|
More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
|
A Clockwork Orange
|
|
(1962) Short novel by Anthony *Burgess in which Alex, a 15-year-old Beethoven-loving hooligan in some future totalitarian state, describes how he is brainwashed into passive respectability after a particularly violent orgy of vandalism. He speaks in 'nadsat', a cocktail of English, cockney slang and bits of Russian – cunningly devised so that the reader soon gets the hang of it. After abjectly demonstrating his new docility, he is left alone to enjoy the Ninth of his beloved 'Ludvig van'. The scherzo soon has him dreaming of 'carving the whole litso of the creeching world with my cut-throat britva' – suggesting the double-edged hope that brainwashing can never be absolute. The book was filmed in 1971 by Stanley Kubrick with Malcolm McDowell as Alex.
|
|
|
|