Receiving spiritual enlightenment from A Clockwork Orange sounds about as bizarre as the time I told my new Elders Quorum President my favorite movie was Pulp Fiction... The TV-edit (no idea why I said that, it's Lawrence of Arabia). I like to believe I read it at the right time in my life. Otherwise, it would have been another weird reading assignment.
I was 16 and realizing how big and confusing the world was. People's interactions with religion fascinated me, and Alex DeLarge's certainly were fascinating. Underneath the dearth of violence and cruelty Alex gave and received there was still an interaction with God more complex than merely good and evil. And, in the final chapter, he realizes that his morals may change with age and experience.
Though I wouldn't call A Clockwork Orange a Sunday read, the book helped me understand that eternal truths can pierce the darkest of trenches, and stir up spiritual notions in all things. I perceived God's influence to be even more powerful, and I began to denote the existence of a supreme creator in all things, whether it's The New Testament or Tupac's "A Rose That Grew From Concrete". I became part of a larger conversation, and it benefited the one I was creating with God.
 |
| Me contemplating life circa Junior year of high school |
I've never watched A Clockwork Orange by the way, but it's probably a TV-edit choice as well.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI really love how you talked about finding God in ways that are not traditional and what we would usually think of. Its really is one of my favorite things about literature, that its a means of connecting anything to deeper meaning and values.-Siera
ReplyDeleteBuckets, I think it's interesting, as we talked about in class, the way that you use allusion to have a conversation with your reader. I truly felt like you were talking to me as someone familiar with English literature, but not necessarily the Church, and I connected with this a lot!
ReplyDeleteI think that it takes a certain skill learn to derive meaning from the dystopian style, satirical writing of "Clockwork Orange," let alone derive eternal truths from it. I enjoyed learning how you delved into the underlying motifs of good and evil and were able to find god in novels such as these where so many people may never tie the two together. It makes me think about the question of - do we find meaning in works of literature because that is what we are looking for? Or are these themes there hidden for anyone to find, in this case even those that may not have a religious background? In any event I'd never thought about these novels in this perspective before!
ReplyDelete