h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It should be noted that 'Nadsat' comes from the Russian suffix for numbers 11 - 19. It's a teenage slang and those are (more or less) teenage years.

It's probably also worth noting, lest anybody be put off, that Burgess included a glossary of Nadsat in the back of the book (at least in the UK edition) so you don't have to guess what it all means.

All I can remember is that the word for good was 'horrorshow'.

B****r it - my copies don't have glossaries. That's not fair.

Then just hop onto Google and search for the obsessively complete, amazingly useful 'Nadsat Dictionary' - it even handles the etymology of the slang, the words of which are drawn from such varied languages as Russian, Gypsy and Arabic, among many others.

I found that on reading the book, you didn't need to think about what the words might mean, as you had adapted it into your own vocabularly. I found myself unconsciously using Nadsat once or twice for a couple of days after finishing the book. I wondered if that was anything to do with the 'natural' roots of Nadsat, or if this would have happened with words that were absolute inventions...

Just a thought (hey, one a day's not bad)

DG

I found that after about 5 pages the words just got absorbed. They're used so often you can guess their meaning anyway, then it becomes fixed. I use it too, as do my friends, when we're in a bizarre mood- I think this has little to do with where the words originate but is mainly because it's a complete vocabulary.

I've not even read the book yet but from seeing the film alone I've already started calling my friends "droogs."

...But maybe thats just me.

Horrorshow article by the way.

The first time I read the book, I got about 1/3 of the way through it when I suddenly realised how violent the book was. I think that this was perhaps done on purpose. The Nasdat starts to make sense after you see the words in different contexts.

Yes, and it also makes the violence less noticeable/shocking since it's portrayed as normal. But then I didn't think the book was all that shocking- disturbing, but due to the issues involved rather than the level of violence. And I find the film uproariously funny.

I'm weird, though.

I was not impressed by the film at all - I found it incredibly dated, and usually I like Kubrick (Full Metal Jacket and The Shining are ace)

I'm not sure if it was because I finished the book so soon before seeing the film...

DG

When the film was re-released recently, there was much tutting in the dailies about how dated the violence was, and why the film was no longer shocking because society is in tatters and no one cares anymore etc. ad nauseum. I don't think we're any more used to violence, but I've never been bothered by something that I know isn't real. The film looks dated to me only because of the decor. The book is more disturbing because you supply your own visuals, but I find this is the case with any story.

I think that the thing is that Stanley K often made films that were 'borderline unmakeable'.

By this I mean that the films are not always as successful as they deserve to be considering the genius of the man. Clockwork Orange is a good film, but it harmed the careers of both Burgess and Kubrick as they were both tarred with the brushes of a philistine press too blinkered to understand what the film and the book is about.

With regard to Nadsat, one of the tasks of the language seems to have been to veil the shocking violence, and therefore allow the more important issues to be explored (free will, intelligence and violence not being mutually exclusive, a love of the 'higher arts' not being a block to the violent instinct). The film throws away that filter by putting the violence up on screen. The other thing that they do in the film is to make the violence balletic and comical (the masks, and singing 'Singing in the Rain').

In my opinion one of the reasons that the book and film got such a bad press is to do with the messages about being a violent teenager. The story effectively says that things like education and national service are not the way to squash the violent instinct, and that in effect it has to be allowed to run its course. The flog em and hang em brigade were never going to like that message!

One last point, it should be remembered that Burgess wrote the book after an attack on himself and his first wife that very closely mirrors the attack at `home' in the book. But still he seems to be intent on arguing that free will is more important than punishment.

...which is a really intelligent view to take.
I really hated that discussions of the film on its re-release were turned into excuses to bemoan the 'breakdown of society' and the loss of 'traditional values', respect for authority, etc.

We all must remember that, in the majority of cases, the movie is not better than the book. A sad fact of life, I know, but, because there's a different interpretation for each person who reads it, you can't make a movie that everyone who loved the book will enjoy.