Press.
5. Biswell, A. (2006) The Real Life of Anthony Burgess, London: Palgrave
MacMillan, 226.
20 M. MELIA AND G. ORGILL
Filippo Ulivieri
1 Introduction
A Clockwork Orange is the ninth novel by Anthony Burgess. Upon its
publication in 1962, it didn’t enjoy particular success: it sold poorly and
met with mixed reviews in England, though it was received better in the
United States.1 Things would change dramatically in 1970, when Kubrick
selected it as the basis for the follow-up to his grand opus 2001: A Space
Odyssey. When the news reached Burgess, he took it with a mixture of
indifference, because other film-makers had tried (and failed) to bring
the book to the screen; mild satisfaction, because Kubrick was a better
choice than Ken Russell, whom Burgess detested; and mild dissatisfaction,
because he knew he wouldn’t get any money from the affair—he had sold
the rights a few years earlier for a few hundred dollars and, when they
changed hands to Warner Bros., his share was not considered.2
The writer left for Australia, where he was expected for a lecture tour
that would eventually take him to New Zealand. There, he was told
F. Ulivieri (B)
Independent, Plymouth, UK
e-mail: filippo.ulivieri@gmail.com
that Kubrick had been sending him urgent cables to arrange a meeting
in London over some scriptwriting issue. Burgess embarked on his trip
back home, flying to Fiji, Hawaii, San Francisco, New York, and London,
where he dutifully appeared at Kubrick’s restaurant of choice. Kubrick,
however, did not turn up.3 He phoned Burgess a few days later—not to
apologise, but to ask him about the lyrics of a song that is used in the
book. Being the complete opposite of Kubrick in his relationship with
the media, Burgess vented his anger to a reporter and said the director
was “a terrible man. Just shocking.”4
Whatever the reason for the failed rendezvous, when the two finally
met for a preview screening of the film a year later, Burgess discov-
ered that Kubrick was in fact quite cordial. At the director’s home for
an ensuing dinner invitation, they discussed literature, music, and the
possibility of collaborating on a new project: a film about Napoleon
Bonaparte.5
The film of A Clockwork Orange was set to open in the United States
in December 1971. Since Kubrick had no desire to travel, Warner Bros.
asked Burgess to join Malcolm McDowell for a promotional round of
interviews on both coasts. Burgess, who enjoyed attention and exposure
very much, gladly accepted.
I had fears about anyone filming the novel. I didn’t want it transformed
so radically that I became ‘known’ by the film rather than the book […]
But I needn’t have worried. Kubrick has hit the whole theological tone
exactly – very rare to find theology in a film – and kept 75 per cent of
Nadsat.10
Naturally, some journalists asked him about the violence in the film.
“The point of the film is not the violence,” Burgess retorted, “the
DANGEROUS ARTS: THE CLASH BETWEEN ANTHONY BURGESS … 27
violence is secondary. The point is that man must have the power to
choose or he ceases to be a man.”11 “The book is a kind of religious
sermon,”12 he explained, and Kubrick’s film worked on the same level.
“It is the best adaptation of a book we’ve ever had,”13 Burgess concluded,
deeming Kubrick “a truly European director, more in the mould of
Antonioni or Truffaut than any of his fellow Americans.”14
The promotional activities kept Burgess busy for almost two months,
and he had a great time in the spotlight, delighting audiences as the
consummate raconteur that he was. Besides, by no means among those
artists who think their works should speak for themselves, Burgess happily
clarified the allegoric nature of his novel and engaged in philosoph-
ical discussions about good and evil, free will, morality, religion, and
contemporary society. The best example is given by a one-hour long
round table on A Clockwork Orange which Burgess attended, together
with McDowell, Robert Hughes, an art critic of Time magazine, Nat
Hentoff, a Village Voice columnist, and Norman Kagan, author of a
Kubrick monograph. Burgess explained to them:
Meant to appeal to the ratiocinative part of us. It’s meant to make shine-
out in big letters a very simplistic and obvious moral maxim, and to
associate this with strong emotions aroused by particular incidents, I think,
28 F. ULIVIERI
would have been out of place. I’m delighted, and I think that it is a
mark of great genius on Kubrick’s part, that he managed to achieve a film
which dealt with large moral issues without involving the viewer. […] The
whole point of art is to achieve an image which shall inspire a purely static
emotion. I think that art is diminished when one becomes moved to such
an extent that one wants to do something about it, [when] you’re inspired
to a kind-of kinetic emotion which makes you want to act in the real world.
You should begin and end in the aesthetic world. And Kubrick’s film strikes
me as the nearest approach we’ve yet had in the world of cinema […] to
a purely static work of art. This is quite an astonishing achievement.17
It was precisely in this sense that he was convinced that “the film
version is preferable to the book,” which Burgess didn’t particularly like,
he admitted, because he felt it was:
Too didactic, it thrusts home the lesson too hard, [while] it is the aim
of the artist to be as amoral… as static… as unmoved, as it were, as
possible. […] I’m glad in a sense that Kubrick has made the film,” Burgess
concluded, “because I needn’t worry about the book anymore.18
Anything but.
Upon his return home, Burgess found an unwelcoming climate. The
United Kingdom was in a period of extreme social tensions, with the
I.R.A. bombing campaign on the mainland Britain and the Miners’ strikes
causing severe power cuts. There were concerns of violent youth subcul-
tures and alleged crime waves were being reported in the media. Visual
culture was under attack, too: in 1971, Ken Russell’s The Devils and Sam
Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs had shocked audiences and challenged the British
Board of Film Censors (BBFC) with their depictions of sex, violence, and
alleged blasphemy (in the case of The Devils ).19 With the U.K. release
date of A Clockwork Orange approaching, incendiary articles began to
appear in the press, particularly in tabloids which ran special issues on the
“rising violence in Britain.” One piece in The Sun for example was rhetor-
ically directed towards the same audience they believed to have been the
target of Kubrick’s “obscene parable.”
That is – to the skinhead heroes of ultra violence; those kids with steel
toecaps who are denied a hero. If you are young, regularly put the boot in
and run with rape gangs, this film is your meat. […] the acting is so true
that it will convince you that you can do your own thing. Psychologists
DANGEROUS ARTS: THE CLASH BETWEEN ANTHONY BURGESS … 29
disagree. Films, they say, cannot influence people and have no effect on the
moral fibre. Oh yeah! They can tell that to Dr. Goebbels’s old propaganda
machine – can’t they, kids?20
If you write a book, if you make a film […] you are merely copying what
is already there. […] if I see violence in the world around me […] then
it was my job in writing this particular kind of book […] and Kubrick, in
making the film, has done the same thing in his terms that I did in my
terms.26
The public debate was so heated that even Kubrick, who usually never
replied to anything written about his films, felt the need to speak up. He
said:
Kubrick added,
Burgess expressed a more elaborate view in a lengthy piece for the Los
Angeles Times. “What my, and Kubrick’s, parable tries to state,” he wrote,
“is that it is preferable to have a world of violence undertaken in full
awareness—violence chosen as an act of will—than a world conditioned
to be good or harmless.” As proof, he offered an origin story for his
novel: “my own wife was the subject of vicious and mindless violence
in blacked-out London in 1942, when she was robbed and beaten by
three GI deserters.”29 She was carrying a child at the time, and miscarried
as a result of the attack; she fell ill shortly thereafter, and Burgess was
convinced that the incident contributed to her eventual death.30 “Books
stem out of some great personal agony,” he revealed, and A Clockwork
Orange was “an attempt to exorcize” such feelings.31 He stated:
What hurts me, as also Kubrick, is the allegation made by some viewers
and readers of A Clockwork Orange that there is a gratuitous indulgence
in violence […] the depiction of violence was intended as both an act of
catharsis and an act of charity […] if we are going to love mankind, we
will have to love Alex as a not unrepresentative member of it.32
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
At the close of this unusual strain, the figure sat down on the grass,
and proceeded to bind up her long and disordered tresses, gazing
along the old and unfrequented road.
“Now God be my helper,” said the traveller, who happened to be
the Laird of Johnstonebank, “can this be a trick of the fiend, or can it
be bonnie Phemie Irving, who chants this dolorous song? Something
sad has befallen, that makes her seek her seat in this eerie nook amid
the darkness and tempest: through might from abune, I will go on
and see.”
And the horse, feeling something of the owner’s reviving spirit in
the application of the spur-steel, bore him at once to the foot of the
tree. The poor delirious maiden uttered a piercing yell of joy as she
beheld him, and, with the swiftness of a creature winged, linked her
arms round the rider’s waist, and shrieked till the woods rang.
“Oh, I have ye now, Elphin, I have ye now!” and she strained him
to her bosom with a convulsive grasp.
“What ails ye, my bonnie lass?” said the Laird of Johnstonebank,
his fears of the supernatural vanishing when he beheld her sad and
bewildered look.
She raised her eyes at the sound, and, seeing a strange face, her
arms slipped their hold, and she dropped with a groan on the
ground.
The morning had now fairly broken: the flocks shook the rain from
their sides, the shepherds hastened to inspect their charges, and a
thin blue smoke began to stream from the cottages of the valley into
the brightening air. The laird carried Phemie Irving in his arms, till
he observed two shepherds ascending from one of the loops of
Corriewater, bearing the lifeless body of her brother. They had found
him whirling round and round in one of the numerous eddies, and
his hands, clutched and filled with wool, showed that he had lost his
life in attempting to save the flock of his sister.
A plaid was laid over the body, which, along with the unhappy
maiden in a half lifeless state, was carried into a cottage, and laid in
that apartment distinguished among the peasantry by the name of
“the chamber.” While the peasant’s wife was left to take care of
Phemie, old man, and matron, and maid had collected around the
drowned youth, and each began to relate the circumstances of his
death, when the door suddenly opened, and his sister, advancing to
the corpse with a look of delirious serenity, broke out into a wild
laugh, and said,—
“O, it is wonderful, it’s truly wonderful! that bare and death-cold
body, dragged from the darkest pool of Corrie, with its hands filled
with fine wool, wears the perfect similitude of my own Elphin! I’ll tell
ye—the spiritual dwellers of the earth, the fairyfolk of our evening
tale, have stolen the living body, and fashioned this cold and
inanimate clod to mislead your pursuit. In common eyes, this seems
all that Elphin Irving would be, had he sunk in Corriewater; but so it
seems not to me. Ye have sought the living soul, and ye have found
only its garment. But oh, if ye had beheld him, as I beheld him to-
night, riding among the elfin troop, the fairest of them all; had you
clasped him in your arms, and wrestled for him with spirits and
terrible shapes from the other world, till your heart quailed and your
flesh was subdued, then would ye yield no credit to the semblance
which this cold and apparent flesh bears to my brother. But hearken
—on Hallowe’en, when the spiritual people are let loose on earth for
a season, I will take my stand in the burial-ground of Corrie; and
when my Elphin and his unchristened troop come past with the
sound of all their minstrelsy, I will leap on him and win him, or
perish for ever.”
All gazed aghast on the delirious maiden, and many of her auditors
gave more credence to her distempered speech than to the visible
evidence before them. As she turned to depart, she looked round,
and suddenly sunk upon the body, with tears streaming from her
eyes, and sobbed out, “My brother! oh, my brother!” She was carried
out insensible, and again recovered; but relapsed into her ordinary
delirium, in which she continued till the Hallow-eve after her
brother’s burial.
She was found seated in the ancient burial-ground, her back
against a broken grave-stone, her locks white with frost-rime,
watching with intensity of look the road to the kirk-yard; but the
spirit which gave life to the fairest form of all the maids of Annandale
was fled for ever.
Such is the singular story which the peasants know by the name of
Elphin Irving, the Fairies’ Cupbearer; and the title, in its fullest and
most supernatural sense, still obtains credence among the
industrious and virtuous dames of the romantic vale of Corrie.
CHOOSING A MINISTER.
By John Galt.
During the winter of 18—, there was a great scarcity of grain in the
western districts of Scotland. The expediency of the corn laws was
then hotly discussed, but the keen hunger of wives and children went
further to embitter the spirits of the lower orders. The abstract
question was grasped at as a vent for ill-humour, or despairingly, as a
last chance for preservation. As usual, exaggerated reports were
caught up and circulated by the hungry operatives, of immense
prices demanded by grain-merchants and farmers, and of great
stores of grain garnered up for exportation. As a natural consequence
of all these circumstances, serious disturbances took place in more
than one burgh.
The town of ——, in which I then resided, had hitherto been
spared, but a riot was, in the temper of the poor, daily to be expected.
Numbers of special constables were sworn in. The commander of the
military party then in the barracks was warned to hold himself in
readiness. Such members of the county yeomanry corps as resided in
or near the town were requested to lend their aid, if need should be.
I was sitting comfortably by my fireside, one dark, cold evening,
conversing with a friend over a tumbler of toddy, when we were both
summoned to officiate in our capacity of constables. The poor fellows
who fell at Waterloo sprang from their hard, curtainless beds with
less reluctance. We lingered rather longer than decency allowed of,
buttoning our greatcoats and adjusting our comforters. At last,
casting a piteous look at the fire, which was just beginning to burn up
gloriously, we pressed our hats deeper over our eyes, grasped our
batons, and sallied forth.
The mischief had begun in the mills at the town-head, and as the
parties employed in the mob went to work with less reluctance than
we had done, the premises were fairly gutted, and the plunderers,
(or, more properly speaking, devastators) on their way to another
scene of action, before a sufficient posse of our body could be
mustered. We encountered the horde coming down the main street.
The advanced guard consisted of an immense swarm of little ragged
boys, running scatteredly with stones in their hands and bonnets.
These were flanked and followed by a number of dirty, draggle-tailed
drabs, most of them with children in their arms. Upon them followed
a dense mass of men of all ages, many of them in the garb of sailors,
for the tars had learned that the soldiery were likely to be employed
against the people, and there is a standing feud between the “salt-
waters” and the “lobsters.” There was also a vague and ill-regulated
sympathy for the suffering they saw around them, working at the
bottom. All this array we half saw, half conjectured, by the dim light
of the dirty street lamps. The body was silent, but for the incessant
pattering of their feet as they moved along.
The word was given to clear the street, and we advanced with right
ill-will upon them. The first ranks gave back, but there arose
immediately a universal and deafening hooting, groaning, yelling,
and whistling. The shrill and angry voices of women were heard
above all, mingled with the wailing of their terrified babes. “We
maun hae meat;” “Fell the gentle boutchers;” “Belay there! spank
him with your pole;” resounded on every side, in the screaming tones
of women, and the deep voices of sailors, garnished and enforced
with oaths too dreadful to mention. Nor was this all: a shower of
stones came whizzing past our ears from the boy-tirailleurs
mentioned above, levelling some of our companions, jingling among
the windows, and extinguishing the lamps. Some of the boldest of the
men next attempted to wrest the batons from the constables who
stood near them. In this they were assisted by the women, who
crushed into our ranks, and prevented us giving our cudgels free
play. The stones continued to fly in all directions, hitting the rioters
as often as the preservers of the peace. The parties tugged and pulled
at each other most stubbornly, while the screams of pain and anger,
the yell of triumph, and hoarse execrations, waxed momentarily
louder and more terrific.
At last the constables were driven back, with the loss of all their
batons and most of their best men. The mob rushed onward with a
triumphant hurrah, and turned down a side street leading to a
granary, in which they believed a great quantity of grain was stored
up. The proprietor’s house stood beside it. A volley of stones was
discharged against the latter, which shattered every window in the
house, and the missiles were followed by a thunder-growl of
maledictions, which made the hair of the innocent inmates stand on
their heads, and their hearts die within them. The crowd stood
irresolute for a moment. A tall athletic sailor advanced to the door of
the granary. “Have you never a marlin-spike to bouse open the
hatchway here?” A crowbar was handed to him. “A glim! a glim!”
cried voices from different parts of the crowd. It was now for the first
time discovered that some of the party had provided themselves with
torches, for after a few minutes’ fumbling a light was struck, and
immediately the pitch brands cast a lurid light over the scene. The
state of the corn merchant’s family must now have been dreadful.
The multitude stood hushed as death, or as the coming
thunderstorm. All this time the sailor of whom I have spoken had
been prising away with his bar at the granary door.
At this moment a heavy-measured tread was heard indistinctly in
the distance. It drew nearer, and became more distinct. Some
respectable burghers, who had assembled, and stood aloof gazing on
the scene, now edged closer to the crowd, and addressed the nearest
women in a low voice: “Yon’s the sodgers.” The hint was taken, for,
one by one, the women gathered their infants closer in their arms,
and dropped off. First one and then another pale-faced,
consumptive-looking weaver followed their example in silence. The
trampling now sounded close at hand, and its measured note was
awful in the hush of the dark night. The panic now spread to the
boys, who flew asunder on all sides—like a parcel of carrion flies
when disturbed by a passenger—squalling, “Yon’s the sodgers!” So
effectual was the dispersion that ensued, that when the soldiers
defiled into the wider space before the granary, no one remained
except the door-breaker, and one or two of the torch-holders.
The latter threw down their brands and scampered. The lights
were snatched up before they were extinguished, by some of the
boldest constables. Of all the rioters only one remained—the tall
sailor, who may be termed their ringleader. The foremost rank of the
soldiers was nearly up to him, and others were defiling from behind
to intercept him should he attempt to reach the side streets. He stood
still, watchful as a wild beast when surrounded by hunters, but with
an easy roll of his body, and a good-humoured smile upon his face.
“Yield, Robert Jones,” cried the provost, who feared he might
meditate a desperate and unavailing resistance. But instead of
answering, Robert sprung upon a soldier who was forming into line
at his right side, struck up the man’s musket, twisted off the bayonet,
and making it shine through the air in the torchlight like a rocket,
tripped up his heels. “Not yet, lobster!” he exclaimed, as the bayonet
of the fallen hero’s left-hand man glanced innocuously past him, so
saying, the sailor rapidly disappeared down a dark lane.—Edinburgh
Literary Journal.
THE FLITTING.
Chapter I.
In May, quhen men yied everichone
With Robene Hoid and Littil John,
To bring in bowis and birken bobynis,
Now all sic game is fastlings gone,
Bot gif if be amangs clowin Robbynis.—A. Scott.