Plot Cheats and Other Annoyances

[reetpleat]

U.S./Kubrick version of Orange because we're left with Augustinian view of mankind: that we're basically evil and need God's intervention and guidance to be good.

At any rate, and interesting man, who, unfortunately, most people know from only one novel. I'm getting the urge to read the Malaysian Trilogy again.

Regards,

Senator Jack[/QUOTE]

I disagree a little. When I read ACO for the first time and saw the movie, I did not think it implied that we are all evil. I think it demonstrated the idea that we all have free choice, and that we can choose to be good or evil, and while Alex may have chosen evil, it is somehow superior to being forced to be good. It celebrates free will, but it also celebrates the choice of good. If we were forced to be good, ther would be no virtue in it. It is only in our free choice to do good that we are divine.

For that reason, I might argue that Burgess tried to tell too much in the last chapter. It is implied, not about Alex, but about all of us that we can choose to be good.

To show Alex doing so kind of robs us of seeing it for ourselves.

In a writing class, a teacher called it the little nun (who comes out at the end of the story and says "and the moral is...") A shortcomong of new writers.

 

[Harp]

Unless one is paid to be a literary, how much time can one invest in dissecting Joyce?.

...a lifetime; though not without personal profit.

 

[Harp]

As for the Pelegian vs. Augustinian endings of Orange, IICR from his autobiography, Burgess was a follower of the former doctine: man is basically good and has the free will to be good or evil. He tackles this issue in both Orange and The Wanting Seed and I recall his being upset about the U.S./Kubrick version of Orange because we're left with Augustinian view of mankind....
Senator Jack

Pelagius was an elitist whom equated knowledge with virtue; surprising
that Burgess would take either side.

 

[Feraud]

If I may change the subject for a moment.
I just remembered a film that is full of plot cheats and annoyances from beginning to end. This film left me feeling totally disgusted.
It is the movie Crash. Not to be confused with the Cronenberg film. This one was such a load of pretentious garbage from beginning to end! I cannot fathom how it won the awards it did. Well I can make a good guess. Oprah did a great p.r. campaign just like she did for that other piece of garbage Walk the Line.
If you have not seen it, Crash presupposes that everyone is a racist and will eventually "crash" (how clever!) into each other. Every racial group in this film dislikes someone else and is on the verge of either raping, or mudering them! Whites dislike Black, Middle Eastern dislikes Latino, blah, blah. The film spends however many minutes setting up all this high tension drama of people on the verge of killing each other.
What is the payoff? Nothing!! I will not give away spoilers but suffice to say the three or so examples I am thinking of are perhaps the worst plot co-incidences and deus ex machinas I have ever seen.
What do you expect from writer Paul Haggis.