Freestyle

I suppose for this blog I'm going to talk about both what I'm reading, and an issue I have with this reading. As I mentioned in my previous posting, I'm currently reading A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. If you've ever read this book before, you may be able to guess what it is that I'm choosing to discuss.

I am only about a chapter and a half into this book at the moment, but from what I've deduced so far, this story is about four young friends who behave and speak (and dress) very strangely and love creating trouble. It's told in first person, from the point of view of the main character, Alex. From the first page, practically the first sentence of this book, their dialogue is almost gibberish, which the back cover described at "a brutal invented slang". It opens, page one chapter one paragraph one, with:

"What's it going to be then, eh?

That was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, Dim being very dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry."

This "invented slang" (i.e. gibberish) continues throughout the rest of the chapter, and it's not just mentioned here and there. The entire book is heavily saturated in it. Words like razrezzing, deng, devotchkas, and chelloveck are only a very small sample of the plethora of "slang" this book uses in leu of sensical dialogue.

I won't deny that I am impressed by Burgess' unique words and the way he manages to tie it in so well with the story while still having it make sense (er, sort of). My only issue is that these words have absolutely no meaning to me as a new reader seeing this all for the first time. This is both a burden and a challenge. I only consider it a burden simply because I have to stop on average once every sentence to take in a new word and attempt to use to surrounding dialogue as a clue to what this word might mean. I'm able to figure out most of the words, but not all.

I'm also struggling to read this book at a pace that I'm comfortable with. Like I said, I have to stop frequently in mid-sentence to investigate the meaning of "shoomny smeck", or something of that nature. I normally can read things very quickly, but I find that while reading this book, my pace of reading varies from quick to slow, back to quick, and slow again, and it's more of a challenge to remember what I'd already read because of this constant change of pace. I anticipate that as I read further into the book I'll grow accustomed to the strange "slang" and be able to read through at a steadier pace.

Like I mentioned before, I am only about a chapter and a half into this book, but I'm nervous, though excited, to continue reading. I've heard so many good things about not only this book, but also the accompanying movie. And hey, maybe with all this new terminology, and being forced to work my "glazzies" across these pages at such a staggered pace, I'll be a little bit smarter for having read it.