It's not a dialect, it's an artistic choice by the author to create a language landscape to reflect what he thinks the future might sound like, or rather, read like. He is blending slang and grammar from at least cockney English and Russian, with probably a slathering of whatever other interesting linguistic tidbits he might find in other languages. And just wholesale making up words. Try re-reading it as you might look at a piece of modern art, where you just kinda slide over any word that you don't know or just assume it means something suggested by context. Like singing a song you only know a few of the words to, but love the melody and sing along with gusto. He's not following rules of grammar, he's conducting an orchestra of noun and verbs.
jonfaw t1_iu06kzr wrote
Reply to Is A Clockwork Orange difficult to read for Americans due to the dialect of English? by chinawcswing
It's not a dialect, it's an artistic choice by the author to create a language landscape to reflect what he thinks the future might sound like, or rather, read like. He is blending slang and grammar from at least cockney English and Russian, with probably a slathering of whatever other interesting linguistic tidbits he might find in other languages. And just wholesale making up words. Try re-reading it as you might look at a piece of modern art, where you just kinda slide over any word that you don't know or just assume it means something suggested by context. Like singing a song you only know a few of the words to, but love the melody and sing along with gusto. He's not following rules of grammar, he's conducting an orchestra of noun and verbs.