The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius by Michael Moorcock

 
The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius: Stories of the Comic Apocalypse - Michael Moorcock on Jerry Cornelius from his Introduction:

"For me, he's a character combining the endearing and enduring traits of a number of my contemporaries as well as being a latter day Pierrot, Colombine, and Harlequin, responding to the world around him with, if not always appropriate sentimentality, at least an admirable resourcefulness and malleability. An almost limitless good humor, Jerry's a pretty lighthearted existentialist. He once claimed to be too shallow to hold on to his miseries for very long. I think he also said somewhere (or I might have said it for him) that it isn't especially important if all we're doing is dancing forever on the edge of the abyss. It's scarcely worth worrying about. The really important thing, of course, is the dance itself and how we dance it.
So here are what I consider to be the best of the dances Jerry has danced since the 1960s. I hope some of them at least will get your feet tapping. After a while, you might even feel like joining in."

In the spirit of tapping feet, here's my write-up of each of the eleven tales contained in the book:

1 - THE PEKING JUNCTION

"Out of the rich and rolling lands of the West came Jerry Cornelius, with a vibragun holstered at his hip and a generous message in his heart, to China."

Whoa, baby! Jerry C might be a lighthearted existentialist but he's neither a stranger like Camus' Meursault nor nauseated like Sartre's Roquentin; nope, Jerry Cornelius travels to China sporting the beard and uniform of a Cuban guerrilla and pours Wakayama Sherry for three generals who have agreed to meet him in a remote Chinese province.

Conversation revolves around all that mass devastation cited in previous Jerry Cornelius adventures, most notably A Cure for Cancer - skies thick with Yankee pirate jets, nonstop napalm, millions dead in London, Paris, Berlin - and one general carefully voicing, "The tension, the tension," undoubtedly thinking of Kurtz and his dreadful "the horror! the horror!"

This, the first of twenty-one mini-chapters that make up The Peking Junction, concludes with the following exchange:

A Wakayama Sherry sipping general says, "It must have seemed like the end of the world..."
Jerry frowned. "I suppose so." Then he grinned. "There's no point in making a fuss about it, is there? Isn't it all the for the best in the long run?"
The general looked exasperated. "You people..."

The tale's tone is set thusly and fans will be pleased to encounter quotes from and references to The Chronicle of the Black Sword, The Dreaming City, The Sundered Worlds, dad's fake Le Corbusier château, Karl Glogauer and Jerry's reflecting: "Having been Elric, Asquiiol, Minos Aquilinus, Clovis Marca, now and forever he was Jerry Cornelius of the noble price, proud prince of ruins, boss of the circuits. Faustaff, Muldoon, the eternal champion..."

Three Peking Junction highlights that caught my attention:

A Common Bond Between JC and MM
Jerry Cornelius joins the generals on a visit to the site of a crashed US F111A tactical attack jet. After assessing the damage to wing and tail along with also taking a gander at the ragged, now dead pilot, Jerry forces himself to climb up on the jet's fuselage and "strike a pose he knew would impress the generals." After a general describes how the jet will eventually go in a museum, Jerry pretends to study the cliff above the aircraft since he doesn't want the generals to see him weeping.

Jerry's weeping brings to mind a moving statement in Michael Moorcock's Introduction: "I remember weeping at images of burning children in Vietnam and a few hours later I had turned that grief into comedy in my Jerry Cornelius novel A Cure for Cancer. Maybe, after all, that was my way of staying sane."

Moderan Madness
Returning to the pagoda where they sipped Wakayama Sherry, one of the generals muses while staring across the flat Chinese landscape, "Soon we shall have all this in shape." Really, general? Such a noxious statement is cringeworthy, reminding me of David R. Bunch's Moderan men, half steel, half flesh, whose ultimate goal is to cover the earth with a white-grey sheet of uniform plastic.

Jack the Dripper
At one point while in conversation with the generals, Jerry "suddenly remembered the great upsurge of enthusiasm among American painters immediately after the war and a Pollock came to mind." Love how something someone says can spark a memory for a specific painting. Not surprising this happens to Jer, an eternal champion who is never so overwhelmed he looses his aesthetic sense.

2 - THE DELHI DIVISION

Jerry, the Eternal Champion, entered the land of Shiva-Shakti, drove his Phantom V down twisting lanes in a smoky Indian rain and it's "difficult to see through the haze that softened the landscape. In rain, the world becomes timeless.
Jerry switched on his music, singing along with Jimi Hendrix as he swung around the corners."

Good thinking, Jerry! Sing along with Jimi, very much like a devotee chanting mantra, link your own, very personal voice with the rocker who portrayed himself as the Hindu deity Vishnu. Anchoring yourself via sound, as if practicing nada yoga - just what the Indian sages and rishis call for when time is measured in cycles of billions of years. Remember what Professor Hira told you about kalpa and Kali Yuga.



Jerry arrived at his destination, his big wooden bungalow in Simla, in the far northern reaches of India, just to the west of Tibet. As Cornelius the Champion walked through the rain to the veranda, "he listened to the sound of the water on the leaves of the trees, like the ticking of a thousand watches.
He had come home to Simla and he was moved."

So ends the first of sixteen micro-chapters of Delhi Division, an ending featuring the sound of a thousand watches ticking, bestowing expanded, richer, deeper meaning to time and eternity for our Eternal Champion.

What brings Jerry C to India, pray tell? Answer: to take on the role of English assassin. And speaking of English assassin, with its narrative quick shifts, its insertions of news clips, its prodding readers to fill in the gaps and also a mention of the SS Kao An, The Delhi Division gives us a foretaste of The English Assassin, Book Three of The Cornelius Quartet.

A batch of Delhi Division highlights and questions:

Lord Shiva In Action
Jerry has a blown-up picture of Alan Powys (victim of LSD gas in The Final Programme), a 1952 copy of Vogue, a Captain Marvel comic book (nice touch, Michael Moorcock!), a pack of Pall Mall faded to a barely recognizable pink. No doubt about it, no matter where you look, Shiva's destructive power is made manifest. No wonder Jer mulls over "what was the exact difference between synthesis and sensationalism?" Jerry, forever the artist and aesthete, that's synthesis as in unifying various art forms into an aesthetic whole, a creation that's more than the sum of its parts. As for sensationalism, Jerry wouldn't be satisfied with anything less than the extremely controversial and attention-grabbing, in a word, being sensational.

Come on, Jerry, you can do both at the same time as you balance order and chaos. All in a day's work for an Eternal Champion.

Vishnu/Jerry, Sustainer of Life
"Jerry stayed in for the rest of the afternoon, oiling his needle rifle. Aggression sustained life, he thought. It had to be so; there were many simpler ways of procreating.
Was this why his son had died before he was born?"

Sounds like a Zen koan we are being asked to unpack. Is Jerry's needle rifle a means to maintaining cosmic balance between procreation and death? Should we see Jerry's son as symbolizing his unquenchable sexual yearning?

Classic Flight
Jerry travels south via Tiger Moth biplane, sporting an old-fashioned leather helmet and goggles. Fans will recall Jerry widemouthed while wearing a leather helmet and goggles in a drawing by Romain Slocombe during a future adventure in The Entropy Tango. 



Needle Rifle
"Jerry sighted and titled the rifle a little. He pulled the trigger and sent a needle up through the priest's open mouth and into his brain." Does this JC zap serve as a statement relating to Western conquest and colonization? And what happens further south following a crash landing (bummer) of his biplane, when Jer has an opportunity to kill the Pakistani he's hired to assassinate?

Stunning Sabiha
Back at his bungalow, Jerry opens a brass box and hold it out to Sabiha. She takes what she needs. One of the more provocative scenes in the tale. What is Jerry offering Sabiha? Can we imagine the stunningly beautiful Pakistani film actress Sabiha Khanum as the story's Sabiha?



From the Material to the Spiritual
Was Jerry hired to assassinate Sabiha's lover, a Pakistani, because he wasn't Hindu? And please keep in mind, there is an actual Delhi Division that's a subdivision of Indian Railways, a railroad as active today as it was back in 1968 when this story was written. Is Michael Moorcock drawing an analogy between the Industrial Divisions of regional railways and the Spiritual Division between Indian Hindus and Pakistani Muslims?

Nāmarūpa
Listening to Jimi Hendrix's "Waterfall," our Eternal Champion performed something most quizzical: "Jerry reached down from the table and touched a stud in the floor. The hut disappeared. Jerry took a deep breath and felt much better."

What are we to make of this? Has Jerry reached a level of enlightenment where he has transcended nāma (name) and rūpa (form)? 

3 - THE TANK TRAPEZE 

August 20, 1968 - The Soviet Union swings into action. 200,000 troops and 5,000 tanks invade Czechoslovakia to crush the “Prague Spring," a brief period of liberalization in the communist country.



01.00 hours:
Prague Radio announced the move and said the praesidium of the Czechoslovak Communist Party regarded it as a violation of international law, and that Czechoslovak forces had been ordered not to resist.

* * *

"Perfection had always been his goal, but a sense of justice had usually hampered him. Jerry Cornelius wouldn't be seeing the burning city again."

So opens The Tank Trapeze. That above newsclip, beginning with time notation (0.1.00 hours), is the first of nineteen newsclips taken from the Guardian, August 22, 1968. And Jerry Cornelius episodes in Burma alternate with these short time-denoted Guardian snips reporting unfolding events in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

Jerry arrives in the city of Rangoon, Burma, having traveled via the SS Kao An and is met by a monk with a black Bergman beard that made him look like "an unfrocked BBC producer." Meanwhile, Jerry himself has blonde hair and sports attire most dapper: an elaborately embroidered Russian blouse (loose enough to conceal his shoulder holster and heat), white flannel pants, soft Arabian boots and an old-fashioned astrakhan shako. The two head off in an old Bentley.

"They drove between the green paddy fields and in the distance saw the walls of Mandalay. Jerry rubbed his face. "I hadn't expected it to be so hot." Their conversation is brief and concludes with the monk asking, "Could you kill a child, Mr. Cornelius?" To which Jerry replies, "I could try."

Thus we have, yet again, Jerry taking on the role of English assassin.

The tale's nimble toggling back and forth from Guardian reports on that fateful day in Prague to Jerry's episodic adventures in Burma strikes me as successive flashes of happenings wherein we as readers are asked to fill in the blanks. 

Of course, with Prague, August 20, 1968, we can consult firsthand reports, documented film footage, newspaper archives and the historical record. For Jerry Cornelius in Burma, on the other hand, we have to rely more on our imagination in concert with what we know of Jerry from other adventures, both past and future.

Tank Trapeze also reminds me of how one critic characterized a novel of Fyodor Dostoevsky as "a fairy tale soaked in blood." And not only is this JC tale soaked in blood, both Czech blood and Burmese blood, but at one point Jerry gets soaked by the rain. "Jerry shook his umbrella and looked up at the sound of the helicopter's engines. He was completely drenched; he felt cold and he felt sorry for himself."

A Captain Maxwell asks Jerry:
"How do you do, Mr. Cornelius."
"It depends on what you mean."
Captain Maxwell pressed his lips in a red smile. "I find your manner instructive."

We're well keeping our eye on Captain Maxwell. For as Arthur Schopenhauer was fond of remarking, "Whoever expects to see devils go through the world with horns and fools with jingling bells will always be their prey or plaything." You'll have to read for yourself to judge if our good Captain is more devil than fool but I'll share a hint: he might bring to mind both Miss Brunner and Colonel Pyat.

Lastly, other than that day in August 1968 being the date for both the Czech invasion and Jerry in Burma, there is another direct connection: "Peering through the slit in the blind he (Jerry) saw a squadron of L-29 Delfins fly shrieking over the golden rooftops. Were they part of an occupation force?" The L-29 Delfin was a jet used by the Warsaw Pact, the same Warsaw Pact instrumental in invading Czechoslovakia. To add an additional of layer of irony: the L-29 was both designed and manufactured in Czechoslovakia.



"The temple was rather like an Anuradhapuran ziggurat, rising in twelve ornate tiers of enamelled metal inlaid with silver, bronze, gold, onyx, ebony and semiprecious stones. Its entrance was over-hung by three arches, each like an inverted V, one upon the other. The building seemed overburdened, like a tree weighted with too much ripe fruit."

4 - THE SWASTIKA SET-UP

With 'Swastika' in the title, it is as if this entire thirty-page tale is coated with the Nazi symbol. Oh, yes, the black Nazi swastika in the center of white and red on flag after flag, plaque after plaque, repeated thousands and thousands of times, the swastika representing force, power, the desire to crush everything and everyone who dares stand in the way of the unbending absolute as proclaimed by the Nazis.



However, for Jerry Cornelius, the swastika becomes merely a set-up, a framework, a preamble for our Eternal Champion to swing and swagger into fabulous form.

So, turn on some Beatles or Jimi Hendrix, get yourself ready to become a co-creator as you read about a set-up most swastikish. Oh, yes, you as reader are empowered to engage your creative imaginings as you make your way through this tale, filling in the gaps, adding your own flashes and zips of sparkle.

The Swastika Set-Up spotlights dozens of mini-chapters with such headings as The Fix, Double Lightning, Uncomfortable Visions, Electric Landlady, Popcorn, A Cure for Cancer (haha! if you've already read The Cornelius Quartet, you are ahead of the game), Anarchists in Love. So many opportunities for a reader to flash their magic inner eye flasher. Come up with your own! Meanwhile, take a gander at a gaggle of mine, as per -

ULTIMATE FORBIDDEN FRUIT
The opening micro-chapter finds Jerry flashing back to a time when he was having sex (take a deep breath) with his dear old mom. The concluding line, "He adjusted the stiff white shirt cuffs projecting an inch beyond the sleeves of his black car coat, placed his hand near his heart and shifted the shoulder holster slightly to make it lie more comfortably. Even the assassination business was getting complicated."

Ah, the conjoining of sex and violence, a combination explosive in the extreme, a twist away, frequently a perverse, kinky twist, from Eros and Thanatos - love and death intertwined, dancing their eternal dance. And talking of twisted, recollect the twisted minds needed to come up with the twisted Nazi cross on their red, black and white.

Jerry's pythonic playing will, via a substantial snatch, seize the twisted Nazi energy and twist it again, transforming SS in ways most spectacular.

MANY METAPHORS
In a micro-chapter entitled The Map, Jerry muses, "The recent discovery of sex and drugs had taken their minds off the essential problems. Time was silting up (great image Michael Moorcock!). Jer grins as he drives along in his dozy of a Duesenberg but then it happens: "His car hit an old man with an extraordinary resemblance to Walt Disney's Pinocchio. No, there was an even closer likeness. He got it. Richard Nixon. He roared with laughter."

Recall the whole Fascist connection applied to the tale of Pinocchio, where Geppetto represents Swiss neutrality, Stromboli as bearded Mussolini, Barker the Coachman as a fifth columnist, Monstro the Whale as a German U-boat menace and peace-loving Pinocchio as guy with a phallus for a schnozzola. Also recall tricky dickhead Dicky as a president some accused as being a Fascist.

No wonder Jer roared with laughter!

MALICIOUS MISS
I'd be derelict if I didn't include a snatch of dialogue. Here's JC with MB as in Miss Brunner:

"Eventually Miss Brunner emerged from the wheelhouse...She held a baby in her crooked right arm, a Smith & Wesson .44 revolver in her left hand.
She gave him a bent smile. "Good morning, Mr. Corenlius. So our paths come together again."
"I got your note. What's up, Miss Brunner?"
She shook her short red hair in the wind and turned her feline face down to regard the baby.
"Do you like children, Mr. Cornelius?"
"It depends." Jerry moved to look at the baby and was shocked.
"It's got your eyes and mouth, hasn't it?" said Miss Brunner. She offered it to him. "Would you like to hold it?"
He took a wary step backward. She shrugged and tossed the little creature far out over the rail. He heard it his the water, whine, gurgle.
"I only hung on to it in case you'd want to have it." she said apologetically. "Okay, Mr. Cornelius. Let's get down to business."
"I might have kept it," Jerry said feelingly. "You didn't give me much of a chance to consider."
"Oh, really, Mr. Cornelius. You should be able to make up your mind more quickly than that. Are you going soft?"
"Just crumbling a little, at the moment.""

Yes, indeed, familiar C Quartet faces pop up as part of the S Set-Up.

TO TRUTH OR NOT TO TRUTH
In a brief micro entitled Falsehood, we read three words; "Truth is absolute." There's some serious irony going down here in the 20th century: the zenith of Nazi power, Nazi ironclad intolerance, Nazi absolute certainty in their own jackboot principles shared the same time frame as the development of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle with its recognition of tolerance and humility as foundational in our human, all too human exploration of and living in the universe.

What to do here in the ferocious 21st? Hang easy; dangle loose. Kick back with JC the EC, listen to some of those golden 60s oldies and groove to the rhythms of your own bod. And, when you have a moment, read The Swastika Set-Up to make your own commendable connections, as many as you like. 

5 - THE SUNSET PERSPECTIVE  

We're given ten short chapters and Michael Moorcock keeps in the spirit of allowing a reader to take on the role of co-creator, filling in the gaps, expanding this Jerry saga with one's own imagination.

All of the many news clips and news references are from that most wild 1960s year – 1969, the year of the Woodstock Festival, the year when the United States involvement in Vietnam was at its peak as was public outrage against the war.

Sidebar: I myself recall just how wild - I was a college sophomore in 1969. Publishing note: The Sunset Perspective first appeared in a 1971 London avant-garde poetry magazine edited by John Sladek and Pamela Zoline, a poetry magazine with the wickedly satiric title Ronald Reagan: A Magazine of Poetry.

Here's a batch of Sunset Perspective tabs in the form of direct quotes coupled with my comments. In swingin' 69 spirit, let these tale tabs brighten up the sun for you:

"Jerry sighed. He reached the field where his Gates Twinjet was parked. He climbed in, revved the chopper 's engine, and buzzed up into the relative peace of the skies over Cornwall, heading for London."

As it turned out, Jer was the only customer for this Lear Jet Corp luxury helicopter - the company scotched production in 1970 and Gates Twinjet never reached the market. Meanwhile, Jerry C keeps on chopping, proof that, once again, fiction wins out over fact.



“Jerry finally managed to track Miss Brunner down. She was burying a goat in the Hyde Park crater and didn't see him come up and stand looking over the rim at her.”

Why would Miss Brunner be doing such a thing? Predictably, Miss Brunner seeks power, this time from the “Total Energy Concept.” And since Miss Brunner tells Jerry she also has eight toads and four newts buried in the park, Miss Brunner sounds like her means of accessing power shares much in common with occultist and ceremonial magician Aleister Crowley. By Miss Brunner's calculations, there are strong energy emanations vectoring from New York.

Ah, the Big Apple. Jerry is on the move somewhere along the New Jersey Turnpike. Our Eternal Hero has traded in his Gates Twinjet for a Cadillac limousine and carefully licks his upper lip with a black mixture of oil and blood from the nail of his little finger (a concoction from Miss Brunner's alchemy?) as he roars down the turnpike, sirens blaring, escorted by six outriders in their red and orange leather (I envision six menacing Hell's Angel-types), their arms raised high, gripping their ape hanger handlebars as if they're tightening their fingers around the throats of any onlookers daring to challenge Jerry's power.

"On the George Washington Bridge Jerry decided to change the Cadillac for one of his outriders' BMW 750s....He kicked the starter and had reached eighty by the time he hit Manhattan and entered the island's thick haze of incense."

Jerry zooming into Manhattan at 80mph from the GWB says it all - Jerry has assumed the mantle of a Dell Comics Superhero. And a good thing too: there's corpses piled on the streets, the occasional pop-pop-pop of distant gunfire and "faggots, sporting the stolen uniforms of the Tactical Riot Police, were lobbing B-H5 gas grenades into the tangled heaps of automobiles."

The violence escalates. In addition to Miss Brunner, other familiar names make their way to the scene, among their number: Mr Alvarez, Colonel Moon, Shaky Mo Collier and New York Mets playing in the World Series.

"Once history ceases to be seen in linear terms, it ceases to be made in linear terms."

With this line, I hear echoes of Bishop Berkeley's "to be is to be perceived." 1969, the year when massive numbers of young people began dropping LSD and started to dig the rising counterculture - suddenly all those fixed, static conventional categories, including what passes for history, take on the consistency of Jell-O. Grove on, grove on, Jerry Cornelius! There's good reason Michael Moorcock entitled this one The Sunset Perspective.

"So it's a morality syndrome?" So Miss Brunner asks Jerry. As well she should since the Vietnam War is referenced repeatedly in this chapter, including news clips on how Vietnam is a "testing ground" for a wide range of weapons and "Peace rallies drew throngs to the city's streets, parks, campuses and churches yesterday in an outpouring of protest against the Vietnam war." And let's not forget many Americans called Vietnam an "immoral war."

All through The Sunset Perspective I had the distinct sense Michael Moorcock anticipated such anti-war novels as Gustav Hasford's blistering The Short-Timers and The Phantom Blooper, the later novel beginning: "This book is dedicated to the three million veterans of the Viet Nam War, three million loyal men and women who were betrayed by their country."

The tale ends with Jerry laying down on the grass and closing his eyes. "He listened to the lazy sound of the distant traffic, he sniffed the scents of autumn." Jerry C's final reflection on his Big Apple adventure is a ten word golden apple.

6 - SEA WOLVES

Sea Wolves features twenty-four microchapters contained within fifteen pages, beginning with Your computer needs you and ending with a reminder the 1970s are just around the corner and a note that all ad quotes in Sea Wolves are from the December 6 issue of Business Week.

And what awaits a reader between beginning and end? As per Jerry Cornelius usual, a multiverse of imagination. Below are assorted sparks -

"It occurs to us that while we've been saying "you need your computer" we'd also like to emphasise something equally important.
"Your computer needs you."
You see, without you your computer is nothing.
In fact it's people like yourself that have made the computer what it is today.
It's people like you that have made their computer do some pretty exciting things."

Amazing. It's as if visionary Michael Moorcock could see fifty years into the future, could see our present day world culture of ubiquitous laptops and cell phones, where the entire population is connected via the internet, a world where we no longer project ourselves onto our personal internet profile since we ARE our internet profile. With a touch of black humor, way back in 1969 Michael Moorcock could hear the current 2021 generation proclaim: Who cares when my physical body gives out and I die? I will live on as my internet profile!

"Running, grinning, aping the movements of the mammals milling about him, Jerry Cornelius made tracks from the menagerie that was My Lai, the monster tourist attraction of the season."

This quote is from the the first chapter, a vision of hell on earth, the My Lai massacre, a horror reaching households around the globe in full living technicolor by way of TV, newspapers and magazines. The hell of the Vietnam War casts its bloody, deadly stain as Eternal Champion Jerry Cornelius journeys forth as the alpha Sea Wolf.



"A fine balance had to be maintained between man and machine, just as between man and man, man and woman, man and environment."

Clues to maintaining a fine balance might be found it what it means to be a sea wolf, as per - 

First meaning: Sea wolves are a unique breed of wolf in the Great Bear Rainforest along the Pacific Coast of Canada. Genetically distinct from wolves in any other part of the world, sea wolves swim between islands like fish. Recall from The English Assassin, Jerry has had his own spot of time in the salty sea.

Second meaning: The Sea Wolves is a 1980 film starring Gregory Peck, Roger Moore and David Niven based on the 1978 thriller by James Leasor, which, in turn, is based on a covert March, 1943 attack against a German merchant ship that had been transmitting information to German U-boats.

Of course, Michael Moorcock writing his Sea Wolves back in 1970 had no knowledge of the future film nor did the British author necessarily know about those fish-like wolves in the Pacific Northwest. But, and here's where the multiverse magic kicks in, it is as if Jerry Cornelius embodies the energy of those unique swimming wolves along with what it takes to pull off that dangerous maneuver conducted by Special Operations Executive in World War II.



Jer will need all the energy he can muster. He'll be traveling to Phnom Penh, encountering Cossacks along the Dnieper River and wandering along grassy paths between ancient ruins in Villahermosa, Mexico.

At one point a young gent by the name of Cyril Tome enters Jerry's hut. Cyril can see JC has his needler, heater and vibragun. Jerry brushes back his fine blonde shoulder length hair. After some prattle, Jerry detects Cyril is filled with fear. "Fear, Mr. Tome. I think we might have to book you."
Cyril responds, "But I thought you were on my side."  To which Jerry replies, "Christ! Of course I am. All their sides. And all the other sides. Of course I am!"

You tell him, Jerry! A Sea Wolf Eternal Champion transcends categories and political affiliations. Forever his own man, Jerry will also encounter the likes of Bishop Beesley and Miss Brunner and he isn't about to be bound by preconceived notions of identity.

But, you might ask, the chapter title is Sea Wolves as in more than one wolf. Ah, yes, wolves travel in packs - and Jerry needs other wolves to help him hunt. And, who are these other wolves? Why, of course - you the readers! That's right, in keeping with Michael Moorcock's vision of the Jerry Cornelius series, readers are cocreators and participate in the adventures via their own imagination. You are among the chosen pack. The hunt is on. 

7 - VOORTREKKER

In case you're wondering, "Voortrekker" refers to those courageous Dutch-speaking peoples who, in 1836, formed the first wave migrating in mass in covered wagons from the Cape Colony on the southern tip of Africa to the interior in order to live beyond British rule. The migration came to be known as the "Great Trek."

Living beyond the boundaries of British rule - something that surely would resonate with our Eternal Champion having the initials J.C..



Over two dozen mini-chapters make up Voortrekker and in vintage Michael Moorcock spirit, as readers we're invited to engage our creative energies, kick our imagination into high gear so as to fill in the gaps and co-create the story we're reading.

To share a tasty taste of the Voortrekker vibe, I've linked my comments with down-and-ditty direct quotes -

"Although The Deep Fix hadn't been together for some time Shaky Mo Collier was in good form. He turned to the console, shifting the mike from his right hand to his left, and gave himself a touch more echo for the refrain. Be-bop-a-lula. Jerry admired the way Mo had his left foot twisted just right."

Jerry has a whiff of entropy when his numb fingers muff a chord (bummer, Jerry!). And, yes, familiar faces show up in the Voortrekker adventure: in addition to Mo there's Miss Brunner (natch) and Sebastian Auchinek.

The chapter entitled Heartbreak Hotel contains one of a number of Guardian quotes from the year 1970: "Refugees fleeing from Svey Rieng province speak of increasing violence in Cambodia against the Vietnamese population. Some who have arrived here in the past 24 hours tell stories of eviction and even massacre at the hands of Cambodian soldiers sent from Phnom Penh."

The Guardian piece was written 130 years after the Voortrekker migration to flee the rule of British bureaucrats and politicians. The names and places might change but how many people have fled from political oppression to seek asylum as refugees in the closing decades of the 20th century? How many since that time and are still fleeing today? Round to the nearest million.

"Van Markus brought the drink and Jerry paid him, took a sip and crossed to the juke-box to select the new version of Recessional sung by the boys of the Reformed Dutch Church School at Heidelberg. Only last week it had toppled The Jo'burg Jazz Flutes' Cocoa Beans from number one spot."

Nothing like a little rock 'n roll to get your blood moving as many of those across the globe have their blood moved for them by way of bullet holes and other gruesome openings provided thanks to weapons of all varieties. Hey, variety is the spice of life - and death.

"If the world is to be consumed by horror," Auchinek had told him (Jerry) that morning, "if evil is to sweep the globe and death engulf it, I wish to be that horror, that evil, that death. I'll be on the winning side, won't I? Which side are you on?"

Makes perfect logical sense, Auchinek. If horror, evil and death completely engulf our planet, the prime question for you and people like you will be: Am I the winner? After all, what's really important about the entirety of life, every tiny tiny bit of life is: it's all about me! Always was; always will be.

"Helpless with mirth, Jerry accepted the glass Auchinek put in his hand and; spluttering, tried to swallow the aquavit.
"Give him your gun, Herr Auchinek," Miss Brunner patted him on the back and slid her hand down his thighs. Jerry fired a burst into the ceiling.
They were all laughing now."

Good thinking, Jer! In your eternal quest to mark the beat of order and chaos, in your now and then firing a burst into the ceiling, a bullet, some jit, whatever, best to keep a sense of humor.

8 - THE SPENCER INHERITANCE

 And as every Brit knows, that's Spencer as in Diana Frances Spencer who became Diana, Princess of Wales.

The Spencer Inheritance consists of thirteen short chapters where Chapter One begins:

"Leave Me Alone"

"I mean, once or twice I've heard people say to me that you know Diana's out to destroy the monarchy...Why would I want to destroy something that is my children's future?"
---Diana, Princess of Wales, Television Interview, November 1995



We quickly discover England is immersed in chaos, so much so Jer C along with Shakey Mo Collier, Colonel Hira, Bishop Beesley and Major Nye rumble forth in an WWI Flamefang MK IV north of a decimated London, their mission: "to liberate their holy relics in the name of their dead liege, who had died reluctantly at Lavender Hill." Go get 'em, gang!



Picture Jer & Company crammed in this WWI tank with Shaky Mo at the ready to fire the cannon. "Those Caroline bastards will think twice before taking their holidays in Dorset again."

The good Bishop Beesley pontificates: "We are experiencing the influence of the world will. We are helpless before a massive new mythology being created around us and of which we could almost be part. This is the race-mind expressing itself." Oh, Bishop, I hear echoes of Nietzsche in your proclamation. Irony, anyone?

Massive new mythology? In keeping with Michael Moorcock's literary aesthetic, we're invited to read between the lines and fill in the gaps as co-creators of this tale. Good thing our Eternal Champion is on the scene - although, at the moment, Jer is feeling overly full and crapulous.

To add to the solemnity of the occasion, a batch of September, 1997 post-Princess Di crash quotes pepper the pages. "She brought magic into all our lives and we loved her for it."

A chunk of Princess Di magic has England plunged in a bloody, gutty civil war; it's the Dianistas vs. Flairites (as in Prime Minister Toney Flair).

"You turn people into fiction you get shocked when they die real deaths." Thus speaketh Little Trixibell Brunner. Oh, yes, daughter and mommy Brunner pop up on the scene.

Events move apace bringing to mind a quote from that other Spencer by the name of Herbert: "The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools."

Of course, in any civil war the prime question upon meeting fully armed ragtag ragamuffins is what side are they on. Precisely the issue when the gang spots a bunch of such. "They wore bandannas and fatigues clearly influenced by Apocalypse Now. This made them dangerous enemies and flaky friends. Virtual Nam had taken them over. Jerry sized them up. Those people always went for the flashiest ordnance. He had never seen so many customized Burberrys and pre-bloodstained Berber flak jackets."

All doubts are removed when one of their number comes into focus: Mrs. Persson. Ah, yes, it's gorgeous Una to add an undeniable sweetness. We need you, sweet, sweet Una, since dastardly brother Frank eventually shows up, his puss snarling as expected.

How will it all end? Will Prince Harry meet the Spice Girls? Will our suite of souped up supers make it to the Spencer family estate at Althorp? And who will become an object for cloning sold to the likes of an American corporation, say Procter and Gamble?

9 - THE CAMUS CONNECTION

Just the mention of Albert Camus brings to mind The Myth of Sisyphus where Sisyphus is condemned to forever push a boulder up a mountain only to see the boulder roll down the other side. However, Camus ends his tale thusly: "The struggle itself is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy".

Reading this Michael Moorcock tale, I detect Eternal Hero Jerry C maintains an underlying cheer in all the various situations and quagmires he must face. Hey, if you're going to travel the multiverse, you might as well grab all the happiness you possibly can.

The Camus Connection contains ten chapters, each chapter opening with a quote from the likes of literary critic Edward Said or American politician Bob Dole. Appropriately enough, the final chapter quote is from Albert Camus that ends: "You can be homesick in Paris for breathing space and the whisper of wings. In Algiers, at least, you can sample any desire and be certain of your pleasures, your self, and so know at last what everything you own is worth."

Whoa, baby! From the sounds of it, Algiers is Jerry's kind of place. Hey, Jer, maybe you can stay in Algiers with lovely Una and ditch the bitch Brunner along with Shakey Mo, Major Nye and the rest of the raunchy crew!



Keeping in the spirit of The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius, the mighty Moorcock invites his readers to fill in the Camus Connection gaps with their own imagination. So I'll do just that and sprinkle in my commentary linked with a trio of direct quotes:

"Now we're somewhere between the end of one millennium and the beginning of another....Maybe it was the dope in the sixties? They sell you any old muck now." He (Jerry) patted his heavy suitcase.
"This is the age of the lowest common denominator. I blame America." So responds Miss Brunner.

In many ways, the 20th century was indeed the American century with the US participation in WWI and WWII and then the worldwide influence of American television and movies and mass popular culture. I recall a friend of mine who grew up in the 1960s in Tehran, Iran telling me his abiding memory as a kid was watching Captain Kangaroo!

"I can't believe in a simple duality. The evidence is all against it. Once a clone...Clone away, young multiverse."

You tell 'em, Jerry! The multiverse is teeming with multiple versions of Jerry - and he knows it. Think about it. How many versions of 'you' have you had in your own life, your 'one lifetime' so called? For me, reading about the multiverse is nothing less than exhilarating. How many Glenn Russells have I lived thru and metamorphosed from like a butterfly from a caterpillar? Too many to count! This is one key reason why, in a Fahrenheit 451 world, my choice would be MM's The Cornelius Quartet.

Sidebar: my artistic life includes playing renaissance music on recorders and other wind instruments in an early music quartet, performing spoken word theater a la Spalding Gray, performing living sculpture mime, performing Commedia dell'Arte using the masks of Pantalone, Dottore, Capitano, Arlecchino, Zanni and Pulcinella, doing street theater, improv dance, playing mrdanga drum for kirtans and drum circles, publishing a novel and collections of microfiction, creating montage art, reading 4,000 books and writing nearly 1,200 book reviews. It's been a tasty multiverse life!

"We don't have to worry about the Europeans. All the British and the French are waiting for is American leadership." -- Bob Dole to Congress, 1995

Come on, Bobby! You're coming off as a bloated buffoon. European countries have their own rich traditions, not only in politics but in such fields as literature and the arts. They need American blowhards like they need toothache. 

10 - CHEERING FOR THE ROCKETS

A Jerry C snapper divided into four chapters: Noon, Non, None, No, where we're in 1998 and the location is a shifting somewhere on planet Earth in the multiverse. You want familiar characters? Cheering for the Rockets has a bunch in full form: Trixiebell Brunner, Printz Lobkowitz, Shaky Mo, Professor Hira, Old Lady B and, of course, Jerry C.

I must admit reading this Cosmonaut Cornelius tale had my brain cells set aflame with so many crackling lines to quote from. I'll contain myself and link my comments to the following batch:

“There is this same anti-semitism in America. I hear the swirl and mutter of it around me in restaurants, at clubs, on the beach, in Washington, in New York, and here at home.”

This Philip Wylie quote taken from his Generation of Vipers opens the story, setting the tone for the entire piece – how much current day sentiment sees the Jews are one big diabolical family, gaining control of the media so they can control the world.

“Sudanese pharmaceuticals they'd grabbed at random on their way through Omdurman. The labels were pretty much of a mystery. Jerry's Arabic didn't run to over-the-counter drugs.”

Vintage Michael Moorcock sizzling humor. Is there anybody in the crowd (any MM fans reading my review) that can lend our hip Eternal Champion some help in reading those labels written in Arabic? No matter, you can join Jer as he pops some colorful Omdurman pills and takes his chances.

“If it can't be romanticized or sentimentalized it's denied. Fighting virtual wars with real guns. That's why they export so much escapism. It's their main cash crop. That's why they've disneyfied the world. And why they're so welcome. Who wants to buy reality.”

Ha! The victory of commercialized, cartoonish American pop culture extending worldwide to create a colossal bubble of illusion. Read the words of philosopher Theodor W. Adorno as they contain the undeniable ring of truth: “Walt Disney, the most dangerous American of all time.”

“Home of the grave. Land of the fee. You discount everything you have that's valuable. You sell it for less than the traders paid for Manhattan. Now all that's left are guns and herds of overweight buffalo wallowing across a subcontinent of syrup.”

You gotta love the word play! You gotta love how America has turned the world, including counties like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, into lands of syrupy moneymaking dreams and shoot 'em up Westerns. No wonder Jer keeps popping those colorful Omdurman pills.

“You had a vital, successful trading nation reasonably aware of its cultural shortcomings. Which everyone liked. We like your film stars. We liked your music. Your sentimental cartoon world. And then you had to take the next step and become an imperial power. Burden of empire. Malign by definition. Hated by all, including yourselves. You're not a country any more, you're an extended episode of the X-Files.”

Thus speaketh Prniz Lobkowitz. Sorry world. Little did you know the mass media's pop culture was only the first step. Your governments and politics are now primed to become tools of the big, bad bottom line for global US corporations.

“Jillian Burnes, the famous transsexual novelist”

Hey, Julian Barnes. Give us your take on fab Jerry Cornelius and his lives and times. Come on, guy, get hip!

“Once you get it (your market economy) in place, you'll take off like a rocket.” Quote of Bill Clinton speaking to Russian Duma.

How did the Russian economy actually take off? Russian author Victor Pelevin could never understand why "it was worth exchanging an evil empire for an evil banana republic that imported its bananas from Finland."

“It is our goal to teach every school child in Texas to read.” Quote of George W. Bush.

Sounds good, W. But unfortunately if you teach children the mechanics of reading without teaching them the LOVE of reading, you'll create an adult population of semi-illiterates only capable of reading Twitter quips, the current plight of million of Texans in 2021.

“We're defined by our appetites and how we control them. They've made greed a virtue. What on earth possesses them?”

I suspect Jerry Cornelius could answer his own question: Greed fuels a commercialized, global economy for both those in power (money, money, money!) and billions of forever hungry consumers.

Cheering for the Rockets concludes with an extended note on Philip Wyle (1902-1971) where the final line reads, “Much of his work was a continuing polemic concerned with his own nation, for which he invented the term momism to explain how sentimentality and over-simplification would be the ruin of American democracy.”

Spot-on Philip! You hit the Fox Nation bullseye.

11 - FIRING THE CATHEDRAL

A twenty-two chapter novella here.  Here's how it starts off.  Fans of the author who continue reading this multilayered tale are in for a tasty treat.

 ONE - Buffalo Soldiers

“Aha, young patriot? And what do you desire the Gandalf to bring you for July 4th?”

We're at the World Trade Center Memorial Mall, not the recently constructed new one since Firing the Cathedral published in 2002. None other than Bishop Beesley plays the part of Gandalf from the middle of May until 9/11 when he switches over to Uncle Santa or Sam Claus til December 25th.

Love that conflating Uncle Sam and Santa Claus cause sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. Also love how Beesley as J. R. R. Tolkien's Gandalf does the patriotic thing by linking his wizardry with America's celebration of Independence Day. Meanwhile, twitching up the bishop's cassock with his MK51 and sniffing at Gandalf's sweet smoke (adhering to mall fire regulations, I'm sure), Shaky Mo Collier asks, “Is that your own beard?”

Gandalf fires back at Shaky Mo and ends by proclaiming he's old and wise and acts “just like our president and all his sages, actually behaving according to a carefully pre-arranged plan.”

Ouch! So many zingers hurled at US politics and culture right on the first pages. And there's good reason since we're talking American mall here, haven and palace of brand names and shop til you drop. We're also talking George W. Bush as president with his “Axis of Evil” post-9/11 State of the Union Address and CNN pronouncing, “Jerusalem: This is were it all began. This is where it will end.”

Actually, Michael Moorcock includes the above clips among news quotes generously sprinkled in both the novella's short preface and at the beginning of each chapter.

An entire lineup of kids, “all security tagged and highly tranked” wait to have their turn with Gandalf. Meanwhile, Mo needs to buy some dope from Tolkien's gray bearded wizard. Shazam! Such black humor.

Gandalf reaches in his robe, lowers his voice and tells Mo, "Cash only. Mil a lid." No prob for Mo. He pulls a big wad from his stylish flak jacket and the deal is consummated under the zonked noses of the security guards.

Mo asks Gandalf Beesley the critical question: Wasn't it time Jerry turned up as it didn't seem fair otherwise cause he'd been on ice for too long. Such words will bring JC fans to attention: Is this a repeat of The English Assassin?

Some more Gandalf Mo stuff and Bishop Gandalf Beesley sits back down on his stool for the lineup of tranquilized kiddos....And then the kicker to end the chapter, foreshadowing with vengeance: "The whole mall was silent for ten minutes, awaiting the inevitable gunshot."

Two - Tell Me There's a Heaven 

"He has no soul."  One of the quotes kicking off this chapter, a George W. Bush quote as reported by Fox TV two months after the attack on the World Trade Center, NYC.  So, so ironic since Muslims like Osama bin Laden look at the US as the Great Satan, destroyer of their Holy Lands for the sole purpose of drilling for oil.  Sidebar: one Texan told me people in Texas love GWB since he prays in the White House.  The clash of fundamentalists of different religions can border on the humorous (when it is not murderous).

"Ever since Jerry had known him Sir Taffy Sinclair had been up to something...So when Sinclair sent a message, the old assassin was going to come through."  Go get 'em, Jer, you old English Assassin! 

"The coming collapse of New York made him realize he only felt thoroughly easy in a big city."  Some people, like Jer, like myself, feel uneasy in a small town where 'everyone knows everyone else' or in the country with all its biting insects, pollen and country folk.  Nope - nothing but a big city will do. 

 Oh, yes, Jerry has made his way on the scene, as does brother Frank and Mitzi.  When Jer asks about Mitzi's dad the Bishop, she tells him, "They spent a fortune on reproducing The Two Towers."  Michael Moorcock has a jolly old time conflating J.R.R. Tolkien's Two Towers with NYC's Twin Towers. 

"Revolutions are about people either trying to keep things the same or restore a golden age."  Unfortunately, the last thing a revolutionary wants is for people to take a radical switch of identity, becoming free individuals beyond the boundaries of someone else's vision, even the leader of the revolution! 

 "People really hate liberty.  First sniff they get of it and they dive back into their familiar captivity.  They fight to the death to keep those chains."  Very true!  All you have to do is REALLY express your freedom by breaking away from convention, things like doing street theater with masks or dancing wildly in a public place, and the uptight, constipated conformists of the world want you to stop.

"Tom Paine, eh?  And Common Sense.  If you ask me the Canadians are the ones who had the common sense."  As one Canadian told me: "Canada has all the material benefits of the US but none of the liabilities."