Question about End Sinister

is this true? iirc burgess would say he was making the message harder - that despite the brutal things alex and his droogs do, the mind control is *still* wrong. it’s effectively, as in much of AB, a Catholic message.

Burgess himself has admitted the book's flaw is that it is too didactic.
https://transgresslit.wordpress.com/2014/05/25/violent-transgressions-anthony-burgess-a-clockwork-orange/

The film doesn't make the case one way or another regarding the wrongness of depriving the criminal of free will for the sake of society. It portrays Alex as a victim of the treatment, but then everything is in service of a stance advanced by Alex himself to rationalize his right to commit crimes. So of course he would say that. Just because the main character holds a strong view, that doesn't mean that it is the view of the film or the author.

The movie uses the story of that dilemma to craft a provocative experience for the viewer. As I've been saying, the story is not the point. The story is there to enable an experience.

i don’t think i agree with the “too didactic to be artistic” tbh. or at least think he’s looking at a v romantic, pure version art - exemplars, fables and allegories would all fail his test here.

and it’s interesting to recall kubrick only knew the US version of the book which did not include the final chapter (burgess’ “vindication of free will”), which is fulfilment of the didactic part.

this raises the question of whether the book’s “didactic” element is only really created by the final chapter, and whether the story as vehicle or enabler for an open experience (without a moral thumb on the scales) is more available in the book if you remove that final chapter. i’d also say one of the important ways the book is “experienced” is through the experience of learning and being distanced by nadsat.

setting the book and film against each other isn’t my intent here, but i’d make a claim for the the book and alex being more complicated than your statement above allows, for one thing a simple didacticism would make it considerably shorter.

there’s an element of burke’s the sublime here - experiencing terrible emotions as a transformative process, which, well that’s causing me to come round a bit more to your pov again... hmm will think on.