For me, it has to be "A Clockwork Orange."
I know many of you will say that the movie was great, and it was, but the original book has an extra chapter. The movie completely excluded the 21st chapter of Burgess' book, in which the character has a COMPLETE moral turn-around. It's the worst chapter of any book that I've ever read, and is SO bad that it makes the whole book completely worthless IMO. He basically felt that no work of fiction is worth the paper it's written on unless the character has a moral enlightenment. It's the sloppiest writing ever.
For those that haven't read the book but have seen the movie, after everything that happened in the movie (which is pretty true to the book up to that point), the main character sees some of the guys he used to hang with have families and decides to change his life around. How ridiculous is that?! I reads like he had an hour to get the book to the publisher but just couldn't let it go without writing in the aforementioned moral enlightenment. Plus, it changes the meaning of the whole thing quite a bit. Rather than just saying that you can't truly make anyone change just by forcing them to be good, it's also saying that truly changing has to come from within. This would be fine if there was some foundation, but there is none. In the course of a few hours he sees a few of the guys he used to hang with and decides to make a 180 degree change in his life. WHO THE FVCK DOES THAT?!
Terrible.
Cliff Notes (how appropriate):
- What was the worst book you've ever read?
- Mine is "A Clockwork Orange" in its original form with the 21st chapter
- Basically in a day's time or so the main character just decides that he needs to be a better person.
I know many of you will say that the movie was great, and it was, but the original book has an extra chapter. The movie completely excluded the 21st chapter of Burgess' book, in which the character has a COMPLETE moral turn-around. It's the worst chapter of any book that I've ever read, and is SO bad that it makes the whole book completely worthless IMO. He basically felt that no work of fiction is worth the paper it's written on unless the character has a moral enlightenment. It's the sloppiest writing ever.
For those that haven't read the book but have seen the movie, after everything that happened in the movie (which is pretty true to the book up to that point), the main character sees some of the guys he used to hang with have families and decides to change his life around. How ridiculous is that?! I reads like he had an hour to get the book to the publisher but just couldn't let it go without writing in the aforementioned moral enlightenment. Plus, it changes the meaning of the whole thing quite a bit. Rather than just saying that you can't truly make anyone change just by forcing them to be good, it's also saying that truly changing has to come from within. This would be fine if there was some foundation, but there is none. In the course of a few hours he sees a few of the guys he used to hang with and decides to make a 180 degree change in his life. WHO THE FVCK DOES THAT?!
Terrible.
Cliff Notes (how appropriate):
- What was the worst book you've ever read?
- Mine is "A Clockwork Orange" in its original form with the 21st chapter
- Basically in a day's time or so the main character just decides that he needs to be a better person.
