How French Translation Agenices Wrote A Clockwork Orange

The idiolect that has been crafted by Antony Burgess in his writing – taking into account that such a language never existed is in fact both innovative and peculiar. Burgess did not mimic any register or slang and neither did he intend to show what factual processes were occurring in the language. Never before has English experienced such a presentation that it was made to undergo by Burgess Feliciano Puerto, the translator who translated some of Burgess’s work for the Spanish Translator, made use of the Americanized slang used by Spanish teenagers, which is his governing principle. That English would have semblance to other world languages one day was what Burgesses felt, but he uses a combination of English and other languages which does not support this notion. The increasing cruelty and boldness of the young criminals which is what the plot of A Clockwork Orange is concerned with reflects the language which is accepted by the translator as an indicator of what our modern society is to expect. All this places the novel in the context of our cultural environment.

It is obvious that Burgess is an author that is not widely read, and this is explained by the fact that both readers and translators are faced with considerable difficulites owing to his linguistic creativity. Having been adapted for the cinema by Stanley Kubrick, A Clockwork Orange was the main reason why Burgess became a cult figure in the writing circles. In 1962 when Burgess’s career was at its dawn his work could already be divided into periods, which explains the previous statement. The periods can be divided into: “the exotic period” – the first one, the “repatriate” – the second one and the “fantastic” period is the third one, which means that The Wanting Seed and A Clockwork orange belong to the third period. Only the “fantastic period” is familiar to the readership around the globe and has earned the author some popuarity. Not manyof Burgess’s books have been translated and published which is why the information on Burgess is bit misleading. Most translators were forced to apply Certified New York Translation agencies so that they could be granted the right to translate his books. Thus they were forced to abandon the other novels and to center their efforts on only one novel – which they did. Owing to the fact that only certain novels of his have been translated he is unfairly regarded as the author of one book – A Clockwork Orange. Since A Clockwork Orange went through some strange and not so fitting linguistic experiments and One Hand Clapping was ideologically manipulated, because of bad translations of the text Burgess’s legacy is neglected due to this fact.

Yet another point to be taken into account is the fact that Burgess is considered an alternative author: A Clockwork Orange tastes like a forbidden fruit as it was censored for presenting the veiled world of ultra-violence; The Wanting Seed is hard to find and its view of the future is controversial. Tempting to those who are interested in the devices used for manipulation, One Hand Clapping, which reminds of propagandist literature, was skillfully translated into French by the French Translator. These factors shape up the image of Burgess as the author of experimental fiction, whose writing was outside the mainstream.