Final Chapter of A Clockwork Orange

Thought it was 'boys will be boys' shite. Glad the American editor had the sense to tell him it was crap and to consign it to the trash heap

>>9113703
>>9113785
I agree it seemed a bit like a "you see, we don't even have to do anything" cop out. Because if you're actually confronted with the dilemma of men who will again and again rape and kill and never reform, the whole "freedom to choose is just human" shit becomes worthless because our only option is to eliminate them, one way or another (killing, prison, therapy).

>>9113785
>>9113821
I agree, it felt fairly lazy

>>9113703
Not a fool but a pleb for sure. It wasn't meant to be some morality play or a Clapistani basic cable crime drama even if you don't have the sensibilities to stomach anything else.

Kubrick definitely knew of the last chapter before he made the movie and then just claimed afterwards that he didn't so he wouldn't hurt Burgess's feelings.

It was meant to make fun of the exact kind of reader who's so full of hot air that they're only comfortable with neat, consistent little stories that conform to their two-bit ideas about humanity and morality. This was alluded to earlier with Alex's treatment of the in-story author of A Clockwork Orange, the blatant disregard for that work and how that author tried to kill him later in the book out of rage despite being such a blowhard with all those banal pretentious humanist affectations.

>>9113703
if you can manage to get your hands on a copy of the norton critical edition, the back of the book has a couple essays by Burgess himself going into a lot of the book's theoretical framework...

from what i can remember having that wonky final chapter was something about symmetry (a triptych composed of three 7 chapter segments), and about classical bildungsroman narrative arcs, yadda yadda yadda

from reading the criticism you can tell burgess is a pretty intelligent guy, but that doesnt preclude the last chapter of his book from being a big fucking mistake