A Clockwork Orange

I have finally finished Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman and started on A Clockwork Orange which really is like taking a jovial jaunt in a meadow and then running into a cliff. Compared to Murakami’s economical, simple use of language, Burgess’s writing sometimes feels obscure and impenetrable. All this is intentional, of course. A Clockwork Orange is written from the point of view of the protagonist/narrator Alex and his unique lexicon or Nadsat, as Burgess calls it, consists of various words derived from Russian. So droog means friend, litso means face, horrorshow means good, viddy means to see, devotchka refers to a woman and so on. A typical sentence would thus read:

“From inside this malenky cottage I could slooshy the clack clack clacky clack clack clackity clackclack of some veck typing away, and then the typing stopped and there was this chelloveck’s goloss calling: ‘What is it, dear?’”

And then there’s the sheer insanity of the violence. Rape and pillage just for the fun of it is quite unbearable and every time Alex’s gang encounters a would-be victim, my stomach tightens ever so slightly. Yet, despite this, and also despite the fact that I know the plot and the ending and the ultimate message, I still can’t stop turning the pages. Alex’s speak may be incomprehensible at first but there comes a point when it abruptly becomes almost second nature and all of a sudden you find yourself in his world, thinking in his terms; in other words, you become a brother, as he likes to call the reader.

Few books have gotten me so involved and this one is really something special. Alex’s indifference to the “ultra-violence” he inflicts on others leaves one both maddened and sympathetic. But beyond the emotional aspect, Burgess leaves little literary jewels scattered here and there. I simply cannot forget this line from Alex as he takes in a violin concerto, of all things, in his room:

“Oh, bliss, bliss and heaven. I lay all nagoy to the ceiling, my gulliver on my rookers on the pillow, glazzies closed, rot open in bliss, slooshying the sluice of lovely sounds. Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh.”

Of course, as he gets ever more entranced by the beauty of the music, the images that fill his mind get ever more violent. And therein lies the contradiction.

And that’s where I’ve stopped. More later. Maybe.