Books: The Ultimate Beatnik

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (184 pp.)—Anthony Burgess—Norton ($3.95).

In A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess has written what looks like a nasty little shocker but is really that rare thing in English letters—a philosophical novel. The point may be overlooked because the hero, a teen-age monster, tells all about everything in nadsat, a weird argot that seems to be all his own. Nadsat is neither gibberish nor a Joycean exercise. It serves to put Alex where he belongs—half in and half out of the human race.

While Pee & Em Are Away. It is a nightmare...