Clockwork Orange- Christine Ellis

One of my favorite books is "Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess. In a slick, Russo-English slang, the character, Alex, shows exactly how dark the human soul can become. A street ruffian with no qualms about raping young girls, robbing old men, and murdering at random, Alex is the prototype of the modern sociopath. He is a younger and less discrete version of Hannibal Lecter. So what does he have to do with wilderness or the sacred? What I noticed about the book after reading it a second time, was that while Alex is a murderous and devious little snipe in the city, something even darker breaks in him when he travels outside the boundaries of London. He commits horrible crimes against a man and his young wife, infinitely more horrible than anything he had done in the realm of the city. Again, what does this have to do with wilderness?
In the wilderness, for better or worse, our true selves are revealed. Alex, a true monster, is enticed by the isolation of the cottage he happens upon at night. Though he preys on the poor country people, he is also envious of them. Years later, Alex returns, but the man at the door doesn't recognize him through Alex's disguise. The man is a writer and shows Alex his work. One of my favorite lines of the entire book is in the drafts of the writer. He says, "The attempt to impose upon man, a creature of growth and capable of sweetness, to ooze juicily at the last round the bearded lips of God, to attempt to impose, I say, laws and conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation, against this I raise my sword-pen."
The writer is saying that the attempt to control nature, to rein it in somehow, is immoral. What he does not say, but is implied throughout the book is that it is also a futile effort. The wilderness of Alex's heart is dark and unknowable, like so many places. Though many, including myself, would not consider the heart of a bloodthirsty teenager to be sacred, the line reaffirms the idea that all life is to be revered. The bitter irony is that this man would have believed Alex to be savable, capable of being rehabilitated, if Alex had not shattered his perfect world.