Burgess reputedly disliked the American edition's inclusion of a glossary. I'm in partial agreement with that.The right way to read it is to let the language flow over you, and you gradually start making sense of it. The glossary is useful in demonstrating how brilliantly constructed the Nadsat language is, especially the words derived from Russian: horrorshow from khorosho, good; lewdies from lyudi, people; and starry from starei, old.

I disagree with much of Burgess's politics,but his use of language was masterful.

Wow. That went over the heads of both a Harvard student and an Atlantic journalist.

Yeah, this is definitely a massive slight. If it was any other book I'd buy it, but when you read terms like "horrorshow," or "platty", or "droogs" in the first few paragraphs it's not hard to see why one would look up words.

Also who describes "A Clockwork Orange" as old english?

There has to be a phrase for journalists that a conclusion ready in hand but their work is just finding scant/nonexistent evidence proving such a conclusion.

Something like "parallel construction" for law enforcement.