I don’t know
if I’ve come across an author whose delight is language and in words is as
obvious and tangible as Anthony Burgess’.
I bought A Clockwork Orange years ago, before I
knew anything really about it. I tried to read it for a class I did at uni and
didn’t get it at all; I tried again two years later and sped through it,
devouring it hungrily like a madman. I loved the way he combined fragments of
existing languages, made up his own words, played with the words themselves and
their syllables, broke them down and rhapsodised upon a theme of language.
There was also the allure of a good bit of Beethoven (or ‘Lovely Ludwig Van’ as
Alex likes to call him) and the superawesome cover.
