Blog Entry the 3rd: Syntax

• "What I do I do because I like to do" (45).
Burgess's often simplistic syntax and use of repetition reflect the author's youth and simple-mindedness. The short words and lack of punctuation portray the fact that the reader is following Alex along in his mind, not being narrated to by a third-person observer. Beside the fact that this is circular logic, the arrangement of words is that if the reader so wished to read the sentence fifty times over, the words would become confused because of the repetition.
• "Not many viddied what I'd done, and those that viddied cared not" (32).*
The use of inverted word order is a staple trait of Burgess's writing in A Clockwork Orange, which attributes to the vernacular used by the Nadsat teenagers in their dystopian society. The parallel structure visible in this sentence reflects the objectionable insinuation of the words' meaning: that Alex had punched a friend of his, and nobody cared.
• "And so it would itty on to like the end of the world, round and round and round, like some bolshy gigantic like chelloveck, like old Bog Himself... turning and turning and turning a vonny grahzny orange in his gigantic rookers" (127).*
The narration of the story is often told in shorter, even telegraphic sentences; however, when the rhetor is panicked, or when he is trying to portray an significant motif to the reader (even one he does not entirely understand himself), he will switch to longer, winding sentences without abandoning his use of limited vocabulary. Additionally, Burgess uses the word "like" quite often to make Alex seem more like a normal teenager, who is trying to think and talk at the same time. The repetition in this sentence shows the dullness and disillusionment Alex feels.
•Viddied = saw; Itty = go; bolsy gigantic... = large thing;
Bog = God; vonny grahzny = old trashy; rookers = hands.