A Clockwork Orange's 'Nadsat' Slang Is Exhausting

As our first book club draws closer to its conclusion, I discuss the Russified English slang that makes Anthony Burgess's novel so difficult to read.

“It is not the novelist’s job to preach; it is his duty to show. I have shown enough, though the curtain of an invented lingo gets in the way—another aspect of my cowardice. Nadsat, a Russified version of English, was meant to muffle the raw response we expect from pornography. It turns the book into a linguistic adventure. People preferred the film bec…