this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2024
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Okay, so Clockwork was Anthony Burgess’ least favorite book. In the same way that Sir Alec Guinness hated his role as Obi-Wan in Star Wars, he felt it was populist schlock unworthy of himself as an artist. I think that we have to lay that aside. Although intuitively we might think the artists know their own work best, it’s not always the case.
Clockwork is about a youth becoming an adult. It’s also about mind control and the culture of violence, but the main theme is about growing up. There are 21 chapters because 21 is considered the age of maturity.
In chapter 21, Alex has been “reset” to his old violent ways in the previous chapter, but is now looking back on his violent youth and realizing he’s outgrown it. He’s thinking of getting a job and having a family. The problem was that the American publisher completely missed the point of the book and thought the last chapter was a cop out and that American readers could handle the ending on the down note of Alex becoming violent again. Burgess wanted the money, so he agreed and the US version was published with only 20 chapters.
Kubrick chose to go with the American version of the book because he’s just that kind of guy, but it’s left tens of millions of people completely misunderstanding the story. This alone makes me sympathetic to Burgess’ opinion of his own book.
Anyway, that’s the story of chapter 21.
Well put like that, it sounds a bit dumb to put an arbitrary number like 21 to some profound sense of "it's time to adult, now"
I agree with you, but it’s generally not too far off. The prefrontal cortex is the most recent part of the brain to evolve, and it’s the most “human” part of the brain. The PFC continues to develop over adolescence, only finishing in the early-mid 20s.
That’s the part of your brain responsible for pushing back on emotion driven reactions and doing more strategic planning, among other things.
Not just that, but he runs into a member of his old gang who had pretty much just disappeared from the book. Got married, became an accountant or something, and that leads the main character, Alex, to re-think his life.