vika,
When I read
A Clockwork Orange I didn't know any Russian, and I'm pretty sure my edition of the book didn't have translations at the back. So basically I just picked up on all the Nadsat by context, as I would any new language where I had no explicit dictionary (or as with "learning by ear").
It worked well, in that I'd gathered the meaning of practically every new term by the end of the book. Sometimes this meant I had to refer back, and pick up on a further level of meaning in what I'd already read. Not a problem.
The use of Nadsat also provided for the "feel" of the book, imparting an air of the surreal, sort of drug-infused. This may have made some of the violence more readable (even acceptable, for want of a better term) - helping maintain a degree of empathy with Alex. You don't just switch off and dismiss him as a more or less featureless psychopath. That's important. What's also important is that the film (recently shown on British TV for the first time) didn't maintain the surreal air quite as well. Indeed it couldn't.
I could do with re-reading the book, but the film struck me as hugely prophetic in some ways - particularly in the amoral political wheeling and dealing, "spin" and whatnot.
As an aside, I recall that my first reading of
A Clockwork Orange was around the same time as a
musical (play) version was released.. I think with music by some members of U2.
