A Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess seemed to think that his seminal novel A Clockwork Orange wouldn't be as remembered if it weren't for Stanley Kubrick's acclaimed film version. According to Burgess, his best-known work is a simple morality tale, and he was less than thrilled that a) the American publisher omitted his final chapter, and b) that his work was the basis for a film that appears to glorify sex and violence. Although Burgess would prefer his work to have been presented unbowdlerized, he's not enamored with it: "I should myself be glad to disown it for various reasons" and that the work is "too didactic to be artistic", he says in the introduction.

I don't think that Burgess' American publisher was wrong in thinking the twenty-first chapter was a sellout. Burgess himself admits that there was no hint of change in the previous chapter, nor in the rest of the proceeding book. So while the author may contend that the twenty-first chapter is necessary symbolically, morally, and from a storytelling perspective, it certainly feels tacked on as it's a massive change in direction from the remainder of the novel, particularly a novel that is broken into three sections. So on the one hand, I'm not particularly satisfied with the final chapter, due to its stark difference from the rest of the novel. However, as Burgess points out, omitting it leaves something that's less a novel and more a fable.

Overall, I'm glad to finally tick this off my list, but I can't say that this is something I much enjoyed.