The Condition of Muzak by Michael Moorcock

 


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, 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.


British author Michael Moorcock, born 1939