The "A Clockwork Orange Resucked" introduction is from November 1986. It covers the reasoning behind the shortened American edition[0], Kubrick's film, and his own feelings on the 21st chapter[1]. I think the final paragraph summarizes it well "Readers of the twenty-first chapter must decide for themselves whether it enhances the book they presumably know or is really a discardable limb. I meant the book to end in this way, but my aesthetic judgement may have been faulty" (Burgess xv).
[0] "I needed money back in 1962, even the pittance I was being offered as an advance, and if the condition of the book's acceptance was also it's truncation - well, so be it" (Burgess x-xi)
[1] "There is no hint of this change of intention in the twentieth chapter. The boy is conditioned, then deconditioned, and he foresees with glee a resumption of the operation of free and violent will. [...] The twenty-first chapter gives the novel the quality of genuine fiction, an art founded on the principle that human beings change. There is, in fact, not much point in writing a novel unless you can show the possibility of moral transformation [...] The American version or Kubrickian Orange is a fable; the British or world one is a novel" (xii)
I do think people change, but it happens slowly, not quickly. Kubrick's ending still leaves us with the ability to imagine an older, wiser, regretful Alex. But you can't credibly force that into his youth, and the movie is already 2 hours 15 mins.
He just decided at one point that his current lifestyle was boring and he wanted a change. He didn’t turn into a good guy, he just decided to go a different way. Thats the point is that he made the choice himself.
You also hear examples of "suburban father tries to make meth because of Breaking Bad" but those are one-off individuals who are probably not of sound judgment.
> Kubrick himself, in response to a series of murder trials where the defendants explicitly mentioned his work, requested the withdrawal of A Clockwork Orange in the United Kingdom, where it could not be seen again until the director’s death in 1999.
> Arguably the most notorious of all is Peter Foster, who the British press dubbed the ‘Clockwork Orange killer’.
> Foster would beat and torture women and was found guilty of murdering two of his former wives. A court heard how he would dress up as the film's protagonist, Alex, and become violent when he heard the film’s theme song.
[1] https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/a-clockwork-orange-ci...
The problem with demonizing things is that demons are cool.
If you want your condemnation to be effective in fiction you have to make the characters doing it pathetic miserable losers. You can even have the narrative support them, they win in the end, and set it up so they were right and people will still come away with that they're bad.
Having read the book and seen the movie adaptation I have to disagree. Alex is charismatic, popular, a feared leader, independent, and rebellious. The brutal rape scene while singing makes him look like an absolute badass (a la the Joker) existing well beyond the reach of society's rules and importantly, makes him look powerful. Ultraviolence sounds like an achievement in DOOM. When he's caught it's framed as a betrayal not "we finally got the bad guy." Then they make him sympathetic through the torture and weakening him and making him unable to defend himself to the point of being driven to suicide. It's harrowing, not the cathartic comeuppance of a terrible man. And then the police apologize, let him go and arrest the man he brutally beat to near death.
The narrative considers Alex to be horrible but the view as seen by the camera/reader thinks he's hot shit and a tragic victim of a dystopian society.
As another example, when you watch Dexter you're rooting for Dexter and the show makes him cool despite him ya know being a killer.
In a lot of ways I think it's actually a hallmark of media literacy that readers/viewers largely ignore the narrative as a source of moral judgment because it's fiction and we like compelling villains and instead finds it in how the characters are actually portrayed.
And authors gaining editorial control is why so many books later in a popular author's career are worse and worse - no one able to trim them.
As examples I'll pick Neal Stephenson and J.K. Rowling. Even the fans have to notice how their work has gotten bigger and sloppier.
Years later a new print included both endings and staged an essay contest to decide which is the "right" ending.
But I think that has to do with the clear change in his writing style, which has diverged from my personal tastes. So it's not a judgement call on his writing either way -- we've just grown apart.
I wouldn't call those "later writings," he's written quite a few excellent (and better) books since. Anathem, Seveneves, and Fall; or, Dodge in Hell were excellent. Termination Shock was a quick read.
I've since gone back and re-read Cryptonomicon. I don't know know if I'll redo the whole Baroque cycle, (Because it was so long,) but I do have fond memories. I suspect it's the kind of book that's better the 2nd time through.
BTW, Fall; or, Dodge in Hell ends the Baroque Cycle. Enoch Root is in that book and we figure out what he really is.
I think the Baroque Cycle was an outlier. It was long, and boring, and plodded.
Early works were good, later works were good. There wasn't a phase change and later works went downhill starting with Baroque.
Not everyone can bat a thousand.
I think the film is very good, but the book's original ending is is essential to the whole point of the story. The film is inferior to the book because it's missing.
But I'm not sure what you mean by "unrealistic". On one level, neither the book nor movie is very realistic anyway. On a deeper level, they both speak real truths.
I found the movie itself to be very unrealistic. Something in the way it looked (costumes and everything) and the way actors acted and talked made me not believe any of it. It felt more like comic movie then something that attempts to be realistic.
The American version of the book doesn't have the final chapter, and was the basis for Kubrick's film. He was aware of the final chapter but never considered using it, as he didn't agree with Burgess and thought it didn't make sense (this was also the opinion of the American editor who had the final chapter removed).
The movie does include the Ludovico technique and all the themes about free will and goodness vs the choice of goodness, it just leaves out the very unrealistic ending where Alex reforms.
I think the film is a masterpiece and the book's original ending is unrealistic nonsense. I hardly think it's the "most important part".