The Cornelius Quartet - one of the classics of late 20th century literature. Turning to each of the four:
THE FINAL PROGRAMME - VOLUME 1
The Final Programme surely ranks among the top ten New Wave SF novels from the 60s. However, it must be noted, this Michael Moorcock genre-bender does not fit into any clearly defined category, science fiction or otherwise.
The Final Programme starts off as fast-paced action thriller and then shifts gears to set the world record for most philosophic reflections and cool images in a novel of 250-pages.
The novel's main dude is twenty-seven-year-old hip, wealthy Londoner Jerry Cornelius driving his Duesenberg luxury sedan, sporting the latest mod fashion and packing a deadly needle-gun (among the SF elements). Yes, yes, yet another of the author's Eternal Champions with the initials JC.
But what Jerry doesn't possess is his inheritance - precious microfilms to unlock the secrets of the universe. Jerry's drug-experimenting brother, diabolical Frank won that honor since Jerry's father discovered Jerry having sex with sister Catherine. That's right - incest. Any doubts we're reading a 60s novel pushing sexual boundaries?
Oh, how Jerry would love to get his hands on that precious microfilm. As does a Miss Brunner and a number of her metaphysically inclined, eccentric friends. And to add fuel to his brotherly revenge, Jerry plans to rescue dear sister Catherine currently held captive by dastardly Frank.
Ah, revenge! Jerry heads up an attack against Frank and Frank's small army of German mercenaries walled up in a Le Cobusier-style château along the coast of Normandy, a fortress their father constructed many years prior to the Second World War. Thus, the first portion of the novel is full throttle action thriller.
But fear not, the mighty Moorcock goes on to hurl so much at a reader beyond a mere James Bond adventure. As a way of sharing a tasty taste, here are some scrumptious Final Programme yummies:
Supreme Statement
Is the Final Programme of The Final Programme the ultimate equation for the ultimate computer program? I wouldn't want to spoil by even hinting at what this could mean. But I'll give you one hint: keep your eye on Miss Brunner.
Playful Parody
Michael Moorcock absolutely refused to be pigeonholed by any label or genre. Recall that stock Western phrase, "Throw down your gun and come out with your hands up." Well, the author plays off the cowboy command when he has Jerry tell Frank, "Throw in your needle and come in with your veins clear."
A careful reader will detect Michael Moorcock repeatedly poking fun at Golden Age pulp science fiction with its Buck Rogers rocket ships, good guys vs. bad guys and hideous Martians chasing scantly clad busty beauties.
Pop Culture
Jerry reads the comics, eats Mars bars, listens to The Who and The Beatles (natch,) plays pinball but still has the mental acumen to publish a paper on unified-field theory. Even during an exchange of ideas on cosmology there's the constant blare (real or imagined) of guitars and drums. Turning the pages of The Final Programme, you can almost hear the thumping beat of The Who's Tommy, Pinball Wizard switching back and forth with the Fab Four's Come Together, Let it Be and Strawberry Fields Forever.
Crash
"Instead there was a photo covering the whole side: a mass car smash with mangled corpses everywhere. Jerry supposed that the picture sold sheets." One of Michael Moorcock's preoccupations: the struggle of order vs. chaos. It's no coincidence The Cornelius Quartet published within the same time frame as J. G. Ballard's Crash. Slick modern automobiles as symbol for both life-giving freedom and death-dealing tragedy - order vs. chaos coming to a dealer near you.
Vampires
Jerry muses, "He found that he didn't need to eat much, because he could live off other people's energy just as well." An ongoing theme in the novel: the transfer of energy from one person to another, one object to another, in the context of Hindu cosmology, physics, astrology, vampires, you name it.
Seriousness Kills
The last thing our British author wants is for one to read his Cornelius Quartet without a sense of humor. Seasoned throughout this first volume are quotable laugh lines, such as, "He would certainly kill Frank when they raided the house. Frank's final needle would come from Jerry's gun. It would give him his final kick - the one he kept looking for." James Bond meets another great JC - John Cleese.
Miss Brunner, Ally or Adversary?
Miss Brunner might be more than she appears to be. Jerry senses this when he says, "Miss Brunner, if I hadn't been through my theological phase, I'd be identifying you as first suspect for Mephistopheles" To which, Miss Brunner replies, "I haven't got my pointed beard. Not with me."
Ha! Beware, Jerry. As Arthur Schopenhauer was fond of repeating, "Whoever expects to see devils go through the world with horns and fools with jingling bells will always be their prey or plaything."
However, Jerry is wise enough to recognize that he can't fit Miss Brunner in with Homo Sapiens. When Miss Brunner, dear lady, hears Jerry voice these words, she acknowledges that she doesn't fit in easily anywhere.
Oh, my goodness. What is Miss Brunner admitting? Is this a foreshadowing of things to come? A question to keep in mind since Miss Brunner makes her appearance in each novel within the tetralogy.
Psychedlia
Prime 60s weapon employed by brother Frank in his role as prototypical Ian Fleming bad guy: LSD gas. Hang in, Jerry! You must steel yourself to overcome the mind-bending effects:
"His brain and body exploded in a torrent of mingled ecstasy and pain. Regret. Guilt. Relief. Waves of pale light flickered. He fell down a never-ending slope of obsidian rock surrounded by clouds of green, purple, yellow, black. . . . Another wave flowed up his spine. No-mind, no-body, no-where. Dying waves of light danced out of his eyes and away through the dark world. Everything was dying. Cells, sinews, nerves, synapses - all crumbling. Tears of light, fading, fading. Brilliant rockets streaking into the sky and exploding all together and sending their multicoloured globes of light - balls on an Xmas tree - x-mass - drifting slowly. Black mist swirled across a bleak, horizoness nightscape."
Hollow Earth Theory
Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote of a prehistoric world 500 miles below the earth's surface, a secret world lit by a constant noonday inner sun. Jerry toys with Hollow Earth Theory along with Hindu cosmic cycles (Kali Yuga most prominent), relativity, physics, neuroscience, mathematics, Nietzsche's eternal return, the list goes on.
A CURE FOR CANCER - VOLUME 2
Psychedelic blowout. We're in London during the apocalypse and it's Ian Fleming-style international thriller meets Hieronymus Bosch Garden of Earthly Delights.
Eternal Champion, Dell Comic Superhero, Demon of Death, you get to choose. This New Wave SF/Magical Surrealist yarn features a souped up version of Jerry Cornelius sporting jet-black ebony skin, silky milk-white hair, earthshaking vibragun (much more deadly than his simple needle-gun) and Rolls-Royce Phantom VI convertible capable of turning into a submarine or sprouting wings to fly like a jet fighter. Take that, James Bond!
Black Knight Jerry. Oh, the Places You'll Go!
The Marvelous Moorcock lays out enough linear narrative to move in action adventure mode coupled with enough strangeness to qualify as experimental. To give a glimpse of what a reader will glean, gander at this batch of bullets:
Apocalyptic London
Here comes the napalm, courtesy of the American military. But all is not lost - "North Kensington, the largest densely populated part of the Royal Borough, the most delicious slum in Europe. It is almost teatime." Hey, if you're a member of the British aristocracy, you can play tourist and take a tour of your city's largest slum, watching poor people writhe in agony, suffering on a grand scale. What fun!
The Organization
Jerry Cornelius' first loyalty is to the organization but, our chic, fashion plate death dealer admits he works exclusively on a strict commission basis. Jerry, baby, you're in a line of work quite different than 007 in service of the British crown. And what is the organization? - too top secret for easy definition.
Bishop Beesley
This fat, slovenly churchman, forever munching on a fistful of chocolates, proves the prime nemesis for Mr. Cornelius. The Bishop makes numerous declarations, claiming he's all for equilibrium, after all, he knows what's good for people. Ha! Our British author slides in a slice of political satire (or sarcasm). Beware any leader acting sadistically, inflicting pain for "someone's own good."
The Multiverse
Luscious Karen von Krupp, one of the tale's big players, asks Jerry which life he likes, to which Jerry replies, "Oh, all of them really." Jerry has a sense the universe extends thousands of times beyond what we can see, a cornucopia of worlds with diverse laws, where space is different, time is different, atoms are different and even gravity may be different.
Merciless Mercenaries
Jerry travels to New York but then the plot thickens: along with dozen of middle class older folk, he's herded on a bus to Pennsylvania, the destination having an eerie resemblance to a Nazi concentration camp. "The camp governor wore a uniform cut from fine, black needlecord and his cap was at just the right angle above his mirror sunglasses which were as black and as bright as his highly polished jackboots." All this is caused by "present emergency conditions laid down by our president" as a piece of social experimentation. This section of the novel gives one the shudders - echoes of the current day private Blackwater military.
Buffalo Nose
Jerry makes his way to the American frontier, out by South Dakota where he smokes the peace pipe with the Sioux and other Indian tribes (what we nowadays term Native Americans). Jerry takes on the name of Buffalo Nose and it isn't long before he and the tribes conduct raids on a number of local towns. But then he's off, flying to Las Vegas for his next adventure.
Comic Book Superhero on the Scene
"Jerry let his hog fall and shielded his eyes to peer upward.
There in the shadows of the sixth-storey balcony stood a figure which, as he watched, came and leaned over the rail. the figure was dressed in a long, dirty raincoat buttoned in the neck.
It could only be Flash Gordon."
Chic Brand Names
Knockout young blonde Mitzi wears Miss Cardin cologne that will take a man's breath away. Mitzi always wears Guerlain's Gremoble lipstick and a turquoise and gold pin and armlets by Cadoro. It might be the apocalypse but one thing remains - top of the line products keep those special sexy men and women in top sexy form.
Chapter Headings
A Cure for Cancer features 79 short chapters with hip chapter headings, as in "Sing to me, darling, in our castle of agony" and "The erotic ghosts of Viet Nam" and "The old Hollywood spirit never dies." Back in the '60s, cool was king.
Epigraphs
Michael Moorcock tosses in clips from current day news, each section of the novel carries an epigraph, subjects ranging from a money back guarantee on how you can impress your friends as you maneuver a polaris nuclear sub to the discovery of echos from the Big Bang. My personal favorites: "Along with the Smothers Brothers and Rowan and Martin, Mort Sahl is part of that radical fringe who try to tear down American decency and democracy." and "Newly and/or unexpectedly imposed tyranny can make people commit suicide."
Beauty Amid Chaos
Sure the cancer in the book's title can signify the cancer eating away at Western Civilization but there remains the beauty of a garden, after all Hieronymus Bosch's triptych Garden of Earthy Delights contains scenes of birds and fountains in their full splendor. "Entering the quiet streets of the great village, with its trim grass verges and shady trees, Jerry was filled with a sense of peace that he rarely experienced in rural settlements. Perhaps the size of the empty buildings helped, for most of them were over eighty feet high, arranged around a series of pleasant squares with central fountains splashing a variety of coloured, sparkling water or with freeform sculptures set in flower gardens."
THE ENGLISH ASSASSIN - VOLUME 3
The English Assassin - Book Three of Michael Moorcock's The Cornelius Quartet: novel strutting with Clockwork Orange cool, steaming with I, Claudius heat, thumping with Barefoot in the Head mind drums.
Grab a copy. Settle in. Open the book to Shot One and prepare to skyrocket into a futuristic, hip, alternate history-style 1960s London turned psychedelic land of Ob-La-Di.
Kablooey! The sound of Michael Magic Mushroom Moorcock exploding any reader's expectations.
What does the British author's version of chaos look like here? For starters, unlike the vast majority of book series - The Raj Quartet and Lord of the Rings come immediately to mind - with The Cornelius Quartet, nothing is lost if one reads the cycle of four novels out of order.
Oops. Did I really say 'order'? Kablooey! Blown to shimmering, 60s smithereens.
Of course, one of the prime ways to establish order in a novel is plot, following a story's characters through a recognizable arch of action from beginning to end. If you're one of those readers requiring plot as a necessary ingredient for your novel reading pleasure, I'm afraid The English Assassin will simply not cut it. With his William S. Burroughs-style nonlinear quick shifts and Donald Barthelme-like insertions (news bulletins, alternate apocalypses, reminiscences), Michael Moorcock is way too swingin' 60s experimental to settle for stiff, button-down boundaries. There's good reason why The Cornelius Quartet has attracted a cult following.
Speaking of quick shifts, allow me to conduct my own rapid pivot to an array of English Assassin hot shots:
Action Fashion
Una Persson makes her entrance, "a beautiful girl in a black military topcoat and patent leather boots with gold buckles (from Elliotts)." One of the novel's prime movers, Una possesses many talents, including being handy with all sorts of handguns. "She slipped out her Smith and Wesson and accurately shot off the bolts on the coffin's four corners."
The coffin contains Jerry Cornelius and in exchange for delivering Jerry to one Prinz Lobkowitz, Una will have her skinhead ex-POWs haul crates loaded with M16s to her SD Kfz 233 armored truck.
In subsequent chapters, stunning Una also performs as star singing actress on the stages in London and beyond - in those theaters still standing during all the bombings, that is. If a directer wanted to turn The English Assassin into a hip film, Sasha Luss would make the perfect Una Persson. Methinks lovely Una could be seen as the authentic English assassin. Love ya, babe - go get 'em.
The Eternal Aesthete
Where do we find our main man Jerry Cornelius, a version of Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion, a fighter for Cosmic Balance in the struggle of Order vs. Chaos? Firstly, as a large shapeless object drifting in the sea and then spending most of the novel in a coffin. Now that’s what I call a New Wave SF author concocting a fresh literary brew!
Although, it must be said, there’s the time in a theater where Una Persson catches a glimpse of a dapper young chap in a dark yellow frock-coat and matching bowler with a gold-topped walking stick. “His black, soft hair hung straight to his shoulders in the style of the aesthetes of some years earlier.” Hey, if you’re going to pop up and make an Eternal Champion’s cameo appearance, no better way to do it than as a refined, debonair connoisseur of impeccable taste.
Swashbuckler Saga
Sound the alarm! An anarchist army of 8,000 in Argyll, Scotland hoists the Black Flag. These bloodthirsty anarchists will soon be joined by a sizable force of warmongering Frenchmen. A Captain Nye knows what must be done – travel via airship to this savage encampment, a veritable den of barbarity, to give their diabolical leader, the Red Fox, one last chance to abandon plans of revolt against the Chief-of-us-All.
Caution, Captain Nye! “Throughout the half-mile radius of the camp the savage warriors stood and looked as their leader talked with the soldier who had come from the sky. Each of the men had a naked sword in his hand and Nye knew that if he made one mistake he would never be able to reach the airship before he was slaughtered beneath those shinning blades.”
Ah, a Swashbuckling tale reminiscent of Terry Gilliam’s famous Baron Munchausen. Can the forces of law and order win out? When good Captain Nye espies a hundred massive aerial men-o’-war ships complete with the black flag of Anarchy alongside the blue cross of Scotland painted on their gigantic shark hulls, he has his doubts.
Apocalypse Posthaste
The English Assassin features eight varieties of apocalypse, each variant serving as sufficient reason why the novel carries the subtitle A Romance of Entropy. What's a lady or gentleman to do in the face of such disintegration? Perhaps appropriately, a closing line from one apocalypse: "Jerry stared reflectively at the shit on his boots."
Time as Elastic as Silly Putty
James Wood notes a critical decision any novelist faces is how to structure time. Michael Moorcock proves himself master of the craft by expanding and contracting past-present-future as if time itself can be manipulated like silly putty, even moving from chapter to chapter in reverse chronology.
Gala Ball
What's a 60s novel without a ripping party? Assassin kicks ass with a mind-blower, among the revelers: Kingsley Amis, Peter O'Toole, the Dalai Lama, Karl Glogauer (of Behold the Man fame), Oxford dons who wrote children's novels, Miss Joyce Churchill (pseudonym used by M. John Harrison) and men and women highlighting other chapters - Jerry's brother Frank and sister Catherine, Jerry's mother, Bishop Beesley, and (gulp) Miss Brunner.
Reality Most Real
As violent and tragic as the novel's fiction, dozens of actual news clips hovering around 1971 appear throughout, recording children beaten, shot, stabbed or murdered in other gruesome ways. A sole instance will suffice: "A three-year-old boy was found dead in a disused refrigerator last night." -- Guardian 29 June, 1971.
Reader as Co-creator
Back when the novel was first published, Michael Moorcock informed an interviewer the last thing he wanted was to tell a reader what to think. Rather, via his fiction, the British author's goal is to empower a reader to engage their creative imagination, to fill in the fictional gaps, to create the story with him, to arrive at independent judgements.
Up for the challenge? If so, The English Assassin is your book.
The English Assassin - Book Three of Michael Moorcock's The Cornelius Quartet: novel strutting with Clockwork Orange cool, steaming with I, Claudius heat, thumping with Barefoot in the Head mind drums.
Grab a copy. Settle in. Open the book to Shot One and prepare to skyrocket into a futuristic, hip, alternate history-style 1960s London turned psychedelic land of Ob-La-Di.
Kablooey! The sound of Michael Magic Mushroom Moorcock exploding any reader's expectations.
What does the British author's version of chaos look like here? For starters, unlike the vast majority of book series - The Raj Quartet and Lord of the Rings come immediately to mind - with The Cornelius Quartet, nothing is lost if one reads the cycle of four novels out of order.
Oops. Did I really say 'order'? Kablooey! Blown to shimmering, 60s smithereens.
Of course, one of the prime ways to establish order in a novel is plot, following a story's characters through a recognizable arch of action from beginning to end. If you're one of those readers requiring plot as a necessary ingredient for your novel reading pleasure, I'm afraid The English Assassin will simply not cut it. With his William S. Burroughs-style nonlinear quick shifts and Donald Barthelme-like insertions (news bulletins, alternate apocalypses, reminiscences), Michael Moorcock is way too swingin' 60s experimental to settle for stiff, button-down boundaries. There's good reason why The Cornelius Quartet has attracted a cult following.
Speaking of quick shifts, allow me to conduct my own rapid pivot to an array of English Assassin hot shots:
Action Fashion
Una Persson makes her entrance, "a beautiful girl in a black military topcoat and patent leather boots with gold buckles (from Elliotts)." One of the novel's prime movers, Una possesses many talents, including being handy with all sorts of handguns. "She slipped out her Smith and Wesson and accurately shot off the bolts on the coffin's four corners."
The coffin contains Jerry Cornelius and in exchange for delivering Jerry to one Prinz Lobkowitz, Una will have her skinhead ex-POWs haul crates loaded with M16s to her SD Kfz 233 armored truck.
In subsequent chapters, stunning Una also performs as star singing actress on the stages in London and beyond - in those theaters still standing during all the bombings, that is. If a directer wanted to turn The English Assassin into a hip film, Sasha Luss would make the perfect Una Persson. Methinks lovely Una could be seen as the authentic English assassin. Love ya, babe - go get 'em.
The Eternal Aesthete
Where do we find our main man Jerry Cornelius, a version of Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion, a fighter for Cosmic Balance in the struggle of Order vs. Chaos? Firstly, as a large shapeless object drifting in the sea and then spending most of the novel in a coffin. Now that’s what I call a New Wave SF author concocting a fresh literary brew!
Although, it must be said, there’s the time in a theater where Una Persson catches a glimpse of a dapper young chap in a dark yellow frock-coat and matching bowler with a gold-topped walking stick. “His black, soft hair hung straight to his shoulders in the style of the aesthetes of some years earlier.” Hey, if you’re going to pop up and make an Eternal Champion’s cameo appearance, no better way to do it than as a refined, debonair connoisseur of impeccable taste.
Swashbuckler Saga
Sound the alarm! An anarchist army of 8,000 in Argyll, Scotland hoists the Black Flag. These bloodthirsty anarchists will soon be joined by a sizable force of warmongering Frenchmen. A Captain Nye knows what must be done – travel via airship to this savage encampment, a veritable den of barbarity, to give their diabolical leader, the Red Fox, one last chance to abandon plans of revolt against the Chief-of-us-All.
Caution, Captain Nye! “Throughout the half-mile radius of the camp the savage warriors stood and looked as their leader talked with the soldier who had come from the sky. Each of the men had a naked sword in his hand and Nye knew that if he made one mistake he would never be able to reach the airship before he was slaughtered beneath those shinning blades.”
Ah, a Swashbuckling tale reminiscent of Terry Gilliam’s famous Baron Munchausen. Can the forces of law and order win out? When good Captain Nye espies a hundred massive aerial men-o’-war ships complete with the black flag of Anarchy alongside the blue cross of Scotland painted on their gigantic shark hulls, he has his doubts.
Apocalypse Posthaste
The English Assassin features eight varieties of apocalypse, each variant serving as sufficient reason why the novel carries the subtitle A Romance of Entropy. What's a lady or gentleman to do in the face of such disintegration? Perhaps appropriately, a closing line from one apocalypse: "Jerry stared reflectively at the shit on his boots."
Time as Elastic as Silly Putty
James Wood notes a critical decision any novelist faces is how to structure time. Michael Moorcock proves himself master of the craft by expanding and contracting past-present-future as if time itself can be manipulated like silly putty, even moving from chapter to chapter in reverse chronology.
Gala Ball
What's a 60s novel without a ripping party? Assassin kicks ass with a mind-blower, among the revelers: Kingsley Amis, Peter O'Toole, the Dalai Lama, Karl Glogauer (of Behold the Man fame), Oxford dons who wrote children's novels, Miss Joyce Churchill (pseudonym used by M. John Harrison) and men and women highlighting other chapters - Jerry's brother Frank and sister Catherine, Jerry's mother, Bishop Beesley, and (gulp) Miss Brunner.
Reality Most Real
As violent and tragic as the novel's fiction, dozens of actual news clips hovering around 1971 appear throughout, recording children beaten, shot, stabbed or murdered in other gruesome ways. A sole instance will suffice: "A three-year-old boy was found dead in a disused refrigerator last night." -- Guardian 29 June, 1971.
Reader as Co-creator
Back when the novel was first published, Michael Moorcock informed an interviewer the last thing he wanted was to tell a reader what to think. Rather, via his fiction, the British author's goal is to empower a reader to engage their creative imagination, to fill in the fictional gaps, to create the story with him, to arrive at independent judgements.
Up for the challenge? If so, The English Assassin is your book.
THE CONDITION OF MUZAK - VOLUME 4
The Condition of Muzak - Culminating volume of The Cornelius Quartet, a grand finale where, to use a trio of clichés, mighty Moorcock pulls out all the stops, leaves nothing on the table, roars at full throttle so as to give us a novel that's combination Clockwork Orange, Goldfinger, Monty Python sketch and Yellow Submarine. Correspondingly, leading off the long list of component parts that make up main character Jerry Cornelius's fluid identity, there''s Alex, James Bond, John Cleese and Mr. Nowhere Man.
Condition carries this epigraph, a quote from great 19th century literary/art critic and connoisseur Walter Pater: “All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music. For while in all other works of art it is possible to distinguish the matter from the form, and the understanding can always make this distinction, yet it is the constant effort of art to obliterate it.”
And there’s a whole lot of obliteration going down in this Michael Moorcock 400-pager. No big surprise - we're talking serious post-nuclear, post-apocalypse here, a world where the streets of London hop to the drums of Pakistani love songs before shifting to a few bars of Rolling Stones, a world where the countryside beyond Dover returns to its medieval state and the people of Kent are happy at last since they've reverted even further, going back to their natural state of being down and dirty primitives.
Think of Walter Pater's words in light of what art critic Robert Hughes had to say as part of his 1980 series, The Shock of the New: "An artist must be famous to be heard, but as he acquires fame, so his work accumulates 'value' and becomes, ipso-facto, harmless. As far as today's politics is concerned, most art aspires to the condition of Muzak. It provides the background hum for power.” I suspect Robert Hughes was familiar with Michael Moorcock's book.
Although one can read The Condition of Muzak without having familiarity with any of the other volumes in Cornelius Quartet, I'd strongly advise reading the series in sequence. All of the prime characters in Muzak - brother Frank, sister Catherine, Mom, Major Nye, Una Persson, Miss Brunner, Sebastin Auchineck, Bishop Beesley, Mitzi - have a history and we'd do well to know their stories.
As noted above, the quartet of novels culminates in The Condition of Muzak. The cast of characters in Quartet are recast as Commedia dell'arte players dancing the Entropy Tango as they spiral toward oblivion. Of course, Jerry Cornelius, Eternal Champion, hopped up hipster, luminous Londoner, takes center stage in his star roles as, in turn, Harlequin (thus the book's cover), Pierrot and . . . that's for Michael Moorcock to tell.
Fictional flash camera in hand, let me share a few snappy snaps of Magic Michael's copious modern classic:
Transformed Planet - Among the ruins of Angkor in a defoliated jungle, monkeys and parrots are no longer their rowdy, rambunctious selves; following nuclear holocaust, occasionally but only occasionally we will hear a parrot squawk or see a monkey move slowly, very slowly, with extreme caution. Not a happy face day for Mother Earth.
Elegance Personified - Tall, slender, cultured, refined, an otherwise blighted urban landscape fades in the presence of stunning Una Persson. Even when Una might turn violent - "Smith and Wesson .45 in her hand, half-cocked" - her radiant beauty shines forth. If The Condition of Muzak found its way into theaters, as I noted previously, Sasha Luss would make the perfect Una.
Music Man - Jerry Cornelius wants to hit the top ten chart with his latest rock group, The Deep Fix. Promoter Sebastian Auchinek tells Jerry directly, "I can see you're serious. But are you commercial?" Some things never change: even in post-nuclear war times, music is seen by the money people as nothing more than a cash cow to milk for all it's worth. Fortunately, classical music survives - at different points in London, Jerry hears Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony and Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire.
And Now For Something Completely Different - Recall I mentioned Condition is part Monty Python skit. Here's a for instance: out beyond London, in the remains of Canterbury, Jerry drives his snazzy brown and cream Duesenberg by a group of monks high up on scaffolding, in the process of erecting a timber reproduction of a Cathedral. He can see they painted the exterior in an effort to make it look like stone. Jerry hoots his horn and waves to the monks and then turns up his stereo to give them a friendly bast of 'Got to Get You into My Life.' But then, whoop: distracted, one of the monks looses his footing on the scaffold and falls fifty feet to his death. Bummer! Jerry-John Cornelius-Cleese speeds onward.
The Condition of Muzak is a Jumpin' Jack Flash and a half. Grab a copy, open the book, and rev up to ZA-ZA-ZOOM.
The Condition of Muzak - Culminating volume of The Cornelius Quartet, a grand finale where, to use a trio of clichés, mighty Moorcock pulls out all the stops, leaves nothing on the table, roars at full throttle so as to give us a novel that's combination Clockwork Orange, Goldfinger, Monty Python sketch and Yellow Submarine. Correspondingly, leading off the long list of component parts that make up main character Jerry Cornelius's fluid identity, there''s Alex, James Bond, John Cleese and Mr. Nowhere Man.
Condition carries this epigraph, a quote from great 19th century literary/art critic and connoisseur Walter Pater: “All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music. For while in all other works of art it is possible to distinguish the matter from the form, and the understanding can always make this distinction, yet it is the constant effort of art to obliterate it.”
And there’s a whole lot of obliteration going down in this Michael Moorcock 400-pager. No big surprise - we're talking serious post-nuclear, post-apocalypse here, a world where the streets of London hop to the drums of Pakistani love songs before shifting to a few bars of Rolling Stones, a world where the countryside beyond Dover returns to its medieval state and the people of Kent are happy at last since they've reverted even further, going back to their natural state of being down and dirty primitives.
Think of Walter Pater's words in light of what art critic Robert Hughes had to say as part of his 1980 series, The Shock of the New: "An artist must be famous to be heard, but as he acquires fame, so his work accumulates 'value' and becomes, ipso-facto, harmless. As far as today's politics is concerned, most art aspires to the condition of Muzak. It provides the background hum for power.” I suspect Robert Hughes was familiar with Michael Moorcock's book.
Although one can read The Condition of Muzak without having familiarity with any of the other volumes in Cornelius Quartet, I'd strongly advise reading the series in sequence. All of the prime characters in Muzak - brother Frank, sister Catherine, Mom, Major Nye, Una Persson, Miss Brunner, Sebastin Auchineck, Bishop Beesley, Mitzi - have a history and we'd do well to know their stories.
As noted above, the quartet of novels culminates in The Condition of Muzak. The cast of characters in Quartet are recast as Commedia dell'arte players dancing the Entropy Tango as they spiral toward oblivion. Of course, Jerry Cornelius, Eternal Champion, hopped up hipster, luminous Londoner, takes center stage in his star roles as, in turn, Harlequin (thus the book's cover), Pierrot and . . . that's for Michael Moorcock to tell.
Fictional flash camera in hand, let me share a few snappy snaps of Magic Michael's copious modern classic:
Transformed Planet - Among the ruins of Angkor in a defoliated jungle, monkeys and parrots are no longer their rowdy, rambunctious selves; following nuclear holocaust, occasionally but only occasionally we will hear a parrot squawk or see a monkey move slowly, very slowly, with extreme caution. Not a happy face day for Mother Earth.
Elegance Personified - Tall, slender, cultured, refined, an otherwise blighted urban landscape fades in the presence of stunning Una Persson. Even when Una might turn violent - "Smith and Wesson .45 in her hand, half-cocked" - her radiant beauty shines forth. If The Condition of Muzak found its way into theaters, as I noted previously, Sasha Luss would make the perfect Una.
Music Man - Jerry Cornelius wants to hit the top ten chart with his latest rock group, The Deep Fix. Promoter Sebastian Auchinek tells Jerry directly, "I can see you're serious. But are you commercial?" Some things never change: even in post-nuclear war times, music is seen by the money people as nothing more than a cash cow to milk for all it's worth. Fortunately, classical music survives - at different points in London, Jerry hears Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony and Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire.
And Now For Something Completely Different - Recall I mentioned Condition is part Monty Python skit. Here's a for instance: out beyond London, in the remains of Canterbury, Jerry drives his snazzy brown and cream Duesenberg by a group of monks high up on scaffolding, in the process of erecting a timber reproduction of a Cathedral. He can see they painted the exterior in an effort to make it look like stone. Jerry hoots his horn and waves to the monks and then turns up his stereo to give them a friendly bast of 'Got to Get You into My Life.' But then, whoop: distracted, one of the monks looses his footing on the scaffold and falls fifty feet to his death. Bummer! Jerry-John Cornelius-Cleese speeds onward.
The Condition of Muzak is a Jumpin' Jack Flash and a half. Grab a copy, open the book, and rev up to ZA-ZA-ZOOM.
Comments
Post a Comment