Clockwork orange words in English. Functions of "nadsat" in the novel "A Clockwork Orange"

2.4 Functions of “nadsat” in the novel “A Clockwork Orange”

The works of E. Burgess reveal the main features of playful postmodernist prose. For example, using a piece of music as a frame or structural model for creating a literary work is an obvious example of non-traditional gaming application the principle of intertextuality. The fact that E. Burgess undertook to experiment is not accidental; he repeatedly expressed his admiration for J. Joyce and G. M. Hopkins, referring to their linguistic experiments: “Both had an amazing ability to see the mystical in the banal and considered it necessary to manipulate the usual linguistic phenomena in order to amaze the reader with new knowledge" (Burgess, 1968: 21).

For E. Burgess, a language experiment is also one of the ways to find answers to existential questions. Thus, in the book “Shakespeare”, he writes that the achievements of a writer should be based on “the fundamental ability to connect words into new amazing patterns that mysteriously reflect the truth of life, which you had not even guessed before” (Burgess, 1970: 43). .

For E. Burgess, language and myth are means of giving meaning and coherence to the chaos of life, in a sense they resolve the Manichaean dichotomy: “Language has nothing to do with supreme reality. It is a means of creating ritual. And it is in ritual that opposites are reconciled” (Coale, 1981: 137).

Language reflects consciousness, and the task of the author of the text is to convey through language any, even the most insignificant changes in the consciousness of the character. The main goal of experiments with language is to introduce a fundamentally new, predominantly playful artistic dimension into the poetics of the text.

Basic artistic functions, which are implemented using the fictional slang “nadsat” will show the most important aspect of the poetics of this text, namely: whatever the specific formal linguistic tasks that the author poses and solves (often very thoughtfully and deeply), all his operations with artificially constructed vocabulary are subordinated to the most important semantic, narrative and poetological strategies. The hidden meanings present in “ZA”, the structure of the text, and the specifics of its poetics are revealed by involving the reader in a playful relationship with the linguistic shell of this text. By solving certain language puzzles and comparing combinations of game effects achieved by the author at the linguistic level, the reader moves towards understanding his artistic secrets. The novel “FOR” is deliberately structured in such a way that understanding the specifics of its linguistic shell could become a prerequisite for a full understanding of the structural organization of the text, the narrative strategy used in it, and the author’s theses encrypted in it.

The main function of “nadsat” in “ZA” is a gaming function, manifested at the levels of vocabulary, etymology and stylistics. The inclusion of such an element as artificially constructed slang in the text of the work makes it possible to involve the reader in an intellectual and linguistic game. At its first stage, the reader needs to guess from which language the root of the unfamiliar word is borrowed. Since the vast majority of nadsat words are of Russian origin, after reading a few pages this task becomes easier. “...Most Russian words are introduced in the first fifteen pages, and then they are repeated until the reader cannot help but recognize them” (Leivis, 2002: 80).

But there remains even more complex problem: guess the lexical meaning of a word. In the United States, the Russian language is far from the first place in popularity among students of foreign languages, and when reading a novel, the English-speaking reader faces quite reasonable difficulties. The task is complicated by the fact that E. Burgess deliberately does not provide footnotes and does not provide the novel with a glossary. The only clue is the bracketed translation of a few words from “nadsat” into English. These clues are kept to a minimum and occur only at the beginning of the novel. However, after reading the first pages, the reader gains the ability to navigate further text. Most of the words are already familiar to him, and the flow of new elements is no longer so rapid. However, understanding the text is complicated by the fact that E. Burgess introduces synonymous series, and each concept acquires several twin concepts:

money - polly, cutter, deng, potatoes, spuds.

women - sharps, lighters, ptitsas, cheenas, bahoochkas, devotchkas.

This approach to the word, according to R. Lewis, expresses E. Burgess’s concept of the need for self-improvement and development: “If my books are not read, it is because there are a lot of unfamiliar words in them, and people do not like to look into dictionaries when reading a novel " (Lewis, 2002: 80). When asked by the journalist what his reader seemed like to him, E. Burgess replied that he was obviously a former Catholic, a failed musician, he was short-sighted, and, moreover, partial to what he heard. This is a person who has read the same books as the writer himself and is of the same age. It is not difficult to guess that such a reader is a double of E. Burgess.

Books by E. Burgess are intended for an erudite reader with a fairly deep knowledge of linguistics. Only a “dedicated” erudite reader has the ability to adequately assess the deep layers of a given game text.

In addition to the lexico-etymological aspect of the linguistic game proposed by the novelist, the stylistic effect that can be achieved by new lexical formations is also of interest.

Based on the achievements of the school of play poetics, in particular on the publications of G. F. Rakhimkulova, who developed the concept of play style, the theory of play style is most clearly described in the book “Olacrese of Narcissus: The Prose of Vladimir Nabokov in the Mirror of the Language-Game.” It is argued here that the basis of the play style is language play. At the same time, a text whose style is predominantly playful is no less meaningful than a text where traditional stylistic parameters dominate (Rakhimkulova, 2003).

In “ZA” one can easily trace the signs of a gaming style that are highlighted by G. F. Rakhimkulova: puns and diverse gaming manipulations with words within the text; various markings and disguises of formal game problems solved by the author in the text; conscious introduction into the text of rare, archaic, little-known words that provoke a lexicographic search, polyglot foreign language inclusions; deliberately not clarified or entering into a playful relationship with each other and with the main body of text; constructing fictional languages, quoting statements in these languages, playful interaction of a text in a fictional language with its translated version; structural (motivational) use of words, allusions, etc., permeating the entire text and creating a formal “pattern” within it; inclusion of verbal riddles, linguistic puzzles and secrets in the text; the creation of a variety of occasional neologisms that participate in the play on words and perform a number of other, inherently playful functions; various kinds of phonetic games, accentuation of sound writing, alliteration, etc.; playful use of graphics, deliberate violations of spelling and punctuation; game manipulations with punctuation marks that serve mystifying purposes and make it difficult to determine the subject of the statement; rhythmic organization of the text; playful use of quotation; allusiveness; synesthesia, color associations associated with a sound, letter or word, and a number of others (Rakhimkulova, 2003: 262-264; Luxemburg, 2004: 517-519).

Many of G. F. Rakhimkulova’s observations are applicable in relation to “ZA”, but to an even greater extent they will turn out to be theoretically significant when analyzing V. Nabokov’s material, since they are linked primarily to creative practice, as a creator of game texts.

In the stylistic aspect of the linguistic game of E. Burgess, one can distinguish such functions of the “nadsat” slang as allusive and pun-forming.

The allusive function is manifested, first of all, in the polysemantic title of the novel, suggesting several interpretation options. In the article “Clockwork marmalade”, published in the Listener magazine (December 1971), E. Burgess writes: “On returning from the army in 1945, I heard an 80-year-old cockney in in a London pub said of someone that “he’s as strange as a clockwork orange.” “Weird” in the sense of “crazy,” not “homosexual.” This phrase intrigued me with its unusual combination of the demonic and the surreal. For almost 20 years I wanted to use it as a title. Over these 20 years I have heard it several more times - in the subway, in pubs, on television, but always from older cockneys, never from young people. This traditional expression was asked for as the title of a book that would combine tradition and unusual technology. The opportunity to use it as a title came when I started thinking about writing a novel about brainwashing. Stephen-Dedalus in Joyce's Ulysses perceives the world as “an orange squeezed at the poles,” and man as a microcosm. Man is like a bright, sweet and fragrant fruit growing on a tree, and any attempt to change or limit him is an attempt to turn him into a mechanical being” (Aggeler, 1979: 181). However this is not the only explanation the title of the novel given by the author himself. In an interview, he interpreted it more vaguely: "I always liked that expression 'Cockney' and thought it might have a deeper meaning than a fancy metaphor for something unusual, not necessarily sexual" (Lewis, 2002: 288). He also gave another interpretation of the name: “I lived in Malaya for seven years, and in the Malay language the word orang means a person, so, willy-nilly, in the English orange I hear something living, initially nice and cute, and I can’t think about it.” about what happens when these same orang -orang (this is how the plural is formed in Malay) in totalitarian state turn into soulless mechanisms” (ZA, 2000: 3).

However, the topic of oranges does not end there. E. Burgess writes an essay about oranges (“About Oranges.” Gourmet, Nov. 1987), where he recalls images of oranges in poetry, talks about the use of these fruits as Christmas gifts, their role in antiquity, about Orange Lodges and, finally, about oranges in cooking. In addition, in his autobiography, he recalls life in Malta, his orchard and orange marmalade, which he brewed from his own fruit: “I lived in Malta for several years. Of course, my house is still there, no one lives in it, and according to government regulations, it cannot be sold. In my orchard there were not only orange trees, but also limes, lemons, and citranges - the perfect combination of sweet and sour. What could you do with all this fruit, especially at Christmas when it comes time to harvest it? My answer was - marmalade, jars of marmalade were good and economical gifts" (Lewis, 2002: 289).

All the main artistic functions that are realized with the help of the fictional slang “nadsat” represent the most important aspect of the poetics of this text, namely: whatever the specific formal linguistic tasks that the author sets and solves (often very thoughtfully and deeply), all of his operations with artificially constructed vocabulary are subordinated to the most important semantic, narrative and poetological strategies. The hidden meanings present in “ZA”, the structure of the text, and the specifics of its poetics are revealed by involving the reader in a playful relationship with the linguistic shell of this text. By solving certain language puzzles and comparing combinations of game effects achieved by the author at the linguistic level, the reader moves towards understanding his artistic secrets. The novel “FOR” is deliberately structured in such a way that understanding the specifics of its linguistic shell could become a prerequisite for a full understanding of the structural organization of the text, the narrative strategy used in it, and the author’s theses encrypted in it.

By the way, the play with the word “orange” and its connection with the work of J. Joyce was pointed out (albeit in a slightly different version) by G. L. Andzhaparidze and E. Yu. Genieva: “Joyce’s student, sacredly calls that the word - if it perhaps - should be played, Burgess confuses the reader with the word "orange", which is actually in English language means "orange". But Burgess himself borrowed it from Joyce’s Finn Hans Wake. Where it, in turn, came from the Malay language and means “person”. So it turns out that the title (though if you guess about the writer’s game) corresponds to his intention - to show the horror of modern mechanical civilization” (Sarukhanyan, 1987: 288).

Allusion is one of the fundamentally important components of a novel. "A Clockwork Orange" is intended for an erudite reader who must grasp the author's allusions and draw parallels with other works and cultural events. There are three types of allusions that appear in the novel - cultural, literary and musical.

A special role in the novel is given to proper names, which perform an allusive function. According to the author himself, Alex was conceived as an anti-hero, a new Raskolnikov, so there must be something heroic in his name. Alexander is the “leader of the people.” On the other hand, Alex can mean "a lex (icon)", that is, "one who speaks his own language." Moreover, "lex" in Latin means "law", and the prefix "a" indicates negation, that is, "a person living outside the law" (Burgess, 1975: 95). The name of Alex also echoes the name of another character, F. Alexander, a writer, author of his own “A Clockwork Orange.” The names of Alex's friends - Georgie, Pete and Tem - evoke associations with Russian and English names.

The masks of prominent people that Alex and his friends put on during the attack are also given a satirical and allusive meaning. E. Burgess sends them on a crime spree wearing masks of Disraeli, two-time British Prime Minister and humanist writer, King Henry VIII, rock 'n' roll star Elvis Presley, and Romantic era poet P. B. Shelley.

E. Burgess names the streets and squares of the city where the novel takes place in honor of outstanding political and cultural figures in England. Marghanita Boulevard was named after the English writer and literary critic Marghanita Laski. In relation to Wilsonsway, the following interpretations are suggested - in honor of Angus Wilson, English writer, a contemporary of E. Burgess, or Sir Harold Wilson, one of the leaders of the Labor Party. However, Burgess's full name is John Anthony Burgess Wilson. Attlee Avenue was named after Clement Attlee, leader of the Labor Party and Prime Minister of England from 1945-1951. In connection with Kingsley Avenue, several interpretations are possible. Most likely, Kingsley Avenue was named after Kingsley Amis, a novelist and friend of the writer. However, do not discount other options. In this case, there may be an allusion to Kingsway (a real street in central London) and to Charles Kingsley, a priest, teacher and writer whose novels were popular in Victorian era. In addition, Kingsley was one of the first clergymen to support Charles Darwin's theory.

The treatment Alexa is undergoing is called Ludovico. The name echoes the name of Alex’s favorite composer Ludwig van Beethoven, to whose music “therapeutic” films are watched.

Musical allusions are especially important for understanding the true structure of the novel. With its strictly symmetrical structure, it resembles a piece of music (it has a sonata form - 3 parts).

The sum of three parts, 7 chapters in each, gives 21 - a symbol of a person’s coming of age, reaching maturity, and this is seen as an allusion to Shakespeare’s 7 ages. In the last chapter, Alex grows up. Having learned how his former friends have changed, he decides to change his life, realizing that the years of his youth were spent in destruction, and not in creation. Cruelty for him becomes an attribute of immaturity.

The leitmotif running through the entire novel is Beethoven’s ninth symphony and the text of Schiller’s ode “To Joy,” which sounds in parody every time the hero’s passion is embodied in cruelty and violence. The first line, apparently translated by E. Burgess (“Joy, thou glorious spark of Heaven”), performed by Alex, as a result of replacing some consonants in the words, is punningly transformed into “Boy, thou uproarious shark of heaven” (CO, 2000 : 179). This is how E. Burgess plays on his long-standing belief in the powerlessness of art. After all, Beethoven’s music, instead of awakening joy in the listener and pacifying the soul, provokes cruelty and violence in him. The novelist never agreed with the assertion that art has the power to calm the villain. On the contrary, the writer believes that it influences a person to the extent that the person himself allows it. Consequently, the state does not have the right to subject a criminal to re-education; only one person can initiate his own “rebirth” - himself.

Behind the name Felix M., as you might guess, is the German composer Felix Mendelssohn, the author of the overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream.

An equally important role in the novel is assigned to the pun-forming function. An important aspect of the “ZA” style is its focus on auditory perception. In this regard, the absence of a glossary application becomes fundamentally important. The main thing in all elements of the “nadsat” slang is the auditory effect they produce. A name whose graphic design may confuse the reader becomes transparent when spoken aloud. For example, behind the name Peebec are the initials of the English poet R. W. Shelley. An example of the satirical use of this technique is a play on the name of the consultant working with juvenile delinquents P. R. Deltoid, the graphic combination of the first letters of which gives the Czech vulgarism “prdel” (“ass”). However, unfortunately, the translator was unable to preserve the pun in the Russian version of the text: “It was the goloss of P. R. Deltoid (a real gloopy nazz, that one) what they called my Post-Corrective Adviser, an over worked veck with hundreds on his books ” (CO, 2000: 29). “I recognized the voice immediately. It was P.R. Deltoid (from musorov, and a durak at that), he was appointed my “re-education mentor” - such a hackneyed kashka, who had several hundred people like me” (ZA, 2000: 43).

By the same principle, E. Burgess uses transcription English letters M ("em") and P ("pee") instead of "Ma" and "Papa": “Of those droogs I had slooshied but one thing, and that was one day when my pee and em came to visit and I was told that Georgie was dead” (CO, 2000: 58). - “I only heard about these former friends of mine here once, when Pa and Ma came to visit me and told me that Georgie was no longer there” (ZA, 2000: 71). .

An important role in translating the poetics of the novel is given to the use of vocabulary in English and Russian. So, the head is transformed into “Gulliver” (gulliver), and Burgess turns the Russian well into a “horror film” (horrors how): “We were doing very horrors how, and soon we had Billyboy"s number-one down underfoot, blinded With old Dim "s chain and crawling and howling about like an animal, but with one fair boot on the gulliver he was out and out and out" (CO, 2000: 14). - “Success clearly followed us, and soon we already took the first assistant, Billyboy in heels: blinded by the blow of Tem’s chain, he crawled and howled like an animal, but finally received a good toltchok on tykve. Silenced” (ZA, 2000: 27).

The following example shows the translation implementation of the pun horrorshow - show of horrors: “This must be a real horrors how film if you"re so keen on my seeing it." And one of the white-coat vech said, smecking:

"Horrors how is right, friend. A real show of horrors" (CO, 2000: 76). - “Wow, obaldennyje, vidait, you are going to show me films if you insist so much that I watch them.” To which one of the orderlies replied with a smile: “Obaldennyje? Well, brother, you're right. You’ll be amazed when you see it, that’s for sure!” (ZA, 2000: 85).

In the word rabbit, the writer contaminates the meanings of rab and robot: “It was my rabbit to play the starry stereo, putting on solemn music before and after and in the middle too when the hymns were sung” (CO, 2000: 58). - “My responsibility was to operate an old record player, to play solemn music before and after, as well as in the middle of the service, when hymns were supposed to be sung” (ZA, 2000: 72).

The writer correlates cinema with sinny, since it becomes the instrument of torture for Alex, and the cinema hall becomes the place of execution: “I expected this morning that I would be itting as usual to the sinny place in my pajamas and toofles and overgown” (CO, 2000: 91). - “That morning I expected that, as usual, in pajamas and slippers, they would take me to this cinema hall of theirs” (ZA, 2000: 97).

The internal structure of the Russian lonely seems to E. Burgess as a combination oddy-knocky (oddy - from English odd - strange, unusual, the second part of the word is derived from the English knock - knock, blow): “A malenky bit bezoomnv she was, you could tell that through spending her jeezny on her oddv-knocky" (CO, 2000: 45). - "Apparently, she's crazy about her zhizni in odi notshestve" (ZA, 2000: 58).

If we try to summarize some results at a conceptual level theoretical in nature, then it can be argued that the pun-forming function of the slang “nadsat” is significant primarily because it is it that gives the writer’s style the game specificity to the greatest extent. A punning game with lexical units of the fictional slang “nadsat” aims the potential reader “FOR” to perceive and search for all those game structural features that are embedded in the poetics of the work.

In this regard, it is necessary to emphasize that the following understanding of the pun declared by the school of “game poetics” is close: “Pun is a concept that combines various types of game manipulations with a word (phrase, phraseological phrase) on the scale of a sentence, paragraph, other text units or the entire text . The purpose of their use within the framework of traditional stylistics is determined primarily by the desire to create a comic or parody effect, and within the framework of a gaming style, it contributes to the organization of the text as a special logical system built according to the principles of the game” (Rakhimkulova, 2003: 137).

The fictional slang “nadsat” also performs the function of spatiotemporal localization. As in George Orwell’s novel “1984,” the author uses fictional language as an implicit means of creating the chronotope of a literary text. Fictional place names are derived from the proper names of prominent political and public figures in England (Marghanita Boulevard, Wilhonsway, Attlee Avenue, Kingsley Avenue). They create a cultural and historical background on in which the action of the novel takes place, emphasize the modernity of the events described and point to the cultural connections between England and the artistic space of the text (they can be considered an indirect indication that the action of “FOR” takes place in England after all).At the same time, it is obvious that the function is spatial -temporal localization, as a rule, appears in combination with playful, allusive, and sometimes pun-forming.Fictional toponyms not only allow the reader to mentally localize the events described, but also link what is happening in the work with the range of cultural ideas of the reader, causing him to want to correlate their semantic core with specific concepts, provoke the establishment of a playful relationship between the reader and the text. Fictional game toponymy becomes, as the experience of “ZA” shows, an essential element of the game text in which a fictional language is used.

Important role in the poetics of the novel the function of defamiliarization plays. The use of hybrid slang distances readers from the events of the book. The description of scenes of violence in the humorous tone characteristic of Alex creates the impression that everything that happens is the reality of some other world and has nothing to do with the reader. Scenes of fights and rapes are perceived without the disgust and tragedy that would be natural if the author used standard English. Instead of making us sympathize and empathize, the author focuses on the language of the story. Here, for example, is a translation of an episode from the first chapter of the novel, which describes the attack of Alex and his gang on an old man returning from the library: “You naughty old veck, you,” I said, and then we began to filly about with him. Pete held him rookers and Georgie sort of hooked his rot wide open for him and Dim yanked out his false zoobies, upper and lower. He threw these down on the pavement and then treated them to the old boot-crush, though they were hard bustards like, being made of some new horrors how plastic stuff. The old veck began to make a sort of chumbling shooms – 'wuf waf wop' - so Georgie let go of holding his goobers apart and just let him have one in the toothless rot with his ringy fist , and that made the old age start moaning a lot then, then out comes the blood, by brothers, really beautiful. So all we did then was to pull his outer platties off, stripping him down to his vest and long underpants (very starry ; Dim smecked his head off near), and then Pete kicks him lovely in his pot, and we let him go" (CO, 2000: 7). - ““You are a filthy otroddje, padla,” I said, and we began shustritt. Pete held his hands, and Georgie opened his pasta wider so that it would be easier for Temu to rip out his false jaws, upper and lower. He threw them on the pavement, and I played with the heels on them, although they were also quite strong, the bastards, made of some kind of newfangled superplastic, apparently. Kashka smacked something inarticulately - “chuk-chuk-chok”, and Georgik abandoned holding him by the gubiohi and shoved a toltchok with brass knuckles into his toothless mouth, causing Kashka to howl, and blood gushed out, damn it, beauty, and that’s all. Well, then we just undressed him, taking off everything down to his undershirt and underpants (staryh-staryh. I didn’t really get excited looking at them), then Pete gently kicked him in the belly, and we left him alone” (FOR, 2000 : 21).

In this scene, when describing the appearance of the old man, the author uses quite a lot of slangisms, mainly naming parts of the body: rot, rooker, goober, zoobics. Thanks to the use of words that are strange and unusual for the English-speaking reader, the emphasis in his perception of the scene shifts from the action being performed (an act of violence) to these new “funny” and still incomprehensible words. Another, even more brutal episode describes the attack of Alex and his droogs on the house of the writer F. Alexander: “Plunging, I could slooshy cries of agony and this writer bleeding veck that Georgie and Pete held on to nearly got loose howling bezoomny with the filthiest of words that I already knew and others he was making up" (CO, p. 20). - "Vjehav, heard a cry of pain, and this writer hrenov almost escaped, screamed like bezoomni, spewing the most terrible curses that I were known, and even inventing completely new ones on the go” (ZA, 2000: 33).

In this case, describing the rape of the writer’s wife, which occurs in front of her husband, the narrator distracts the reader’s attention from the events themselves, and not only with the help of interspersed slang. He includes digressions in the text commenting on his own linguistic observations. The achieved effect fully corresponds to the meaning that V. Shklovsky put into the concept of “estrangement”, and B. Brecht called the “alienation effect”. Defamiliarization is given a leading place in the poetics of the work in the characteristics of the protagonist. To form a certain perception of Alexa E. Burgess also uses the resources of fictional slang. At first, the reader is shocked by Alex's cruelty, and to create this effect, the author distances the young criminal from the feelings of his victims, making his narration dispassionate and indifferent.

But the protagonist cannot be the focus of exclusively negative qualities, and E. Burgess resorts to using a number of tactics to make Alex look more attractive. For example, the narrative is told in the first person, so Alex is given the opportunity to comment, explain or justify his actions, and the reader sympathizes with his suffering.

The attractiveness of the protagonist is also motivated by the fact that he is also endowed with an aesthetic sense. The word “artistic” is repeatedly used to characterize Alex; his artistry and artistic taste are expressed not only in his love of classical music, but also in his desire to look impressive even in a fight: “Pete and Georgie had good sharp nozhes, but I for my own part had a fine starry horrors how cut-throat britva which, at that time, I could flash and shine artistic” (CO, 2000: 14). - “Pete and Georgie had wonderful sharp nozhi, but I, in turn, did not part with my beloved old very, very dangerous britvoi, which I handled at that time artistically” (ZA, 2000: 26).

So, the image of Alex is deliberately ambivalent. The character may be perceived as a humanoid automaton, a product of a mechanistic society, and then his cruelty is only a consequence of boredom and a sense of worthlessness. At the same time, it is equally obvious that the text contains such a variant of interpretation in which it seems artistically superior to the level of this society. gifted personality.

The fictional slang “nadsat” also serves the function of creating a trusting atmosphere between the hero and the reader. If the reader is spoken to in the language of a “closed” group, this means that he is accepted into their circle. In addition, Alex often interrupts the description of his “exploits” with a direct address to the reader - “Oh my brothers!”:

“So, to cut all short, we arrived. O my brothers, and I led the way up to 10-8, and they panted and smecked away the way up...” (CO, 2000: 35). - “In short, we arrived, I walked up the stairs in front, they, puffing and giggling, hurried after me...” (ZA, 2000: 48).

“And there were my sheep down below, their rots open as they looked up, O brothers” (CO, 2000: 45). - And these, like sheep, stand, look from below, their mouths are already, damn it, open (ZA, 2000: 59).

“There was no trust anywhere in the world, O my brothers, the way I could see it” (CO, 2000: 68). - “You can’t trust anyone, damn it, no one in this world!” (ZA, 2000: 79) .

Such an interruption of the linear narrative with exclamations of “O brothers!” and those cases when Alex talks about himself in the third person and playfully calls himself “Handsome young Narrator” or “Your humble Narrator” can be interpreted as manifestations of a playful style, as a metaprose author’s commentary that destroys the illusion of the reality of what is happening and the integrity of the text. The mentioned exclamations are very similar in type to those that belong to the hero-narrator Humbert in Nabokov’s “Lolita”.


Conclusion

The main characteristics of literary translation are the achievement of a certain aesthetic impact and the creation of an artistic image.

Reproducing the communicative function of a work of art in translation has an artistic and aesthetic impact on the reader. Analysis of translations of literary works shows that in connection with this task, deviations from the maximum possible semantic accuracy in order to ensure the artistry of the translation. This thesis examined many aspects of the translation of prose works of fiction, but in particular the translation of untranslated puns using the example of E. Burgess’s novel A Clockwork Orange.

Burgess, wanting to enliven his novel, saturates it with slang words from the so-called “nadsat”, taken from the Russian language. At the time when Burgess was thinking about the language of the novel, he found himself in Leningrad, where he decided to create some kind of international language, which was Nadsat. The main difficulty of translating the novel into Russian is that these words look as unusual for a Russian-speaking reader as they do for an English-speaking reader. V. Boshnyak came up with the idea of ​​typing these words in Latin, thus distinguishing them from the text in Russian. For example, Alex’s altercation with the leader of an enemy gang:

“Who do I see! Wow! Is it really fat and smelly, is it really our vile and vile Billyboy, koziol and svolotsh! How are you, kal in the pot, castor oil bladder? Well, come here, I’ll tear off your beitsy, if you still have them, you drotshenyi eunuch!” (ZA 1991: 3).

Basically in the novel, the characters use ordinary Russian common words as slang - “boy”, “face”, “tea”, etc. “A Clockwork Orange” in the translation by Evgeny Sinelshchikov is presented without the nadsat transliteration, with the words replaced by slang Americanisms. Because of the same “oversat”, Stanley Kubrick bequeathed the film “A Clockwork Orange” to be shown in Russian cinemas exclusively with subtitles.

The fictional slang “nadsat” is the most important element that determines the specifics of the translation of the novel “A Clockwork Orange”. Overcoming the almost total misunderstanding that arises in the reader upon initial contact with the text becomes the most important fact in activating his perception. Making an effort on himself, the reader learns, as he moves through the text, to overcome the effect of defamiliarization achieved by the author due to the massive and structurally designed introduction of foreign language (in this case slang) fictitious language units into it, and the translator, in turn, needs to ensure the correct perception of the underlying stylistic design.

The use of various allusive inclusions contained in the occasional slang units constructed by E. Burgeess activates the reader’s perception, drawing him into a multi-component playful relationship with the given text. During the course of this game, the reader's linguistic abilities are first tested, and with their help other game mechanisms are launched. It can be argued that the fictional slang “nadsat” is the leading, key element of the game poetics of E. Burgess’s work.

The leading function of the fictional slang “eleven” becomes the gaming function; it is this that primarily ensures the prevalence of gaming poetics in the text, and therefore determines the translation methods.

At the same time, the analysis carried out in the thesis also made it possible to identify several other artistic functions of the fictional jargon introduced by the writer into the text. Among them:

Allusive function;

Pun-forming function;

spatiotemporal localization function;

Defamiliarization function;

Function of creating a trusting atmosphere;

The translation of fictitious words and expressions appearing in the novel by E. Burgess is not just a translation of a set of occasional words of foreign origin included as an alien element in the main text, but a whole system of translation techniques that ensure the recreation of the meaning inherent in the original. At the same time, the author’s creation of the illusion of the authenticity of “nadsat” can help in identifying the most acceptable method of translation. The closeness of “nadsat” to real English and American slang is manifested in the similarity of the structure of lexical-semantic fields, and in the inclusion in “nadsat” of individual lexemes of real existing slang. For E. Burgess, a language experiment becomes a way to find answers to existential questions and resolve the dualism of worldview coming from Manichaeism. In addition, the writer continues the traditions laid down by his idol J. Joyce, and strives to amaze the reader with new possibilities that open up thanks to a sophisticated language game.


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APPLICATION

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"Nadsat"

Translation \ Comments

happy polly loggy apology

Sorry

An over exaggerated form of apology.

baboochka old woman grandmother, babushka
baddiwad bad

American slang

banda band gang, banda
barry place prison

From the word Bars (lattice)

bedways to bed Go to bed.
bezoomny mad, crazy Mad, bezumny
biblio library library
bitva battle battle, bitva
blue weep, cry

English slang

God God god
boohoohoo to cry

oooooh-oooooooh-oooooh

English slang

Bolnoy sick Sick, bol"noy
big big, great Big, bol"shoy, bolshie
brat, bratty brother brother
bratchny matrimonial

Illegitimate, extramarital

Trimmed value

britva razor razor
brooko belly belly bryukho
brosay, brosat to throw throw, brosay, throw
bugatties, bugatty riches\rich rich
cal crap cal
cancer cigarette

cigarette

short for cancer stick

cantora office office, kontora
pocket pocket pocket
chai tea tea
chasha cup cup, chashka; bowl
chasso guard hourly
Cheena woman woman, zhenshchina
cheer to wash \ to clean clean, clean"
chelloveck person, man, fellow person
chepooka nonsense nonsense, nonsense
choodessny wonderful wonderful, wonderful
clop to knock clap, khlopat"
cluve beak beak
collocol bell bell
crust steal, rob, robbery steal, krast"
creech to shout, scream scream, krichat"
cutter money

from Cockney slang bread-and-butter

dama lady lady
ded, dedoochka old man grandfather, ded, grandfather, dedooshka
deng money money, den"gi
devotchka young woman girl, girl,
dobby good kind, good
dook trace, ghost spirit, dukh,
domy house house
dear dear, valuable dear, dear
dratsing fighting fight, dratsya
drencrom drug drenkrom, Adrenochrome
drog friend friend, drog
dva two two, dva
eegra game game
eemya name name
eggiweg egg

children's word

em mother ma
forella trout trout
gazetta newspaper newspaper, gazeta
glazz, glazzies eye, eyes eye
gloopy stupid stupid
goloss voice voice
goober lip lip
gooly to walk walk, gulyat"
throat throat throat
govoreet speak speak, speak"
grahzny dirty dirty, dirty
grazzy soiled dirt, gryaz"
loud loud loud
groody breast chest, grud"
gruppa group group
gulliver head head
guttiwuts guts

children's word

horrorshow good, well, excellent ok, khorosho
interessovat to interest to interest, interesovat
itty to go go, go
jammiwam jam

children's word

jeezny life life, zhizn"
kartoffel potatoes potatoes
cough cough cough
keeshkas guts gut, kishka
kleb bread bread
klootch key key, key
button button button
kopat to dig dig
korova cow cow
koshka, kot cat, tomcat Cat Cat
koshtoom suit suit, costume
bloody blood blood, krov"
kupet to buy buy, buy"
lapa paw paw
lewdies people people, lyudi
litso face face
lomtick piece, bit slice, lomtik
luna moon moon
loved caught catch, lovit"
lubbilubbing making love love, lyubit"
malchick boy boy
malenky little, tiny small
butter butter oil
nasty filthy vile
messel thought thought, mysl"
place place place
millicents police policeman, militiaman
minoota minute minute
young young young
moloko milk milk
moodge husband husband, muzh
morder snout muzzle
brain brain brain
start to begin begin, begin"
arrogant arrogant haughty
nagoy naked naked
neezhnies underpants underwear
nochy night night, noch"
nogas feet, legs leg
nozh knife knife
nuking smelling sniff, nyukhat"
oddy knocky on one's own lonely
odin one one
window window window
oobivat to kill kill, ubivat"
ookadeet to leave leave, ukhodit"
ooko ear ear, ukho
oomny brainy smart
oozhassny terrible terrible, uzhasny
oozy chain bonds
osoosh to dry drain, osushat"
otchkies eyeglasses glasses
pee father pa
peet to drink drink pit"
pishcha food food, food
platch to cry crying
platties clothes dress
pletcho shoulder shoulder
plenny prisoner captive, plenny
plesk splash splash
plott body flesh, plot"
podooshka pillow pillow
pol sex floor
polezny useful useful
pony to understand understand, ponimat"
poogly frightened timid, puglivy
pooshka gun gun, pushka
prestoopnik criminal criminal, prestupnik
pretty-polly money

American slang

privodeet to lead somewhere bring, privodit"
prod to produce products
ptitsa girl bird, ptitsa
pyahnitsa drunk drunkard
rabbit work work
joy joy joy, radost
raskazz story story
rassoodock mind reason
raz time once
razdraz annoy annoy razdrazhat"
razrez to rip, ripping cut, razrez
rookerful handful hand
rookers arms, hands hands
rot mouth mouth
rozz policeman

from Cockney "rozzer"

sabog shoe boot
sakar sugar sugar
scoteena beast, cow cattle
shaika gang gang, shayka
sharries buttocks balls
sixth barrier pole
shiyah neck neck
shlem helmet helmet
shlapa hat hat, shlyapa
shoom noise noise
shoot fool jester, shut
shvat take grab, skhvatit
skazat to say say, skazat"
skorry quick, quickly fast speed
skvat to grab grab, skhvatit
sweetkvat sweetest sweet
sweet sweet sweet
sloochat to happen happen, sluchatsya
slovo word word
smeck laugh laughter
smot to look look, look"
sneety dream dream, snitsya
sobirat to pick up collect, collect"
soomka old woman purse
sooka whore bitch, sooka
soviet advice, order advice
spat, spatchka to sleep sleep, spat"
spoogy terrified frightened
starry ancient, old old, stary
strack horror fear, strakh
Staja cell, State Jail

State prison

tally waist waist
tass cup bowl
pushchock push, hit push
toofles slippers shoes
tree three three, three
Underveshches underwear underwear
vareet to cook up cook, varit"
veck person, man person
vehina wine wine
veshch thing thing, veshch"
vibraty vibration vibrations
viddy see see, see"
vino wine wine
voloss hair hair
von smell stench
vred to harm\damage harm
yahma hole pit, yama
yahzick tongue language
yarbles, yarblockos

“A Clockwork Orange” is a cult novel by an English writer. The undying popularity and relevance of the book is associated not only with its uniqueness and the problems raised in it, but also with a huge number of quotes that live both in other works and in colloquial speech. This article features A Clockwork Orange.

Plot

The book (from which quotes will be presented below) “A Clockwork Orange” was written by Anthony Burgess in 1962. The plot tells of a dystopian world of the future, where impunity and degradation reign, and the only educated people are often scumbag hooligans who are able to combine a love of reading and classical music with terrible acts - robbery, beatings and violence.

This is exactly what it is main character, on whose behalf the story is told, is a teenage leader of a gang of hooligans, cruel and reckless. Alex is very well read and educated, he loves classical music, and especially the symphonies of Beethoven, whom he calls “good old Ludwig van.” High intelligence gives Alex a sense of superiority over other people, which allows the young man to commit crimes without remorse.

As the plot develops, Alex ends up in prison, where he is offered to take part in an experiment - with the help of special events, he develops a persistent aversion to violence, which is why he not only cannot commit bad deeds, but is not even able to defend himself when attacked. In the end, after an accident that freed the young man from “consciousness programming,” he realizes the importance of personal choice and corrects himself according to his own desire.

Quote about choice

"A Clockwork Orange" is rich in various catchphrases - some of them are comical, some are thoughtful and serious. The core of the plot is the phrase that has become the most popular quote from the work:

When a person stops making choices, he ceases to be human.

It was told to Alex by a prison pastor trying to dissuade the young man from forced correction. With his novel, Burgess tries to convey to the reader precisely this truth - choice, whatever it may be, is always better than coercion. A person unable to make a choice turns into a clockwork toy - a kind of “clockwork orange”.

Other quotes

It’s a rare pleasure these days to meet a person who reads something.

This is what Alex tells the man with the books under his arm, who became the first victim of his gang in the pages of the novel. Alas, it is a cruel irony that despite the fact that DeLarge constantly complains about the lack of intelligent and smart people, he brutally attacks one of them with beatings and humiliations.

Life there is the same as here - some people cut, while others put their belly under the knife.

This is how DeLarge answered his friend Tem, who suddenly became interested in how life works on other planets.

Another famous quote is the cry of Alex's gang, announcing that it is time to run away:

Legs, legs, legs!

And a few more various quotes from A Clockwork Orange.

If you expect the worst from a person, then he will no longer be able to bring you any disappointments.
A nightmare is, in general, also just a movie that is spinning in your head, only this is a movie that you can enter and become its character.
We did not come into this world to communicate with God.
People are (or rather pretend to be) kind because it pleases (or benefits) them. And others like to be cruel, evil, merciless. In nature, there must also certainly be predators and their victims, otherwise everything in the world will degenerate and die out.

In this bastard world, everything counts. It must be taken into account that one thing always catches and pulls another.

Quotes about Beethoven

A Clockwork Orange contains numerous references to the music of Ludwig van Beethoven - as mentioned above, he is the main character's favorite composer.

On the envelope there is also a portrait - the gloomy face of Ludwig van himself with furiously knitted eyebrows.

This is how Alex describes the cover of the long-awaited record of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. And here is his description of the “Ode to Joy” - the last movement of the Ninth Symphony.

The cellos began to speak right from under my bed, responding to the orchestra, and then a human voice, a man’s, came in, calling for joy, and then that same blissful melody flowed, in which joy sparkled with a divine spark from heaven.

Beethoven later appears to Alex in a dream, accompanying the young man on his first night in prison.

Here, like the sun, Ludwig van himself rose with the face of a thunderer, with long hair and a flowing scarf.

When, in the middle of watching films included in the compulsory correction program, Beethoven's fifth symphony began to play, Alex was forced to utter words that also became a quote from A Clockwork Orange:

It would be a sin to use Ludwig van in this way. He didn't harm anyone. Beethoven simply wrote music.

"Nadsat"

One of the main features of the novel is the teenage slang invented by Anthony Burgess, called “nadsat” - from the Russian word-formation construction “nadtsat”. That is, this language is used by those who are between eleven and nineteen. Shortly before writing the novel, Anthony Burgess traveled to Leningrad, where he was struck by the active use of Anglicisms in the speech of Soviet teenagers - those who at that time were called “punks” and “hips.” Words like “girl”, “shoes”, “haer” and other similar borrowings inspired the writer to create for his characters a reverse version of such slang, using “Russianisms”. Many Russian words (mostly with speech distortions) were contextually inscribed in the work in Latin, without any explanation.

The Russian reader was luckier than everyone else: if you read the book in Vladimir Boshnyak’s translation (and this is the version in which all quotes from this article are presented), the Russian words written in Latin, which he left unchanged in the text, sound completely understandable and very funny . Below is a list of selected Nadsat words with explanations that have become quotes from A Clockwork Orange on both sides of the pond.

  • Dratsing - [dratching] - fight.
  • Gulliver - [gulliver] - head.
  • Korova - [cow] - the name of the milk bar.
  • Baldiozh - [baldezh] - as in Russian slang - baldezh, buzz and the like.
  • Ruker - [ruker] - hand, in the plural it sounds like “ruckers”.
  • Kisy - [kisy] - girls.
  • Glazzja - [glazzja] - eyes.
  • Stari kashka or simply kashka - [stari kashka] - "old man", an elderly person.
  • Poni - [pony] - understood, in the context: “I’m all poni at once.”
  • Kritsh - [scream] - scream.

I finished re-reading it, the last time I read it was about five years ago, I ran through it in a couple of days, the immortal creation of Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange - Mechanical or Clockwork Orange.

A book that starts with a slight Canadian accent:

“What's going to be then, eh?”

and ends with the Russian word "shit"

But you, O my brothers, remember sometimes thy little Alex that was. Amen. And all that cal.

Although it exists, I looked at http://lib.ru/INPROZ/BERDZHES/apelsin.txt - and it’s true, it’s complete crap. This is an untranslatable book, in my deep conviction. In the “translation” half of the charm of this bestseller, which, by the way, was a source of misfortune for Burges, is lost, because of the more than 50 works written by him, only this story is known, rather it should even be called, rather than a novel. And even then, more than half of the success probably came from Kubrick’s film with Malcolm McDowell in the role of Alex.

Burgess wrote the book in 1962, and set it somewhere in England in 1972, and a year earlier, in 1971, the famous film was shot.

I read the British version. With a foreword by Blake Morrison. The one in which Alex becomes good guy and dreams of family and children. Burgess also wrote an American ending, the so-called chapter 21 (legal adult age in the USA), at the insistence of American publishers, which ends with the hero remaining as he was and able to rape and hooligan and listen to Beethoven. Both versions are easily found on the Internet today, of course, but I borrowed the Penguin edition from the library.

I decided to make a dictionary of Russian words used in the book.

Not myself, but chose only “Russian” words from one site, the name of which, however, I lost. Well, yes, it’s easily found through Wiki, probably.

Some words are very interesting and original - a performance of horror ( horror show) for good, lewdies- as you guessed, these are people, but with an admixture lewd- indecent, shameful or lonely, consisting of two words oddy(odd - strange) and knocky(can be traced as a knock blow)

All 192 words, if anyone finds more, you are welcome, under the cut.


I had to post too many times great post turned out to be, but then it turned out in one piece without formatting.

Word Meaning Origins

1. Baboochka Old woman grandmother/grandmother
2. Banda Band gang/band, gang
3. Bezoomy Mad crazy/mad, insane
4. Biblio Library library/librar y
5. Bitva Battle battle/battle
6. God God
7. Bolnoy Sick
8. Bolshy Big
9. Bratchny Bastard (illegitimate)
10. Bratty Brother brother
11. Britva Razor razor/razor
12. Brooko Belly belly/abdomen
13. Brosay Throw/to throw
14. Bugatty Rich rich/wealthy
15. Cal Shit cal/excrement, faeces
16. Cantora Office office/office
17. Pocket Pocket
18. Chai Tea tea/tea
19. Chasha Cup cup/cup
20. Chasso Guard hour/sentry
21. Cheena Woman
22. Cheest Wash to clean
23. Chelloveck Fellow person/person, man
24. Chepooka Nonsense nonsense/nonsense
25. Choodessny Wonderful wonderful/mirac ulous
26. Cluve Beak beak/beak
27. Collocol Bell bell/bell
28. Crast Steal
29. Creech Scream scream/scream
30. Dama Lady
31. Ded Old Man grandfather
32. Deng Money money/money
33. Devotchka Girl girl/girl
34. Dobby Good
35. Domy House house/house
36. Dook Ghost spirit/spirit,ghost
37. Dorogoy Valuable dear/expensive,d ear
38. Dratsi Fight to fight
39. Droog Friend friend
40. Dva Two two/two
41. Eegra Game game/game
42. Eemya Name name/name
43. Forella Trout trout/trout
44. Gazetta Newspaper newspaper/newspape r
45. Glazz Eye eye/eye
46. ​​Gloopy Stupid stupid/foolish, stupid
47. Goloss Voice voice
48. Goober Lip lip/lip
49. Gooly To Walk/to walk, stroll
50. Gorlo Throat throat/throat
51. Govoreet To speak or talk to speak/to speak, talk
52. Grazhny Dirty dirty/dirty
53. Grazzy Soiled dirty/dirty
54. Gromky Loud
55. Groody Breast
56. Gruppa Group group/group
57. Gulliver Head head
58. Hen-korm Chickenfeed hen-korm/hen-f eed
59. Horrorshow Good, well good/good
60. Interessovat To interest/to interest
61. Itty To go/to go
62. Jeezny Life life/life
63. Kartoffel Potatoes potatoes/potato es
64. Keeshkas Guts intestines
65. Kleb Bread bread/bread
66. Klootch Key key
67. Knopka Button button/push-button
68. Kopat To Dig (Eng. idiom) dig/to dig
69. Korova Cow cow/cow
70. Koshka Cat cat
71. Kot Tomcat cat
72. Krovvy Blood blood/blood
73. Kupet To Buy buy/to buy
74. Lapa Paw paw/paw
75. Lewdies People people
76. Litso Face face/face
77. Lomtick Slice slice/slice (of bread)
78. Loved Caught to catch
79. Lubbilubbing Making love love
80. Malchick Boy
81. Malenky Little
82. Butter Butter
83. Merzky Filthy disgusting/loathsome, vile
84. Messel Thought
85. Mesto Place mksto/place
86. Millicent Policeman police/policem an
87. Minoota Minute minute
88. Molodoy Young
89. Moloko Milk milk/milk
90. Moodge Man husband/male human being
91. Morder Snout muzzle/snout
92. Brain Brain
93. Nachinat To Begin/to begin
94. Nadmenny Arrogant
95. Nadsat Teenage eleven/ending for numbers 11-19
96. Nagoy Naked naked/naked
97. Nazz Fool backwards/literally backwards
98. Neezhnies Underpants lower/lower (adj.)
99. Nochy Night night/night
100. Noga Foot
101. Nozh Knife knife/knife
102. Nuking (scent) Smelling (of perfume) to smell, take a whiff
103. Oddy-knocky Lonesome lonely/lone some
104. Odin One one/one
105. Window Window window/window
106. Oobivat To Kill/to kill
107. Ookadeet To leave/to leave
108. Ooko Ear ear
109. Oomny Clever smart/clever
110. Oozhassny Terrible terrible/terribl e
111. Oozy Chain wriggles like a snake
112. Osoosh To Dry
113. Otchkies Eyeglasses glasses/glasses
114. Peet To Drink
115. Pishcha Food food/food
116. Platch To Cry
117. Platties Clothes dress/clothes
118. Plenny Prisoner
119. Plesk Splash splash/to splash
120. Pletcho Shoulder shoulder/shoulder
121. Plott Flesh flesh/flesh
122. Podooshka Pillow pillow/pillow
123. Pol Sex gender/sex (gender)
124. Useful Useful
125. Pony To understand/to understand
126. Poogly Scared
127. Pooshka Gun cannon/cannon
128. Prestoopnik Criminal criminal/cr iminal
129. Privodeet To lead somewhere/to lead (somewhere)
130. Ptitsa Girl bird/bird
131. Pyahnitsa Drunk drunkard
132. Rabbit Work
133. Joy Joy
134. Raskazz Story story/story
135. Rasoodock Mind sanity, co mmon sense
136. Raz Time times/occasion
137. Razdrez Upset to irritate/to irritate
138. Razrez To Rip cut/to rip
139. Rooker Hand hand/hand
140. Rot Mouth
141. Rozz Policeman face/ugly face or grimace
142. Sabog Shoe boots/a tall shoe
143. Sakar Sugar sugar/sugar
144. Sammy Generous the most
145. Scoteena "Cow" beast/colloquial: brute or beast
146. Shaika Gang gang/band (as of thieves)
147. Sharries Balls balls/eggs/marbles
148. Shest Pole pole/pole
149. Shiyah Neck neck/neck
150. Shlapa Hat
151. Shlem Helmet helmet/helmet
152. Shoom Noise noise/noise
153. Shoot Fool (v.) to joke/to fool
154. Skazat To say say/to say
155. Skorry Quick, quickly
156. Skvat To Grab/to grab, snatch
157. Sweety Sweet sweet/sweet
158. Sloochat To happen/to happen
159. Slooshy To listen, hear listen/to hear
160. Slovo Word word/word
161. Smeck Laugh (n.) laugh/a laugh
162. Smot To look/to look
163. Sneety Dream to dream
164. Sobirat To Pick Up to gather (people)
165. Soomka Woman bag/bag
166. Soviet Advice, order advice/advice, council
167. Spat, spatchka Sleep sleep/to sleep
168. Spoogy Terrified
169. Starry Old, ancient old/old
170. Strack Horror fear/fear
171. Tally Waist waist/waist
172. Tolchock To hit push/a push, shove
173. Toofles Slippers shoes/slipper
174. Tree Three three/three
175. Vareet To "cook up" cook/to cook up
176. Veck Guy person/person, man
177. Veshch Thing thing/thing
178. Viddy To see/to see
179.Voloss Hair hair/hair
180. Von Smell (n.) stench/stench
181. Vred To Harm harm/to harm
182. Yahma Hole pit/hole, pit
183. Yahzick Tongue tongue/tongue
184. Yarbles Balls, testicles apples
185. Yeckate To Drive/to go
186. Zammechat To mark notice/mark
187. Zamechatelny Remarkable wonderful
188. Zasnoot To Sleep
189. Zheena Wife wife/wife
190. Zoobies Teeth teeth/teeth
191. Zvonock Doorbell/Bellpull bell/d oorbell
192. Zvook Sound sound/sound

Functions of “nadsat” in the novel “A Clockwork Orange”

The works of E. Burgess reveal the main features of playful postmodernist prose. For example, using a piece of music as a frame or structural model for creating a literary work is an obvious example of an unconventional playful application of the principle of intertextuality. The fact that E. Burgess undertook to experiment is not accidental; he repeatedly expressed his admiration for J. Joyce and G.M. Hopkins, referring to their linguistic experiences: “Both had a tremendous ability to see the mystical in the banal and felt it necessary to manipulate familiar linguistic phenomena in order to amaze the reader with new knowledge” (Burgess, 1968: 21).

For E. Burgess, a language experiment is also one of the ways to find answers to existential questions. Thus, in the book “Shakespeare”, he writes that the achievements of a writer should be based on “the fundamental ability to connect words into new amazing patterns that mysteriously reflect the truth of life, which you had not even guessed before” (Burgess, 1970: 43). .

Language and myth for E. Burgess are means of giving meaning and coherence to the chaos of life, in a sense they resolve the Manichaean dichotomy: “Language is in no way connected with the highest reality. It is a means of creating ritual. And it is in ritual that opposites are reconciled” (Coale, 1981: 137).

Language reflects consciousness, and the task of the author of the text is to convey through language any, even the most insignificant changes in the consciousness of the character. The main goal of experiments with language is to introduce a fundamentally new, predominantly playful artistic dimension into the poetics of the text.

The main artistic functions that are realized with the help of the fictional slang “nadsat” will show the most important aspect of the poetics of this text, namely: whatever the specific formal linguistic tasks that the author sets and solves (often very thoughtfully and deeply), all his operations with artificially constructed vocabulary is subordinated to the most important semantic, narrative and poetological strategies. The hidden meanings present in “ZA”, the structure of the text, and the specifics of its poetics are revealed by involving the reader in a playful relationship with the linguistic shell of this text. By solving certain language puzzles and comparing combinations of game effects achieved by the author at the linguistic level, the reader moves towards understanding his artistic secrets. The novel “FOR” is deliberately structured in such a way that understanding the specifics of its linguistic shell could become a prerequisite for a full understanding of the structural organization of the text, the narrative strategy used in it, and the author’s theses encrypted in it.

The main function of “nadsat” in “ZA” is a gaming function, manifested at the levels of vocabulary, etymology and stylistics. The inclusion of such an element as artificially constructed slang in the text of the work makes it possible to involve the reader in an intellectual and linguistic game. At its first stage, the reader needs to guess from which language the root of the unfamiliar word is borrowed. Since the vast majority of nadsat words are of Russian origin, after reading a few pages this task becomes easier. “...Most Russian words are introduced in the first fifteen pages, and then they are repeated until the reader cannot help but recognize them” (Leivis, 2002: 80).

But an even more difficult problem remains: guessing the lexical meaning of a word. In the United States, the Russian language is far from the first place in popularity among students of foreign languages, and when reading a novel, the English-speaking reader faces quite reasonable difficulties. The task is complicated by the fact that E. Burgess deliberately does not provide footnotes and does not provide the novel with a glossary. The only clue is the bracketed translation of a few words from “nadsat” into English. These clues are kept to a minimum and occur only at the beginning of the novel. However, after reading the first pages, the reader gains the ability to navigate further text. Most of the words are already familiar to him, and the flow of new elements is no longer so rapid. However, understanding the text is complicated by the fact that E. Burgess introduces synonymous series, and each concept acquires several twin concepts:

money - polly, cutter, deng, potatoes, spuds.

women - sharps, lighters, ptitsas, cheenas, bahoochkas, devotchkas.

This approach to the word, according to R. Lewis, expresses E. Burgess’s concept of the need for self-improvement and development: “If my books are not read, it is because there are a lot of unfamiliar words in them, and people do not like to look into dictionaries when reading a novel " (Lewis, 2002: 80). When asked by the journalist what his reader seemed like to him, E. Burgess replied that he was obviously a former Catholic, a failed musician, he was short-sighted, and, moreover, partial to what he heard. This is a person who has read the same books as the writer himself and is of the same age. It is not difficult to guess that such a reader is a double of E. Burgess.

Books by E. Burgess are intended for an erudite reader with a fairly deep knowledge of linguistics. Only a “dedicated” erudite reader has the ability to adequately assess the deep layers of a given game text.

In addition to the lexico-etymological aspect of the linguistic game proposed by the novelist, the stylistic effect that can be achieved by new lexical formations is also of interest.

Based on the achievements of the school of game poetics, in particular on the publications of G.F. Rakhimkulova, who developed the concept of play style, most clearly described the theory of play style in the book “Olacrese of Narcissus: The Prose of Vladimir Nabokov in the Mirror of the Language-Game.” It is argued here that the basis of the play style is language play. At the same time, a text whose style is predominantly playful is no less meaningful than a text where traditional stylistic parameters dominate (Rakhimkulova, 2003).

In “ZA” one can easily trace the signs of the playing style that stand out to G.F. Rakhimkulova: puns and various game manipulations with words within the text, various markings and disguises of formal game problems solved by the author in the text; conscious introduction into the text of rare, archaic, little-known words that provoke a lexicographic search, polyglot foreign language inclusions; deliberately not clarified or entering into a playful relationship with each other and with the main body of text; constructing fictional languages, quoting statements in these languages, playful interaction of a text in a fictional language with its translated version; structural (motivational) use of words, allusions, etc., permeating the entire text and creating a formal “pattern” within it; inclusion of verbal riddles, linguistic puzzles and secrets in the text; the creation of a variety of occasional neologisms that participate in the play on words and perform a number of other, inherently playful functions; various kinds of phonetic games, accentuation of sound writing, alliteration, etc.; playful use of graphics, deliberate violations of spelling and punctuation; game manipulations with punctuation marks that serve mystifying purposes and make it difficult to determine the subject of the statement; rhythmic organization of the text; playful use of quotation; allusiveness; synesthesia, color associations associated with a sound, letter or word, and a number of others (Rakhimkulova, 2003: 262-264; Luxemburg, 2004: 517-519).

Many of the observations of G.F. Rakhimkulova are applicable in relation to “ZA”, but to an even greater extent they will turn out to be theoretically significant when analyzing the material of V. Nabokov, since they are linked primarily to the creative practice of the creator of game texts.

In the stylistic aspect of the linguistic game of E. Burgess, one can distinguish such functions of the “nadsat” slang as allusive and pun-forming.

The allusive function is manifested, first of all, in the polysemantic title of the novel, suggesting several interpretation options. In the article “Clockwork marmalade”, published in the Listener magazine (December 1971), E. Burgess writes: “On returning from the army in 1945, I heard an 80-year-old cockney in in a London pub said of someone that “he’s as strange as a clockwork orange.” “Weird” in the sense of “crazy,” not “homosexual.” This phrase intrigued me with its unusual combination of the demonic and the surreal. For almost 20 years I wanted to use it as a title. Over these 20 years I have heard it several more times - in the subway, in pubs, on television, but always from older cockneys, never from young people. This traditional expression was asked for as the title of a book that would combine tradition and unusual technology. The opportunity to use it as a title came when I started thinking about writing a novel about brainwashing. Stephen-Dedalus in Joyce's Ulysses perceives the world as “an orange squeezed at the poles,” and man as a microcosm. Man is like a bright, sweet and fragrant fruit growing on a tree, and any attempt to change or limit him is an attempt to turn him into a mechanical being” (Aggeler, 1979: 181). However, this is not the only explanation for the title of the novel given by the author himself. In an interview, he interpreted it more vaguely: "I always liked that expression 'Cockney' and thought it might have a deeper meaning than a fancy metaphor for something unusual, not necessarily sexual" (Lewis, 2002: 288). He also gave another interpretation of the name: “I lived in Malaya for seven years, and in the Malay language the word orang means a person, so, willy-nilly, in the English orange I hear something living, initially nice and cute, and I can’t think about it.” about what happens when these same orang - orang (this is how the plural is formed in Malay) in a totalitarian state turn into soulless mechanisms” (ZA, 2000: 3).

However, the topic of oranges does not end there. E. Burgess writes an essay about oranges (“About Oranges.” Gourmet, Nov. 1987), where he recalls images of oranges in poetry, talks about the use of these fruits as Christmas gifts, their role in antiquity, about Orange Lodges and, finally, about oranges in cooking. In addition, in his autobiography, he recalls life in Malta, his orchard and orange marmalade, which he brewed from his own fruit: “I lived in Malta for several years. Of course, my house is still there, no one lives in it, and according to government regulations, it cannot be sold. In my orchard there were not only orange trees, but also limes, lemons, and citranges - the perfect combination of sweet and sour. What could you do with all this fruit, especially at Christmas when it comes time to harvest it? My answer was - marmalade, jars of marmalade were good and economical gifts" (Lewis, 2002: 289).

All the main artistic functions that are realized with the help of the fictional slang “nadsat” represent the most important aspect of the poetics of this text, namely: whatever the specific formal linguistic tasks that the author sets and solves (often very thoughtfully and deeply), all of his operations with artificially constructed vocabulary are subordinated to the most important semantic, narrative and poetological strategies. The hidden meanings present in “ZA”, the structure of the text, and the specifics of its poetics are revealed by involving the reader in a playful relationship with the linguistic shell of this text. By solving certain language puzzles and comparing combinations of game effects achieved by the author at the linguistic level, the reader moves towards understanding his artistic secrets. The novel “FOR” is deliberately structured in such a way that understanding the specifics of its linguistic shell could become a prerequisite for a full understanding of the structural organization of the text, the narrative strategy used in it, and the author’s theses encrypted in it.

By the way, the play with the word “orange” and its connection with the work of J. Joyce was pointed out (albeit in a slightly different version) by G.L. Andzhaparidze and E.Yu. Genieva: “A disciple of Joyce, who sacredly calls that the word - if possible - should be played, Burgess confuses the reader with the word “orange”, which in fact means “orange” in English. But Burgess himself borrowed it from Joyce’s Finn Hans Wake. Where it, in turn, came from the Malay language and means “person”. So it turns out that the title (though if you guess about the writer’s game) corresponds to his intention - to show the horror of modern mechanical civilization” (Sarukhanyan, 1987: 288).

Allusion is one of the fundamentally important components of a novel. A Clockwork Orange is intended for an erudite reader who must grasp the author's allusions and draw parallels with other works and cultural events. There are three types of allusions that appear in the novel - cultural, literary and musical.

A special role in the novel is given to proper names, which perform an allusive function. According to the author himself, Alex was conceived as an anti-hero, a new Raskolnikov, so there must be something heroic in his name. Alexander is the “leader of the people.” On the other hand, Alex can mean "a lex (icon)", that is, "one who speaks his own language." Moreover, “lex” in Latin means “law”, and the prefix “a” indicates negation, that is, “a person living outside the law” (Burgess, 1975: 95). The name of Alex also echoes the name of another character, F. Alexander, a writer, author of his own “A Clockwork Orange.” The names of Alex's friends - Georgie, Pete and Tem - evoke associations with Russian and English names.

The masks of prominent people that Alex and his friends put on during the attack are also given a satirical and allusive meaning. E. Burgess sends them on a crime spree wearing masks of Disraeli, two-time British Prime Minister and humanist writer, King Henry VIII, rock and roll star Elvis Presley and Romantic era poet P.B. Shelley.

E. Burgess names the streets and squares of the city where the novel takes place in honor of outstanding political and cultural figures in England. Marghanita Boulevard was named after the English writer and literary critic Marghanita Laski. In relation to Wilsonsway, the following interpretations are suggested - in honor of Angus Wilson, an English writer, a contemporary of E. Burgess, or Sir Harold Wilson, one of the leaders of the Labor Party. However, Burgess's full name is John Anthony Burgess Wilson. Attlee Avenue was named after Clement Attlee, leader of the Labor Party and Prime Minister of England from 1945-1951. In connection with Kingsley Avenue, several interpretations are possible. Most likely, Kingsley Avenue was named after Kingsley Amis, a novelist and friend of the writer. However, do not discount other options. In this case, there may be an allusion to Kingsway (a real street in central London) and to Charles Kingsley, a priest, teacher and writer whose novels were popular in the Victorian era. In addition, Kingsley was one of the first clergymen to support Charles Darwin's theory.

The treatment Alexa is undergoing is called Ludovico. The name echoes the name of Alex’s favorite composer Ludwig van Beethoven, to whose music “therapeutic” films are watched.

Musical allusions are especially important for understanding the true structure of the novel. With its strictly symmetrical structure, it resembles a piece of music (it has a sonata form - 3 parts).

The sum of three parts, 7 chapters in each, gives 21 - a symbol of a person’s coming of age, reaching maturity, and this is seen as an allusion to Shakespeare’s 7 ages. In the last chapter, Alex grows up. Having learned how his former friends have changed, he decides to change his life, realizing that the years of his youth were spent in destruction, and not in creation. Cruelty for him becomes an attribute of immaturity.

The leitmotif running through the entire novel is Beethoven’s ninth symphony and the text of Schiller’s ode “To Joy,” which sounds in parody every time the hero’s passion is embodied in cruelty and violence. The first line, apparently translated by E. Burgess (“Joy, thou glorious spark of Heaven”), performed by Alex, as a result of replacing some consonants in the words, is punningly transformed into “Boy, thou uproarious shark of heaven” (CO, 2000 : 179). This is how E. Burgess plays on his long-standing belief in the powerlessness of art. After all, Beethoven’s music, instead of awakening joy in the listener and pacifying the soul, provokes cruelty and violence in him. The novelist never agreed with the assertion that art has the power to calm the villain. On the contrary, the writer believes that it influences a person to the extent that the person himself allows it. Consequently, the state does not have the right to subject a criminal to re-education; only one person can initiate his own “rebirth” - himself. Behind the name Felix M., as you might guess, is the German composer Felix Mendelssohn, the author of the overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream.

An equally important role in the novel is assigned to the pun-forming function. An important aspect of the “ZA” style is its focus on auditory perception. In this regard, the absence of a glossary application becomes fundamentally important. The main thing in all elements of the “nadsat” slang is the auditory effect they produce. A name whose graphic design may confuse the reader becomes transparent when spoken aloud. For example, behind the name Peebec are the initials of the English poet R.V. Shelley. An example of the satirical use of this technique is the game with the name of the consultant when working with juvenile delinquents P.R. Deltoid, the graphic combination of the first letters of which gives the Czech vulgarism “prdel” (“ass”). However, unfortunately, the translator was unable to preserve the pun in the Russian version of the text: “It was the goloss of P.R. Deltoid (a real gloopy nazz, that one) what they called my Post-Corrective Adviser, an over worked century with hundreds on his books” (CO, 2000: 29). “I recognized the voice immediately. It was P.R. Deltoid (from musorov, and, moreover, durak), he was appointed my “re-education mentor” - such a hackneyed kashka, who had several hundred people like me” (ZA, 2000: 43).

By the same principle, E. Burgess uses the transcription of the English letters M (“em”) and P (“ree”) instead of “Ma” and “Papa”: “Of those droogs I had slooshied but one thing, and that was one day when my pee and em came to visit and I was told that Georgie was dead” (CO, 2000: 58). - “I only heard about these former friends of mine here once, when Pa and Ma came to visit me and told me that Georgie was no longer there” (ZA, 2000: 71).

An important role in translating the poetics of the novel is given to the use of vocabulary in English and Russian. So, the head is transformed into “Gulliver” (gulliver), and Burgess turns the Russian well into a “horror film” (horrors how): “We were doing very horrors how, and soon we had Billyboy"s number-one down underfoot, blinded With old Dim "s chain and crawling and howling about like an animal, but with one fair boot on the gulliver he was out and out and out" (CO, 2000: 14). - “Success clearly followed us, and soon we already took the first assistant, Billyboy in heels: blinded by the blow of Tem’s chain, he crawled and howled like an animal, but finally received a good toltchok on tykve. Silenced” (ZA, 2000: 27).

The following example shows the translation implementation of the pun horrorshow - show of horrors: “This must be a real horrors how film if you"re so keen on my seeing it.” And one of the white-coat vech said, smecking:

“Horrors how is right, friend. A real show of horrors"" (CO, 2000: 76). - "Wow, obaldennyje, vidait, you are going to show me films if you insist so much that I watch them." To which one of the orderlies replied with a smile: " Obaldennyje? Well, you're right, brother. When you see it, you'll be stunned, that's for sure! " (ZA, 2000: 85).

In the word rabbit, the writer contaminates the meanings of rab and robot: “It was my rabbit to play the starry stereo, putting on solemn music before and after and in the middle too when the hymns were sung” (CO, 2000: 58). - “My responsibility was to operate an old record player, to play solemn music before and after, as well as in the middle of the service, when hymns were supposed to be sung” (ZA, 2000: 72).

The writer correlates cinema with sinny, since it becomes the instrument of torture for Alex, and the cinema hall becomes the place of execution: “I expected this morning that I would be itting as usual to the sinny place in my pajamas and toofles and overgown” (CO, 2000: 91). - “That morning I expected that, as usual, in pajamas and slippers, they would take me to this cinema hall of theirs” (ZA, 2000: 97).

The internal structure of the Russian lonely seems to E. Burgess as a combination oddy-knocky (oddy - from the English odd - strange, unusual, the second part of the word is derived from the English knock - knock, blow): “A malenky bit bezoomnv she was, you could tell that through spending her jeezny on her oddv-knocky” (CO, 2000: 45). - “Apparently, she’s gone crazy with her zhizni in odi notshestve” (ZA, 2000: 58).

If we try to summarize some theoretical results at the conceptual level, then we can argue that the pun-forming function of the slang “nadsat” is significant primarily because it is what gives the writer’s style the most playful specificity. A punning game with lexical units of the fictional slang “nadsat” aims the potential reader “FOR” to perceive and search for all those game structural features that are embedded in the poetics of the work.

In this regard, it is necessary to emphasize that the following understanding of the pun declared by the school of “game poetics” is close: “Pun is a concept that combines various types of game manipulations with a word (phrase, phraseological phrase) on the scale of a sentence, paragraph, other text units or the entire text . The purpose of their use within the framework of traditional stylistics is determined primarily by the desire to create a comic or parody effect, and within the framework of a gaming style, it contributes to the organization of the text as a special logical system built according to the principles of the game” (Rakhimkulova, 2003: 137).

The fictional slang “nadsat” also performs the function of spatiotemporal localization. As in George Orwell’s novel “1984,” the author uses fictional language as an implicit means of creating the chronotope of a literary text. Fictional place names are derived from the proper names of prominent political and public figures in England (Marghanita Boulevard, Wilhonsway, Attlee Avenue, Kingsley Avenue). They create a cultural and historical background on in which the action of the novel takes place, emphasize the modernity of the events described and point to the cultural connections between England and the artistic space of the text (they can be considered an indirect indication that the action of “FOR” takes place in England after all).At the same time, it is obvious that the function is spatial -temporal localization, as a rule, appears in combination with playful, allusive, and sometimes pun-forming.Fictional toponyms not only allow the reader to mentally localize the events described, but also link what is happening in the work with the range of cultural ideas of the reader, causing him to want to correlate their semantic core with specific concepts, provoke the establishment of a playful relationship between the reader and the text. Fictional game toponymy becomes, as the experience of “ZA” shows, an essential element of the game text in which a fictional language is used.

The function of defamiliarization plays an important role in the poetics of the novel. The use of hybrid slang distances readers from the events of the book. The description of scenes of violence in the humorous tone characteristic of Alex creates the impression that everything that happens is the reality of some other world and has nothing to do with the reader. Scenes of fights and rapes are perceived without the disgust and tragedy that would be natural if the author used standard English. Instead of making us sympathize and empathize, the author focuses on the language of the story. Here, for example, is a translation of an episode from the first chapter of the novel, which describes the attack of Alex and his gang on an old man returning from the library: “You naughty old veck, you,” I said, and then we began to filly about with him. Pete held him rookers and Georgie sort of hooked his rot wide open for him and Dim yanked out his false zoobies, upper and lower. He threw these down on the pavement and then treated them to the old boot-crush, though they were hard bustards like, being made of some new horrors how plastic stuff. The old veck began to make a sort of chumbling shooms - `wuf waf wop" - so Georgie let go of holding his goobers apart and just let him have one in the toothless rot with his ringy fist , and that made the old age start moaning a lot then, then out comes the blood, by brothers, really beautiful. So all we did then was to pull his outer platties off, stripping him down to his vest and long underpants (very starry; Dim smecked his head off near), and then Pete kicks him lovely in his pot, and we let him go" (CO, 2000: 7). - “You filthy otroddje, padla,” I said, and we began shustritt. Pete held his hands, and Georgie opened his pasta wider so that it would be easier for Temu to rip out his false jaws, upper and lower. He threw them on the pavement, and I played with the heels on them, although they were also quite strong, the bastards, made of some kind of newfangled superplastic, apparently. Kashka smacked something inarticulately - “chuk-chuk-chok”, and Georgik abandoned holding him by the gubiohi and shoved a toltchok with brass knuckles into his toothless mouth, causing Kashka to howl, and blood gushed out, damn it, beauty, and that’s all. Well, then we just undressed him, taking off everything down to his undershirt and underpants (staryh-staryh. I didn’t really get excited looking at them), then Pete gently kicked him in the belly, and we left him alone” (FOR, 2000 : 21).

In this scene, when describing the appearance of the old man, the author uses quite a lot of slangisms, mainly naming parts of the body: rot, rooker, goober, zoobics. Thanks to the use of words that are strange and unusual for the English-speaking reader, the emphasis in his perception of the scene shifts from the action being performed (an act of violence) to these new “funny” and still incomprehensible words. Another, even more brutal episode describes the attack of Alex and his droogs on the house of the writer F. Alexander: “Plunging, I could slooshy cries of agony and this writer bleeding veck that Georgie and Pete held on to nearly got loose howling bezoomny with the filthiest of words that I already knew and others he was making up" (CO, p. 20). - "Vjehav, heard a cry of pain, and this writer hrenov almost escaped, screamed like bezoomni, spewing the most terrible curses that I were known, and even inventing completely new ones on the go” (ZA, 2000: 33).

In this case, describing the rape of the writer’s wife, which occurs in front of her husband, the narrator distracts the reader’s attention from the events themselves, and not only with the help of interspersed slang. He includes digressions in the text commenting on his own linguistic observations. The achieved effect fully corresponds to the meaning that V. Shklovsky put into the concept of “estrangement”, and B. Brecht called the “alienation effect”. Defamiliarization is given a leading place in the poetics of the work in the characteristics of the protagonist. To form a certain perception of Alexa E. Burgess also uses the resources of fictional slang. At first, the reader is shocked by Alex's cruelty, and to create this effect, the author distances the young criminal from the feelings of his victims, making his narration dispassionate and indifferent.

But the protagonist cannot be the focus of exclusively negative qualities, and E. Burgess resorts to using a number of tactics to make Alex look more attractive. For example, the narrative is told in the first person, so Alex is given the opportunity to comment, explain or justify his actions, and the reader sympathizes with his suffering.

The attractiveness of the protagonist is also motivated by the fact that he is also endowed with an aesthetic sense. The word “artistic” is repeatedly used to characterize Alex; his artistry and artistic taste are expressed not only in his love of classical music, but also in his desire to look impressive even in a fight: “Pete and Georgie had good sharp nozhes, but I for my own part had a fine starry horrors how cut-throat britva which, at that time, I could flash and shine artistic” (CO, 2000: 14). - “Pete and Georgie had wonderful sharp nozhi, but I, in turn, did not part with my beloved old very, very dangerous britvoi, which I handled at that time artistically” (ZA, 2000: 26).

So, the image of Alex is deliberately ambivalent. The character may be perceived as a humanoid automaton, a product of a mechanistic society, and then his cruelty is only a consequence of boredom and a sense of worthlessness. At the same time, it is equally obvious that the text contains such a variant of interpretation in which he seems to be an artistically gifted person superior to the level of this society.

The fictional slang “nadsat” also serves the function of creating a trusting atmosphere between the hero and the reader. If the reader is spoken to in the language of a “closed” group, this means that he is accepted into their circle. In addition, Alex often interrupts the description of his “exploits” with a direct address to the reader - “Oh my brothers!”:

“So, to cut all short, we arrived. Oh my brothers, and I led the way up to 10-8, and they panted and smecked away the way up….” (CO, 2000: 35). - “In short, we arrived, I walked up the stairs in front, they, puffing and giggling, hurried after me...” (ZA, 2000: 48).

“And there were my sheep down below; their rots open as they looked up, O brothers” (CO, 2000: 45). - And these, like sheep, stand, look from below, their mouths are already, damn it, open (ZA, 2000: 59).

“There was no trust anywhere in the world, O my brothers, the way I could see it” (CO, 2000: 68). - “You can’t trust anyone, damn it, no one in this world!” (ZA, 2000: 79).

Such an interruption of the linear narrative with exclamations of “O brothers!” and those cases when Alex talks about himself in the third person and playfully calls himself “Handsome young Narrator” or “Your humble Narrator” can be interpreted as manifestations of a playful style, as a metaprosaic author’s commentary that destroys the illusion of the reality of what is happening and the integrity of the text. The mentioned exclamations are very similar in type to those that belong to the hero-narrator Humbert in Nabokov’s “Lolita”.