'so skorry these days'
'have forgotten what these mestos were like… everybody very quick to forget. Alex - fighting to bring back the good old days of more
violence by opposing government.
'they had no licence for selling liquor' Drugs like Soma - which Burgess read (Brave New World)
'no law' shortly after its release.
'vellocet' drug. Implying speed.
Movie: 'Serum 114' in Ludovico technique
'knives' - although he does think drugs are 'cowardly'
'synthemesc; - drug - which Alex says his music is better than.
'drencrom' - other drug.
'twenty to one' sexual assault violence 'Ultra-violence'
'crasting any more pretty polly.' stealing money
'tolchok some old veck in an alley and viddy him swim in his blood.
'rip up the book I got'
'Dim yanked out his false zoobies.' Fareneheit -451
'fair tap with the crowbar… brought the red out.' Robbing the store, man and wife. Torturous
billyboy is 'opened up like a peapod, with his belly bare and his poor old yarbles
showing.'
Cutting Billyboy mouth 'so that two curtains of blood seemed to pour out… like red
curtains.'
Gory and he enjoys it as he describes the act as a 'waltz'
(dance).
'krovvy flowed beautiful red'
Classical music of 'Ludwig Lan' inspires violence in Alex, 'Slooshy a bar or so of Ludwig When watching Ludovico films.
Van… viddied right at once what to do.' - which was fight.
Robbing old woman 'cracked her a fine fair tolchock on the gulliver and that shut her up
real horrorshow and lovely.'
'comes out the blood, my brothers, real beautiful. Sadistic
Billyboy and his gang: 'getting ready to perform something on a weepy young devotchka…
not more than ten.'
Attacking writer and his house 'litso all purple and dripping away like some very special sort
of a juicy fruit.'
Rape of Wife 'plunging.' 'slooshy cries.'
in his apartment, dreams of people 'screaming for mercy. Alex 'grinding my boot in their
litsos.'
, 'Devotchkas ripped and creeching against the walls and I plunging like a shlaga into Rape.
them..'
Rape of two 'ten-year young devotchkas.' who 'had to submit to the strange and weird
desires of Alexander the Large.' He leaves the girls 'bruised and pouty…' looking 'like they
had been in some big bitva (fight).' Refers to rape as 'their education.' Gets them 'very
very drunken.'
'heighth of fashion'
'black very tight tights'
'old jelly mould' - Sexual dominance - ironic for only 15.
'all shadow of a doubting thomas' Biblical
'you were not put on this earth just to get in touch with god.'
'Governor himself was very pleased to hear that I had taken to like Religion.'
Graham Foster.
Original book to be called the plank in your eye , an allusion to Matthew’s Gospel. This title
reinforces the biblical themes of the novel, but also refers to the state ‘fixing’ Alex while Religion
ignoring its own corruption.
Burgess writes, ‘It was an ugly town and its proletariat could erupt in ugly violence’, and
recalls being set upon by a feral gang: ‘Ragged boys in gangs would pounce on the well-
dressed, like myself, and grab ostentatious fountain pens.’ His first experiences of crime
and violence were on the Manchester streets, and combined with his observation of the
mods, rockers and the Teddy-boys, and the Russian stilyagi gangs, the droogs were born. Graham Foster.
Pete has Elvis Presley. In the margins of the typescript, Burgess notes of the latter: ‘Will this Gangs
name be known when the book appears?’ Even though Elvis was at the height of his
popularity when Burgess was writing the novel, he viewed pop music as ephemeral and
largely worthless.
'Music always sort of sharpened me up… made me feel like old Bog (god) himself.'
Violence.
'What I dreamt of, oh my brothers, was of being in some very big orchestra… conductor
was like a mixture of Ludwig Van and G.F. Handel.'