Tuesday, February 27, 2007

How children of the future may speak?

I just re-read clockwork orange and re-discovered Nadsat, the cockney/russian mix that Anthony Burgess made up for his teenage hooligans of the future- of course, this wasn't the first or last book to have a child narrate a story in a fictionalized future version of english - other notable books I have read include
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
Feersum Endjin by Iain () Banks
Ellvissy (and other Ambient series books) by Jack Womack

I can think of others, but not necessarily as potent as these ones - what's interesting
is how similar the effect is - I wonder if any fans have created other stories using the same character or language variant? A boy and his dog in the style of Banks' or
Peter Pan in Hoban's?

2 comments:

Adam_Y said...

Interesting topic...

I get your point about the similar effect - I guess it is supposed to disorientate the reader to create a sense of unease (not many of us like being plunged in to a language we can't quite grasp), whilst at the same time being a disturbingly familiar link with the factual present.

That said, the kids that live near me have a very dark variant of northern slang anyway...

jon crowcroft said...

darkest, possibly, is Random Acts of Senseless Violence...one of my faves - should be read while listening to thrash metal on 33rpm vinyl at 78

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