{"id":1745,"date":"2012-10-19T09:27:49","date_gmt":"2012-10-19T08:27:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1370"},"modified":"2016-02-05T19:47:04","modified_gmt":"2016-02-05T18:47:04","slug":"fifty-years-of-a-clockwork-orange-reviewed-by-elizabeth-stancombe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1745","title":{"rendered":"Fifty Years of A Clockwork Orange<\/em>, reviewed by Elizabeth Stancombe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cFifty Years of A Clockwork Orange\u201d \u2013 Reviewed by Elizabeth Stancombe <\/span><\/p>\n

This year Anthony Burgess\u2019s self-dismissed novel \u201cA Clockwork Orange\u201d celebrated its fiftieth birthday with a special edition and a host of events in Manchester, his birth town. On the 18th<\/sup> of October\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cFifty Years of A Clockwork Orange\u201d was held part of the Manchester Literature Festival. Yet, unlike the Anthony Burgess inspired beer A Chocolate Orange by Brentwood Brewing Company available at the event, it failed to do what it said on the tin. Hosted in \u201cThe International Anthony Burgess Foundation,\u201d at the Chorlton Mill, Manchester and surrounded by Burgess\u2019s belongings, it felt that the title of the talk implied a celebration of the novel’s legacy. What was presented felt more like \u201cThe Context of A Clockwork Orange\u201d, a history lecture rather than a celebration of the novel. None the less it was insightful and captivating.<\/span><\/p>\n

After the formalities of the introductions by Andrew Biswell, the foundation\u2019s director, Dominic Sandbrook, acclaimed historian and hailed \u201cmasterly magpie,\u201d took to the stage and performed like the perfect historian. With \u201cA Clockwork Orange\u201d as his core thesis, he came armed with an impressive array of evidence to paint a detailed picture of the novel and the film’s context in the 1960s and 1970s, conveying with academic precision \u201cBurgess Britain.\u201d Yet, at times it felt the novel was merely a medium for his historic agenda. I believe it was Sandbrook\u2019s figures, dates and quotes, from a wide historical scope, that got more audience responses than the novel itself. There was more of a buzz about the room upon the revealing that Golden Wonder\u2019s first flavour of Crisp, in the 1960s, was cheese and onion, than there was in response to his discussion of the moral media backlash to Burgess stylized hooligans or Nadsettes\u2019 linguistic brilliance. <\/span><\/p>\n

Sandbrook spoke with confidence and inspired a few laughs here and there, a testament to his charisma. However, after starting strong with Burgess and his book at the foreground, the social-political historian pushed it to the background opting for a historical insight rather than a literary one. Though saying this, it was done well. Sandbrook gave the key elements of the book: the velvet, the alluring, the violent, the sickening a vivid and visceral context\u2013 enigmatically capturing the post-war atmosphere, the rise of youth and the ultra-violence, which inspired both novel and film. Not only did he highlight this with Burgess\u2019s own words and anecdotes but with a variety of different cultural responses to \u201cA Clockwork Orange\u201d from politicians to his teenage self. Perhaps, above all the true mastery of his talk was his ability to strike a balance between film and novel. He even bravely conceded, cautiously aware of his setting that without the film Burgess and the novel would have been lost in time. It quickly was ruled as blasphemous and rebuked by Biswell who reminded the audience of Burgress’s other work.<\/span><\/p>\n

When the Q&A session began it felt like an academic showdown between Sandbrook and Biswell as the two men journeyed the terrain of obscure knowledge. Though interesting, I found it meandering. I cared little about Burgess\u2019s dislike for the Beatles or a poor comedic reference to the irony that Jimmy Savile despised the novel. It was only when it was opened to the floor that the audience flexed their literary muscles and brought the subject, and the attention, back to the book itself. <\/span><\/p>\n

My review of the events may be seen as rather negative but I would like to reiterate that it is spawned from disappointment rather than contempt for what was a marvellous talk. I expected that I was in for an evening of celebrations of \u201cA Clockwork Orange\u201d and was met with a history lecture. It felt less like \u201cfifty\u201d years of \u201cA Clockwork Orange\u201d and more like \u201cten\u201d years. Though at times he discussed the timelessness of Burgess\u2019 themes, which are as old as humanity, and at the end made an attempt to draw the book into the twenty-first century questioning that though we may not be in bowler hats are we living in Burgess Britain? Yet, the majority of the talk firmly remained resident in the sixties and seventies. With the originality of vision in Burgess\u2019s and Kubrik\u2019s creation, I felt that a sensory element was missing. Some visuals of the Clockwork cult would have resonated more effectively along with the speech. However, I came away with a contextual picture and understanding of the world created for the droogs to roam. I feel the beer was more of a celebration of \u201cA Clockwork Orange\u201d fiftieth anniversary than the event. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cFifty Years of A Clockwork Orange\u201d \u2013 Reviewed by Elizabeth Stancombe This year Anthony Burgess\u2019s self-dismissed novel \u201cA Clockwork Orange\u201d celebrated its fiftieth birthday with a special edition and a host of events in Manchester, his birth town. On the 18th of October\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cFifty Years of A Clockwork Orange\u201d was held part of the Manchester […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[16,283],"tags":[32,171],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nFifty Years of A Clockwork Orange, reviewed by Elizabeth Stancombe - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1745\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fifty Years of A Clockwork Orange, reviewed by Elizabeth Stancombe - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cFifty Years of A Clockwork Orange\u201d \u2013 Reviewed by Elizabeth Stancombe This year Anthony Burgess\u2019s self-dismissed novel \u201cA Clockwork Orange\u201d celebrated its fiftieth birthday with a special edition and a host of events in Manchester, his birth town. 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