Ok…this has been bothering for quite some time. Why does Anthony Burgess use that russian-like slang in the book? Is it to add to the cryptic atmosphere…or is there something more to it?..i gots to know the dope on this!
the slang is called nadsat.
from the foreward to the 1996 penguin version:
“…in a novel which takes brainwashing as its subject, he intended his own form of brainwashing, which was to force readers to use a Russian dictionary. Though reading the novel requires some puzzle-solving, the meaning of a nadsat word is often clear from the context…
…Burgess chose his 200 or so words of nadsat because they work in English, whether as poetry, or humour (what could be more comical than policemen being millicents?), or plausible slang. Being a devotee of Finnegan’s Wake, he believed the more layers of ambiguity, the better.”
-Blake Morrison
and do you think you’d enjoy the book as much without it?
Guess it didn’t have the same effect on me…for i already knew russian…curse this Slavic heritage!
i imagine the fact that you knew russian would allow you to enjoy nadsat in a completely different way.
i figured out the words from their context, but that didn’t allow me to see the reason or the humour behind the choice of that word. you would get to.
My favourite is definitely horrorshow.
(Russian khorosho, ‘good’).
Bowie must have dug Burgess too. In “Suffragette City” he sang: “Droogie don’t crash here.”
There’s a big ol’ list of the slang words, their meanings, and their origins here.
also from the introduction:
“The old American edition of A Clockwork Orange carried a glossary of nadsat words. Burgess did not approve of this.”
“Nadsat” is Russian for “-teen” - it was used only by teens in the book.
Burgess never explained why he did it, but it sounded cool.
“I’m singing in the rain (thwap), just singing in the rain (smack) …”
He didn’t need too. It’s all explained in the story. I wish I had a copy of the book handy so I could give you quotes, but I guess I’ll have to do this from memory.
The book is set in a future where the cold war is in overdrive. Late in the book someone asks the doctor why the kids use nadsat. He says, it is mostly due to subliminal (seepage, interference, or something that I can’t quite remember.) It’s right there in the story, the Russians are using something that affects the brains of the teens in the free world.
The four teens are in a way a model of the Soviet Union. Four guys, speaking Russian, with Russian names, go around stealing from the middle class and redistributing the wealth to the poor. Later the main character choose freewill and capitalism over violence and communism. Burgess really went out on a limb making this statement. Hooray for free will, a daring choice for the theme of a book.
Read the book some time ago. Interesting concept, but I remember it as four teens being more interested in rape and violence rather than aquiring stuff, much less redistribution of goods.
The moral aspect appeared to be in the justification of brainwashing the one kid into being sickened by violence, and the politcal manuevering involved. Remember the house they broke into which they raped and killed the lady, and crippled her husband? The man was somehow involved in an opposition political movement that was using that brainwashed kid for their own benefit. That man’s political peers tried to supress him, but he locked the kid in a room and blasted Beethoven until the kid tried to kill himself. The kid survived, and was well again.
There is a message there. But not redistribution of wealth.
“Four guys, speaking Russian, with Russian names”
How are Alex, George and Dim russian names…alex could be on, but george…and dim…me thinks not. This book in now way took on the political ascpect of communism, it was basically written to portray the dangers and hypocracies of “brainwashing”. Ok, for the guys who read the book, what did you think of the “newly” added new chapter. I personally thought it closed out the story quite nicely without seeming to “corny”.
Dim is short for Dimitri.
When they robbed people, they were always middles class people, then they took what they stole to where the poor people hung out, and bought them drinks and snacks and whatnot. That’s redistribution of wealth.
And I think the phrase I was trying to remember earlier is “subliminal penetration”.
The book was written at the height of the cold war and contains many capitalist v. communist themes.
Oye. Mr Burgess is in fact IN his own story. The “Writer” assaulted early on? The one whose wife is raped and subsequently dies, is in fact Burgess. I read an OLD copy of it, since I bought my copy, replete with bright orange cover- around 1975.
There is indeed a glossary of words in it. I fail to see the strong Soviet/Cold War analogy, but then I was born in 1962 and therefore do not see what others may insofar as that subtext goes.
Small hijack: In Stanley Kubrick’s film of “A Clockwork Orange”, the actor who played “Julian”, the houseboy of the Writer (post assault, of course) is David Prowse. Discovered working as a doorman, he was a bodybuilder even then…and went on to be the man in the Darth Vader Suit in all three “Star Wars” films. Additionally, one cannot purchase a copy of “A Clockwork Orange” in England. Subsequent to it’s release, there were copycat crimes of violence, and Kubrick was sufficiently horrifed at his role in said crimes, that he barred it’s showing. ( His company owns domestic distribution rights to it, Warner Brothers owns the rest of the world rights as will do as it pleases in that regard ).
CartooniverseOk, i see your point Lance,as all great books there ae many interpritations, so there really isn’t a point in arguing them. So…hopefuly…my message is as “clear as unmudded lake , clear as the azure deep blue sky of a early summer day”…hehe
Anthony Burgess was (I think he is dead now) one hell of a linguist. If I recall correctly, he wrote 4(?) distinct, consistent “languages” for the movie “Quest for Fire”.
Think I’ll cruise down to the old Korova Milk Bar for a malenky bit of the spiky Moloko Plus.
It musn’t have been banned until after 1973, because that’s when I saw it in London.
BTW, here’s a link to some Clockwork Orange stuff:
Many years ago when the book was in its first release, I had the pleasure of attending a lecture on the topic of A Clockwork Orange, presented by Anthony Burgess in person, at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. This question was a central topic, and he answered it directly, and at length. And alas, since it has surely been 20 years since that lecture, I cannot remember a damn thing he said. So the best I can say is, I once knew the definitive answer to your question, but I forgot it.
Well…damn it all to hell then…