Given that the US is usually regarded as more optimistic than the UK, Burgess said something like he was the rare victim of ‘American Pessimism’ regarding the decision of the American publishers to leave out the final chapter. Unlike the UK version, the US one also had translations for all the Nadsat slang (it’s arguable whether it’s better to pick it all up from context or not)
The US version that I read lacked chapter 21 for the stupid reason that the US versions lack chapter 21, but it did not have any translations of Nadsat. All of it had to be picked up from context, as was intended. It actually helped me learn Russian about a decade later when I got into intel.
Given that the US is usually regarded as more optimistic than the UK, Burgess said something like he was the rare victim of ‘American Pessimism’ regarding the decision of the American publishers to leave out the final chapter. Unlike the UK version, the US one also had translations for all the Nadsat slang (it’s arguable whether it’s better to pick it all up from context or not)
The US version that I read lacked chapter 21 for the stupid reason that the US versions lack chapter 21, but it did not have any translations of Nadsat. All of it had to be picked up from context, as was intended. It actually helped me learn Russian about a decade later when I got into intel.