A Clockwork Orange

[Analogue Alfie]

"Being the adventures of a young man whose principle interests are rape, ultra-violence and Beethoven."

Stanley Kubrick's infamous cult classic adaptation of the Anthony Burgess novel, which was banned in the UK for decades. The actual copy I'm reviewing was purchased before the ban was lifted from a US Airforce base and is the US and Canadian release in it's original packaging. Quite a prize for a collector.

The film tells the tale of a young man, Alex (played by Malcolm McDowell) in a future world of decaying cities, gangs of punks and strange forms of criminal rehabilitation.

The Droogs are Alex's gang, a motley crew of amphetamine fuelled punks all dressed in a white uniform with black hat and cane. They spend their freetime drinking speed laced milk at the Korova Milk Bar, preparing for a bit of ultra-violence and some of the old "in-out, in-out".

One night the gang embark on a series of violent attacks, rapes and murders but the luckless Alex is eventually caught and imprisoned. Once in prison Alex agrees to an experimental new form of rehabilitation treatment, which turns the tables on him to catastrophic effect.

Is this rehabilitation, justice or revenge?

*To get your hands on your own copy of A Clockwork Orange, answer this simple question:

Who wrote the novel 'A Clockwork Orange'?

Just PM me your answers and a winner will be chosen at random from all correct answers, good luck O my brothers.*

*Congratulations this week go to 'playme' who answered correctly last weeks question and has won a copy of The Lost Boys.*

[Zombie Mastermind]

One of my faves.

[anancientrace]

The music is amazing apart from that Lighthouse keeper rubbish (That song most probably begat the Lighthouse Family - It could be lifted - lifted )

[Mr Morningstarr*]

I always thougt the lyrics were you could be fisted - fisted

[Gemo52]

It was shown on TV quite recently and I loved it.

[Ck]

I didn't like it. The rape scene was horrible and they talked stupidly.

[Alpha]

i couldn't get into it. it was just weird.

[Fire Legion]

I recently watched it, and loved it. The violence, rape etc. isn't the main point of the story, they're just an added bonus to the sinister but philosophical messages Burgess is trying to explain.

[Ck]

They still talk stupidly. They even brought out a book so you can learn to speak like them. Sort of thing first year uni students go in for.

[Fire Legion]

Wiki says:

Nadsat is a constructed slang dialect of English with many Russian influences invented by the linguist, novelist, and composer Anthony Burgess. Nadsat is a mode of speech used by various teen subcultures in the novel A Clockwork Orange. The anti-hero and narrator of the book, Alex, uses it, in first-person style, to relate the story to the reader. He also uses it to communicate with other characters in the novel, such as his droogs, parents, victims, and any authority-figures he comes into contact with.

It is not a written language: the sense that we have of the novel is of a transcription of vernacular speech, rather than an implementation of a published, bona-fide dialect.

Nadsat is basically English, with some transliterated words from Russian. It also contains influences from roosterney rhyming slang and the King James Bible, some words of unclear origin, and some that Burgess invented. The word 'nadsat' itself is the suffix of Russian numerals from 11 to 19 (-надцать). The suffix slurs the Russian words for 'on ten' — i.e., 'one-on-ten,' 'two-on-ten,' and so on — and thus forms an almost exact linguistic parallel to the English '-teen.'

Nadsat is in fact not so much a language as a register or argot. The words are inflected after English patterns regardless from what language they may have originated. Alex is capable of speaking standard English when he wants to; Nadsat is really a lexicon of 'extra' words which Alex uses to describe the world as he sees, and experiences it:

droog
friend (друг drug)
bog
God (бог)
britva
razor (бритва)
cancer
cigarette (slang)
chelloveck
person, man (человек chelovek)
cutter
money (most likely from Romani slang)
horrorshow
good, well (хорошо khorosho, "good")
nozh
knife/dagger (нож)
starry ptitsa
old woman (старый stariy, "old"; птица ptitsa, "bird" as in English slang)
in-out in-out
sex, especially rape (invented)
devotchka
young woman (девочка, "little girl")
gulliver
head (голова golova (but pronounced galavá), "head")
rot
mouth (рот, rot (trilled r))
tolchok
to hit, beat up (толчок, "a push/shove")
viddied
viewed, looked upon (видеть vidyet´, "to see")
ochies
glasses (очки, ochki)
moloko
milk (молоко)

Nadsat words are all concrete or semi-abstract: to discuss philosophy Alex would probably have to shift into a more standardised form of English. The fact that a teen language has no abstract words is perhaps Burgess' reflection on the shallowness of the juvenile delinquent's thought processes.

At least one translation of Burgess' book into Russian solved the problem of how to illustrate the Nadsat words - by using transliterated, slang English words in places where Burgess used Russian ones.

A comprehensive lexicon lists the terms used in the book with their origins.