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Jerry Cornelius #1-4 omnibus
The Cornelius Chronicles
paperback
974 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
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About the author
Michael Moorcock
1,206 books3,741 followersMichael John Moorcock is an English writer primarily of science fiction and fantasy who has also published a number of literary novels.
Moorcock has mentioned The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw and The Constable of St. Nicholas by Edward Lester Arnold as the first three books which captured his imagination. He became editor of Tarzan Adventures in 1956, at the age of sixteen, and later moved on to edit Sexton Blake Library. As editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine New Worlds, from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the science fiction "New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the United States. His serialization of Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron was notorious for causing British MPs to condemn in Parliament the Arts Council's funding of the magazine.
During this time, he occasionally wrote under the pseudonym of "James Colvin," a "house pseudonym" used by other critics on New Worlds. A spoof obituary of Colvin appeared in New Worlds #197 (January 1970), written by "William Barclay" (another Moorcock pseudonym). Moorcock, indeed, makes much use of the initials "JC", and not entirely coincidentally these are also the initials of Jesus Christ, the subject of his 1967 Nebula award-winning novella Behold the Man, which tells the story of Karl Glogauer, a time-traveller who takes on the role of Christ. They are also the initials of various "Eternal Champion" Moorcock characters such as Jerry Cornelius, Jerry Cornell and Jherek Carnelian. In more recent years, Moorcock has taken to using "Warwick Colvin, Jr." as yet another pseudonym, particularly in his Second Ether fiction.
Moorcock has mentioned The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw and The Constable of St. Nicholas by Edward Lester Arnold as the first three books which captured his imagination. He became editor of Tarzan Adventures in 1956, at the age of sixteen, and later moved on to edit Sexton Blake Library. As editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine New Worlds, from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the science fiction "New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the United States. His serialization of Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron was notorious for causing British MPs to condemn in Parliament the Arts Council's funding of the magazine.
During this time, he occasionally wrote under the pseudonym of "James Colvin," a "house pseudonym" used by other critics on New Worlds. A spoof obituary of Colvin appeared in New Worlds #197 (January 1970), written by "William Barclay" (another Moorcock pseudonym). Moorcock, indeed, makes much use of the initials "JC", and not entirely coincidentally these are also the initials of Jesus Christ, the subject of his 1967 Nebula award-winning novella Behold the Man, which tells the story of Karl Glogauer, a time-traveller who takes on the role of Christ. They are also the initials of various "Eternal Champion" Moorcock characters such as Jerry Cornelius, Jerry Cornell and Jherek Carnelian. In more recent years, Moorcock has taken to using "Warwick Colvin, Jr." as yet another pseudonym, particularly in his Second Ether fiction.
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July 9, 2020
Cornelius Quartet - By my modest judgement, 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
A humdinger strutting with Blade Runner 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.
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.
Kablooey! The sound of Michael Magic Mushroom Moorcock exploding any reader's expectations. Oops. Did I really say 'order' back there? Another 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.
THE CONDITION OF MUZAK - VOLUME 4
The culminating volume, a grand finale where, to use a trio of clichés, mighty Moorcock pulls out all stops, leaves nothing on the table, roars at full throttle. We have novel as combination Clockwork Orange, Goldfinger, Monty Python sketch and Yellow Submarine animated film - after all, parts of Jerry Cornelius include Alex, James Bond, John Cleese and Mr. Nowhere Man.
Quartet Cornelius - literary blowout x 4.
British author Michael Moorcock, born 1939
April 25, 2012
I have to say with regard to all things Cornelius, I am either a simpleton, or these stories are needlessly complicated and convoluted for naught but their own sake.
I have literally been trying to get through this book since the 80's. I cannot do it. There is simply too much going on. Too many logic jumps. Followed immediately by too much abstraction and freelancing babbling about nothing in particular. I know many other people who swear by these stories but as Moorcock novels go I can only conclude that the simplicity of the Elric, Corum, Hawkmoon, Count Brass, etc. series is made up for by making this series into the fiction equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
In fact, the entire End of Time thing that Moorcock did has to receive an overall score of tepid from me. Elric at the End of Time was entertaining for a short period, and it was doubly exciting to recognize the hook in Sailor on the Seas of Fate from the Elric saga which could only be what this book expands on. But in the end, I was left, as with Dancers at the End of Time which was my third attempt at this series, with no idea what the point was besides parading extreme decadence and the boredom and ceaseless philosophizing that accompanies it in front of the reader's face.
I get that everyone at the end of time is running things "like a boss", and that I guess they are the ultimate Lords of Chaos, so nothing is ever ordered and everything is decided by whim. Cool story. The problem with this is that such realities are those of the characters and do not require such whimsical and random writing style as is used here to authenticate it. Everything goes off on these random tangents. Plotlines and situations start up and then suddenly pull off enough 900 degree flips to scare Tony Hawk onto roller skates. The end result, at least for me, was that nothing stuck and I quickly lost interest in figuring out what was happening.
I can only give impressions, and not plot synopsis, because I literally never grasped the plot. Sorry. Perfect for hipsters who get a kick out of being and understanding "cryptic", anyone looking for a story that engages and goes somewhere tangible would be better off leaving this on the shelf.
I have literally been trying to get through this book since the 80's. I cannot do it. There is simply too much going on. Too many logic jumps. Followed immediately by too much abstraction and freelancing babbling about nothing in particular. I know many other people who swear by these stories but as Moorcock novels go I can only conclude that the simplicity of the Elric, Corum, Hawkmoon, Count Brass, etc. series is made up for by making this series into the fiction equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
In fact, the entire End of Time thing that Moorcock did has to receive an overall score of tepid from me. Elric at the End of Time was entertaining for a short period, and it was doubly exciting to recognize the hook in Sailor on the Seas of Fate from the Elric saga which could only be what this book expands on. But in the end, I was left, as with Dancers at the End of Time which was my third attempt at this series, with no idea what the point was besides parading extreme decadence and the boredom and ceaseless philosophizing that accompanies it in front of the reader's face.
I get that everyone at the end of time is running things "like a boss", and that I guess they are the ultimate Lords of Chaos, so nothing is ever ordered and everything is decided by whim. Cool story. The problem with this is that such realities are those of the characters and do not require such whimsical and random writing style as is used here to authenticate it. Everything goes off on these random tangents. Plotlines and situations start up and then suddenly pull off enough 900 degree flips to scare Tony Hawk onto roller skates. The end result, at least for me, was that nothing stuck and I quickly lost interest in figuring out what was happening.
I can only give impressions, and not plot synopsis, because I literally never grasped the plot. Sorry. Perfect for hipsters who get a kick out of being and understanding "cryptic", anyone looking for a story that engages and goes somewhere tangible would be better off leaving this on the shelf.
June 22, 2007
Last night I finished reading Michael Moorcock's The Cornelius Chronicles, 974 pages of absurdist, non-linear, psychedelic-era science fantasy featuring as its protagonist Jerry Cornelius, "a sexually ambivalent, amoral (but exceedingly oral) portmanteau anti-hero who was part saint and part devil, an instant myth of the pop sixties whose tastes in music, clothes, cars, drugs, wombs, technology, and apotheosis all seemed to make him an authentic emblem of Swinging London and (more narrowly) of the New Wave in sf which Moorcock had instigated" (vii-viii). Originally published as a quartet of interlinked, though non-sequential novels, The Final Programme (1965)*, A Cure for Cancer (1971), The English Assassin (1977), and The Condition of Muzak (1977), The Cornelius Chronicles is, at turns, a queer manifesto (1), a celebration/critique of the modern city (2), a biting political parody (3), and a treatise on the costumes and characters of the Commedia dell'arte (4).
The Cornelius Chronicles would be nearly impossible to summarize, as the plot, such as it is, recklessly veers from tangent to tangent like a tilt-a-whirl carnival ride. Elements of Moorcock’s Elric novels (among others, including the Nebula Award-winning time-traveling bisexual Jesus novel Behold the Man) saturate the narrative, making Jerry Cornelius, by extension, an aspect of Moorcock’s Eternal Champion.
The collection is quite entertaining, and is filled with the sort of intrigue, titillation, and flash that makes sf exciting. Unfortunately, however, Jerry Cornelius himself has not aged well, and today reads less like the libidinous messianic archetype Moorcock intended than as a silly sixties satyr closer to the vein of Austin Powers. Perhaps The Cornelius Chronicles is best considered as a literary artifact of its time (and as such I’m considering it for inclusion in the syllabus for a planned class dealing with sexual identity and science fiction – hopefully the Four Walls Eight Windows Cornelius Quartet edition remains in print long enough for me to actually assign it to a class). There's plenty of fun to be had here, from Jerry Cornelius’s constant pop music references (The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Dr. Hook, Hawkwind, and The Deep Fix all make notable appearances) to his colorful costumes to his exquisite collection of weapons, cars, and gadgets, stuff that might even make James Bond jealous.
While I wouldn’t exactly call The Cornelius Chronicles an easy read, there’s plenty to enjoy here for the adventurous fan of sf and fantasy as well as more scholarly readers interested in the psychedelic era or depictions of changing sexual attitudes in literature.
---
(1) "Jerry sighed and thought that the true aristocracy that would rule the seventies were out in force: the queers and the lesbians and the bisexuals, already half-aware of their great destiny which would be realized when the terms male and female would become all but meaningless" (66).
(2) "He had all the primitive's respect for Nature, the same tendency to invest it with meaning and identity, only his Nature was the industrial city, his idea of paradise was an urban utopia...." (877)
(3) "We're not Europeans, after all. Never have been. We're British. That's why we have so much in common with India."
"They seem to hate us just as much as any other—non—Indians—sir."
"Of course they do. Why shouldn't they? Good for them. But they won't beat us" (831).
(4) "It was all so much more comfortable than the stockings, suspenders, and girdle of his earlier disguise, so much more tasteful than the bright colours of a vanished youth. Indeed, it was the nicest of any of the disguises he had assumed since his boyhood. Nobody made any demands on a pierrot" (743).
* Adapted into a feature film in 1974. I haven't seen it, but it's on my Netflix queue.
The Cornelius Chronicles would be nearly impossible to summarize, as the plot, such as it is, recklessly veers from tangent to tangent like a tilt-a-whirl carnival ride. Elements of Moorcock’s Elric novels (among others, including the Nebula Award-winning time-traveling bisexual Jesus novel Behold the Man) saturate the narrative, making Jerry Cornelius, by extension, an aspect of Moorcock’s Eternal Champion.
The collection is quite entertaining, and is filled with the sort of intrigue, titillation, and flash that makes sf exciting. Unfortunately, however, Jerry Cornelius himself has not aged well, and today reads less like the libidinous messianic archetype Moorcock intended than as a silly sixties satyr closer to the vein of Austin Powers. Perhaps The Cornelius Chronicles is best considered as a literary artifact of its time (and as such I’m considering it for inclusion in the syllabus for a planned class dealing with sexual identity and science fiction – hopefully the Four Walls Eight Windows Cornelius Quartet edition remains in print long enough for me to actually assign it to a class). There's plenty of fun to be had here, from Jerry Cornelius’s constant pop music references (The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Dr. Hook, Hawkwind, and The Deep Fix all make notable appearances) to his colorful costumes to his exquisite collection of weapons, cars, and gadgets, stuff that might even make James Bond jealous.
While I wouldn’t exactly call The Cornelius Chronicles an easy read, there’s plenty to enjoy here for the adventurous fan of sf and fantasy as well as more scholarly readers interested in the psychedelic era or depictions of changing sexual attitudes in literature.
---
(1) "Jerry sighed and thought that the true aristocracy that would rule the seventies were out in force: the queers and the lesbians and the bisexuals, already half-aware of their great destiny which would be realized when the terms male and female would become all but meaningless" (66).
(2) "He had all the primitive's respect for Nature, the same tendency to invest it with meaning and identity, only his Nature was the industrial city, his idea of paradise was an urban utopia...." (877)
(3) "We're not Europeans, after all. Never have been. We're British. That's why we have so much in common with India."
"They seem to hate us just as much as any other—non—Indians—sir."
"Of course they do. Why shouldn't they? Good for them. But they won't beat us" (831).
(4) "It was all so much more comfortable than the stockings, suspenders, and girdle of his earlier disguise, so much more tasteful than the bright colours of a vanished youth. Indeed, it was the nicest of any of the disguises he had assumed since his boyhood. Nobody made any demands on a pierrot" (743).
* Adapted into a feature film in 1974. I haven't seen it, but it's on my Netflix queue.
September 23, 2008
A napalm bomb against linear structure…psychedelic hermaphrodite messiah meets James Bond parody Jerry Cornelius (yes another J.C.) is the “hero” through these interconnected “novels”.(though he is dead throughout most of one of them) More William Burrough type cut up then straight forward narrative these books throw pop culture and history into a blender and create a world where the U.S. napalms London, a women has the power to absorb others, characters disappear and reappear, news clipping become part of the story. A psychotropic kaleidoscope.
February 8, 2014
In all, this book falls into the category of "books that blew me away in my twenties, but don't really seem to hold up anymore." It isn't actually bad, and some of it is even pretty good, but I took one star off from my original review, because the overall effect is middling. Below are the reviews I wrote for each of the novels in the tetralogy, as I completed them over the course of the past half-year or so.
The Final Programme is a remarkably short book, and even less of it (maybe 120 pages) is really about Jerry Cornelius as Jerry Cornelius. He is, as established, a kind of devil-may-care 60s hipster super-spy and super-lover, with no allegiances save his own pleasures. There are gunfights and intrigue, sex scenes and fast cars, and rock and roll parties that last for weeks. Cornelius seems to be a man who is always on top, always in control, always winning. Apparently he became an instant hit in the New Wave sci fi community, and was used as a character by many other writers in the fanzine Moorcock published. His femme fatale adversary in this novel is Miss Brunner, who plans to use an advanced computer to make herself into a god. Once entropy starts to destroy the world he has always known, he tries fleeing from, then is seduced into, Ms. Brunner’s Project, which has the effect of cancelling his personality, or at least his status as ultra-competent protagonist. He becomes increasingly a victim, although by the end it is implied that Ms. Brunner’s programme has given him equal status.
There are two scenes that really stood out to me on a re-read, both involving depersonalized “crowds.” In the first, Jerry is visiting London as the crisis is escalating, and a crowd enters one of his favorite hangouts. This crowd is described, not as a group of individuals, but as an amorphous mass, menacing, possibly interested in absorbing Jerry into its brainless unity. A “piece of the crowd” detaches itself and Jerry recognizes it as a friend, now somehow de-individuated and possessed by the crowd. In the second scene, near the end of the book, the Godlike Brunner-Cornelius being is hefted by a jubilant crowd and carried throughout Europe, apparently picking up more or less the entire population as they go, then leads them Pied Piper-style to drown in the ocean. In both cases, Moorcock seems to be making a statement about the loss of individuality through group activity – a kind of ultimate expression of the introvert’s worst nightmare.
Similar but different is Ms. Brunner’s (and, ultimately, Jerry’s) strange vampiric ability to consume people, leaving behind their clothes, gaining their energy and apparently some of their personality in the process. In the ambiguous morality of the text, it is harder to identify this as definitely “evil” – Cornelius is horrified by it at first but comes to accept it, but it also speaks to a kind of fear of losing oneself (one’s Self, that is) in another.
The Cure for Cancer is a more typically “experimental” work, but one which I find doesn’t seem to work for me as well as it probably did in my youth. The chapter titles are all newspaper headlines (some chapters are short clippings), apparently selected for their bizarre or salacious content, and then thrown into a box and pulled out at random. At the beginning of the book, I got the sense that Moorcock was trying to make the action in the chapter match the chapter title/headline, but as he proceeded, it seemed he was taking more control over the action and the titles became increasingly irrelevant. The result is a book that tells a story in an inefficient and unpredictable manner – which, I admit, I probably liked when I was in college, but now it just seems indulgent and poorly handled.
A few interesting things about this one, it isn’t quite a sequel in the chronological sense, although many themes return: the world has not been destroyed, but is rather in a kind of End Times, Jerry and Ms. Brunner are no longer a unified being, but have separated and become sort of “negative images” of themselves (Jerry is black with white hair, Brunner is now a man), Frank is alive and apparently clean enough to work for the army, Catherine is still dead, but possibly revivable, and rather than being a free agent, Jerry now has a massive worldwide “organization” to support his plans. There is more sex in this one, I think, and more of it is explicitly homosexual, but very little of it is effectively erotic. Although there are more pages than The Final Programme, I think there is actually less content.
The book is dated 1971, and it does seem to map to that odd transition period between the 60s and 70s. There is apocalypticism, mixed with a curious nostalgia (especially for the Beatles). The styles are more garish and tasteless, but still conform to 60s templates. Jerry’s coloration brings out racial issues, and the United States has become unavoidable, with heavy overtones of Vietnam as its defining motif. The only hope held out for the human race is to exterminate most of it, yet we get the sense that people never really die, just become temporarily inactive.
Death continues to be an ambivalent theme in The English Assassin, and nearly every major character dies at least twice. Oddly, Jerry is the exception, in that he spends most of the book in a kind of torpor, rising occasionally to create (rather than stem) a rising tide of entropy. I thought this book was the best written of the first three. Although there are still a few chapters given over to newspaper clippings, these seem to have been deliberately selected (most involve the deaths of children). There is more text per chapter, and that text is very interestingly composed. Time and death remain ambivalent, and there is an implication that the world is paying for Jerry’s earlier indulgences through a kind of to a sort of endless brings all eras in the 20th century together into a sort of endless conflict. Inadvertently, Moorcock may have invented steampunk in 1977, the year that real punk was first (re-)imagining itself.
The structure of the book deserves some discussion, because to a large degree it is the deliberate structure that sets this book apart from the earlier installments and their sense of randomness, particularly in the case of Cancer. The book is divided into four “shots,” each of which contains a piece of the “prologue,” two “reminiscences,” two piece of “late news” (the news clippings), and two “alternative apocalypses.” These apocalypses, which occur outside of the main narrative, usually involve the deaths of several major characters, although they may be seen as dream-sequences or alternate realities, thus I didn’t count them in my estimates of how many times people die. The main narrative spans the inserted materials, with ten chapters per “shot,” five on each side of the reminiscences, news, and apocalypses, for a total of forty chapters. Within each shot, the chapters tend to be chronologically ordered and logically consistent. In all, Moorcock displayed more discipline in this novel than in the others.
Several old characters reappear, although often as lesser shells of their former selves, and some new ones are introduced. Notable in this volume is that we meet Jerry’s mother, “Mrs. C,” who has a close relationship with Frank and Catherine. She is something of an anti-Catherine: she is bloated, gluttonous, over-sexed, low-class, shallow, and stupid. I think she sort of grew on Moorcock as he wrote her, however, because she actually fares better than most of the characters, not dying even once to my recollection (although she is widowed). A character I would have liked to have seen better developed was Sebastian Auchinek, a dance-hall-promoter-turned-farmer (or, perhaps it’s the other way around; I don’t trust time in this book), who develops a great love for Una Persson.
If the first two books don’t appeal to me as much as they used to, this one may redeem the series somewhat. Moorcock definitely put time into it, although I feel as if the second and third “shots” didn’t hold together as well as the first and fourth. If nothing else, this book takes more time to be introspective about the role of Cornelius and the world he lives in, which encourages the reader to think more about what it says about the twentieth century in general.
With the final book, The Condition of Muzak, the series finally resolves into a deliberate parody of itself, revealing itself as both more and less than it had seemed. The title is based on the 19th-century art critic Walter Pater’s quote that “all art constantly aspires toward the condition of music,” a concept which fascinated Schopenhauer, among others. In Moorcock’s twentieth-century reading, however, this aspiration toward evolution is turned into a devolution through laziness and popular pandering to art’s lowest form. That form, it seems, is Muzak, although actually a lot of the book deals with “low art” in the form of the traditional pantomime, with Jerry as Harlequin, his sister Catherine as Columbine, and his brother Frank in the role of Pierrot (although he and Jerry switch, from time to time).
Much of the book deals with the consequences of success, and the degree to which success destroys the creative artist or idealist, making them betray their own art and creativity. Jerry Cornelius in this book is made, against his will, to live in his own fantasy world, a world in which London in the only real city and there are no powers on Earth with the might to threaten it. It becomes a kind of fusion past-future-present (again, allowing some proto-Steampunk to creep in), but moreover, becomes his prison. The wraparound story suggests that all of these adventures and time travels are actually a fantasy of a grubby teenager living in 1970s London and struggling to make it with a Hard Rock band when all anyone wants to hear is Soul.
I think I’d have liked the book better if it had stuck with that story, instead of only giving us a few pages at the beginning and end, with pretty much the same old thing from the last two books as the bulk in the middle. It’s less disciplined than the previous book, although less crazy-experimental than A Cure for Cancer. Except for the wraparound-story and last section of the middle, most of the chapter titles are arbitrary clippings from Guns & Ammo-type magazines, again seemingly chosen at random or for their shock value. The wraparound story is undermined when Mrs. Cornelius gives an improbable and unnecessary death-bed confession that implies incest and time travel, even in the midst of the “real” story of the “real” Cornelius’s sell-out.
The Final Programme is a remarkably short book, and even less of it (maybe 120 pages) is really about Jerry Cornelius as Jerry Cornelius. He is, as established, a kind of devil-may-care 60s hipster super-spy and super-lover, with no allegiances save his own pleasures. There are gunfights and intrigue, sex scenes and fast cars, and rock and roll parties that last for weeks. Cornelius seems to be a man who is always on top, always in control, always winning. Apparently he became an instant hit in the New Wave sci fi community, and was used as a character by many other writers in the fanzine Moorcock published. His femme fatale adversary in this novel is Miss Brunner, who plans to use an advanced computer to make herself into a god. Once entropy starts to destroy the world he has always known, he tries fleeing from, then is seduced into, Ms. Brunner’s Project, which has the effect of cancelling his personality, or at least his status as ultra-competent protagonist. He becomes increasingly a victim, although by the end it is implied that Ms. Brunner’s programme has given him equal status.
There are two scenes that really stood out to me on a re-read, both involving depersonalized “crowds.” In the first, Jerry is visiting London as the crisis is escalating, and a crowd enters one of his favorite hangouts. This crowd is described, not as a group of individuals, but as an amorphous mass, menacing, possibly interested in absorbing Jerry into its brainless unity. A “piece of the crowd” detaches itself and Jerry recognizes it as a friend, now somehow de-individuated and possessed by the crowd. In the second scene, near the end of the book, the Godlike Brunner-Cornelius being is hefted by a jubilant crowd and carried throughout Europe, apparently picking up more or less the entire population as they go, then leads them Pied Piper-style to drown in the ocean. In both cases, Moorcock seems to be making a statement about the loss of individuality through group activity – a kind of ultimate expression of the introvert’s worst nightmare.
Similar but different is Ms. Brunner’s (and, ultimately, Jerry’s) strange vampiric ability to consume people, leaving behind their clothes, gaining their energy and apparently some of their personality in the process. In the ambiguous morality of the text, it is harder to identify this as definitely “evil” – Cornelius is horrified by it at first but comes to accept it, but it also speaks to a kind of fear of losing oneself (one’s Self, that is) in another.
The Cure for Cancer is a more typically “experimental” work, but one which I find doesn’t seem to work for me as well as it probably did in my youth. The chapter titles are all newspaper headlines (some chapters are short clippings), apparently selected for their bizarre or salacious content, and then thrown into a box and pulled out at random. At the beginning of the book, I got the sense that Moorcock was trying to make the action in the chapter match the chapter title/headline, but as he proceeded, it seemed he was taking more control over the action and the titles became increasingly irrelevant. The result is a book that tells a story in an inefficient and unpredictable manner – which, I admit, I probably liked when I was in college, but now it just seems indulgent and poorly handled.
A few interesting things about this one, it isn’t quite a sequel in the chronological sense, although many themes return: the world has not been destroyed, but is rather in a kind of End Times, Jerry and Ms. Brunner are no longer a unified being, but have separated and become sort of “negative images” of themselves (Jerry is black with white hair, Brunner is now a man), Frank is alive and apparently clean enough to work for the army, Catherine is still dead, but possibly revivable, and rather than being a free agent, Jerry now has a massive worldwide “organization” to support his plans. There is more sex in this one, I think, and more of it is explicitly homosexual, but very little of it is effectively erotic. Although there are more pages than The Final Programme, I think there is actually less content.
The book is dated 1971, and it does seem to map to that odd transition period between the 60s and 70s. There is apocalypticism, mixed with a curious nostalgia (especially for the Beatles). The styles are more garish and tasteless, but still conform to 60s templates. Jerry’s coloration brings out racial issues, and the United States has become unavoidable, with heavy overtones of Vietnam as its defining motif. The only hope held out for the human race is to exterminate most of it, yet we get the sense that people never really die, just become temporarily inactive.
Death continues to be an ambivalent theme in The English Assassin, and nearly every major character dies at least twice. Oddly, Jerry is the exception, in that he spends most of the book in a kind of torpor, rising occasionally to create (rather than stem) a rising tide of entropy. I thought this book was the best written of the first three. Although there are still a few chapters given over to newspaper clippings, these seem to have been deliberately selected (most involve the deaths of children). There is more text per chapter, and that text is very interestingly composed. Time and death remain ambivalent, and there is an implication that the world is paying for Jerry’s earlier indulgences through a kind of to a sort of endless brings all eras in the 20th century together into a sort of endless conflict. Inadvertently, Moorcock may have invented steampunk in 1977, the year that real punk was first (re-)imagining itself.
The structure of the book deserves some discussion, because to a large degree it is the deliberate structure that sets this book apart from the earlier installments and their sense of randomness, particularly in the case of Cancer. The book is divided into four “shots,” each of which contains a piece of the “prologue,” two “reminiscences,” two piece of “late news” (the news clippings), and two “alternative apocalypses.” These apocalypses, which occur outside of the main narrative, usually involve the deaths of several major characters, although they may be seen as dream-sequences or alternate realities, thus I didn’t count them in my estimates of how many times people die. The main narrative spans the inserted materials, with ten chapters per “shot,” five on each side of the reminiscences, news, and apocalypses, for a total of forty chapters. Within each shot, the chapters tend to be chronologically ordered and logically consistent. In all, Moorcock displayed more discipline in this novel than in the others.
Several old characters reappear, although often as lesser shells of their former selves, and some new ones are introduced. Notable in this volume is that we meet Jerry’s mother, “Mrs. C,” who has a close relationship with Frank and Catherine. She is something of an anti-Catherine: she is bloated, gluttonous, over-sexed, low-class, shallow, and stupid. I think she sort of grew on Moorcock as he wrote her, however, because she actually fares better than most of the characters, not dying even once to my recollection (although she is widowed). A character I would have liked to have seen better developed was Sebastian Auchinek, a dance-hall-promoter-turned-farmer (or, perhaps it’s the other way around; I don’t trust time in this book), who develops a great love for Una Persson.
If the first two books don’t appeal to me as much as they used to, this one may redeem the series somewhat. Moorcock definitely put time into it, although I feel as if the second and third “shots” didn’t hold together as well as the first and fourth. If nothing else, this book takes more time to be introspective about the role of Cornelius and the world he lives in, which encourages the reader to think more about what it says about the twentieth century in general.
With the final book, The Condition of Muzak, the series finally resolves into a deliberate parody of itself, revealing itself as both more and less than it had seemed. The title is based on the 19th-century art critic Walter Pater’s quote that “all art constantly aspires toward the condition of music,” a concept which fascinated Schopenhauer, among others. In Moorcock’s twentieth-century reading, however, this aspiration toward evolution is turned into a devolution through laziness and popular pandering to art’s lowest form. That form, it seems, is Muzak, although actually a lot of the book deals with “low art” in the form of the traditional pantomime, with Jerry as Harlequin, his sister Catherine as Columbine, and his brother Frank in the role of Pierrot (although he and Jerry switch, from time to time).
Much of the book deals with the consequences of success, and the degree to which success destroys the creative artist or idealist, making them betray their own art and creativity. Jerry Cornelius in this book is made, against his will, to live in his own fantasy world, a world in which London in the only real city and there are no powers on Earth with the might to threaten it. It becomes a kind of fusion past-future-present (again, allowing some proto-Steampunk to creep in), but moreover, becomes his prison. The wraparound story suggests that all of these adventures and time travels are actually a fantasy of a grubby teenager living in 1970s London and struggling to make it with a Hard Rock band when all anyone wants to hear is Soul.
I think I’d have liked the book better if it had stuck with that story, instead of only giving us a few pages at the beginning and end, with pretty much the same old thing from the last two books as the bulk in the middle. It’s less disciplined than the previous book, although less crazy-experimental than A Cure for Cancer. Except for the wraparound-story and last section of the middle, most of the chapter titles are arbitrary clippings from Guns & Ammo-type magazines, again seemingly chosen at random or for their shock value. The wraparound story is undermined when Mrs. Cornelius gives an improbable and unnecessary death-bed confession that implies incest and time travel, even in the midst of the “real” story of the “real” Cornelius’s sell-out.
did-not-finish
July 2, 2012I’m not the right person to read this, at least not right now.
I know it’s kind of my hang-up to turn everything into a generational thing, but I think that’s in operation here. I didn’t live through the 1960s or the 1970s. I don’t get what the political climate was like then, either in North America or in Europe, and I come to New Wave science fiction experiencing everything second hand. That doesn’t mean one needs to be of that age to grok or even enjoy books like this—but I suspect those readers have a bit of a head start. As it is, Moorcock’s constant reference to sex and drugs are baked into a zeitgeist I could never take part in. Sex and drugs are themselves rather constant, yes, but their modes and moods change with the times, and the Cornelius Chronicles of the twenty-first century would probably look different from the ones written in the 1960s.
As I attempted, however diligently, to make my way through this 974-page behemoth of a collection, I found myself turning too often to my dad, who was sitting next to me at the baseball games where I tried reading this, and said, “This book makes no sense.” But I understand that’s kind of the point, and to criticize it entirely for that reason would be, if not unfair, then missing the point. However, I can’t bring myself to finish it. I cannot just keep stumbling from page to page with absolutely no idea, none whatsoever, of what is going on, because it seems like every page the characters are different, with different motivations, like they’re all following a script we never get to see. One moment a character is an enemy, and then suddenly they’re an ally, and I have no idea what is going on. I get there are multiverse hijinks happening, but they are too inscrutable for my pay grade.
So there you have it. I wish I were the right kind of person to like this book, or at least to finish it, but I don’t think I am. So I won’t make myself. I make myself finish a lot of things, and sometimes that results in a very fun bad review. But The Cornelius Chronicles aren’t worth it—I don’t think I bring myself to hate them, and I don’t want to read another 500 pages to find out.
I know it’s kind of my hang-up to turn everything into a generational thing, but I think that’s in operation here. I didn’t live through the 1960s or the 1970s. I don’t get what the political climate was like then, either in North America or in Europe, and I come to New Wave science fiction experiencing everything second hand. That doesn’t mean one needs to be of that age to grok or even enjoy books like this—but I suspect those readers have a bit of a head start. As it is, Moorcock’s constant reference to sex and drugs are baked into a zeitgeist I could never take part in. Sex and drugs are themselves rather constant, yes, but their modes and moods change with the times, and the Cornelius Chronicles of the twenty-first century would probably look different from the ones written in the 1960s.
As I attempted, however diligently, to make my way through this 974-page behemoth of a collection, I found myself turning too often to my dad, who was sitting next to me at the baseball games where I tried reading this, and said, “This book makes no sense.” But I understand that’s kind of the point, and to criticize it entirely for that reason would be, if not unfair, then missing the point. However, I can’t bring myself to finish it. I cannot just keep stumbling from page to page with absolutely no idea, none whatsoever, of what is going on, because it seems like every page the characters are different, with different motivations, like they’re all following a script we never get to see. One moment a character is an enemy, and then suddenly they’re an ally, and I have no idea what is going on. I get there are multiverse hijinks happening, but they are too inscrutable for my pay grade.
So there you have it. I wish I were the right kind of person to like this book, or at least to finish it, but I don’t think I am. So I won’t make myself. I make myself finish a lot of things, and sometimes that results in a very fun bad review. But The Cornelius Chronicles aren’t worth it—I don’t think I bring myself to hate them, and I don’t want to read another 500 pages to find out.
June 15, 2017
The Final Programme: Numa Europa em fase terminal, a partir da Londres decadente, Jerry Cornelius vê-se envolvido numa violenta aventura. Este misto de dandy e agente secreto terá de eliminar a sua própria família, refugiada num castelo fortificado na Normandia, enfrentar tédio e decadência numa Londres em crise, invadir instalações subterrâneas secretas nas fronteiras geladas entre a Suécia, Finlândia e Rússia, tentando manter-se independente face a um grupo de conjurados liderado por uma mulher misteriosa. Carismática, procura sem parar o código e tecnologias que lhe permitam implementar o programa final: um novo ser humano hermafrodita , espécie de computador contendo a soma do conhecimento humano. Um romance bizarro, que oscila entre a aventura de espionagem e o psicadelismo.
A Cure For Cancer: É complicado perceber com rigor de que cancro se procura a cura do título. Será a morte que consome a adorada irmã de Cornelius, cuja pulsão para as suas muitas lutas está em restaurar-lhe, por breves e incestuosos momentos, a vida? O será o cancro da inconformidade, da liberdade de pensamento, da multiculturalidade, da diversidade? Ao longo deste romance de contornos psicadélicos, as jornadas de Cornelius debatem-se sempre com poderosas forças que visam restaurar a ordem, quer arrebanhando os indesejáveis em campos de reeducação numa américa sob governo ordeiro, quer exterminando-os com napalm e armas químicas lançados pelos caças americanos a auxiliar os aliados britânicos, quer saturando a Europa de conselheiros militares numa guerra em que o inimigo imparável são os israelitas. Por detrás destas forças há agentes de organizações secretas que se aproveitam da confusão para dominar o mundo, ou usam o caos para incentivar a diversidade que tanto incomoda as forças conservadoras. Jerry Cornelius, misto de agente secreto com ser espiritual, símbolo sexual andrógino e estrela de rock, está de regresso para um alucinante périplo entre Inglaterra, Alemanha e Estados Unidos, por entre missões secretas, recontros empolgantes, conspirações inesperadas, muitas mulheres que se rendem aos seus encantos, num registo de pura aventura. Moorcock utiliza neste romance a estratégia narrativa introduzida por John dos Passos, misturando recortes de imprensa com a narração dos acontecimentos. Fiel ao espírito pulp do personagem que criou (apesar de ser um aproveitamento metacrítico das estruturas e conceitos do pulp), os recortes são da imprensa sensacionalista, que também fornece os delirantes títulos da míriade dos curtos capítulos em que se divide o romance.
The English Assassin: As várias realidades paralelas do multiverso colapsam numa guerra que opõe Cornelius e a sua aliada Una Persson aos seus inimigos de sempre. Apesar de ser um romance do arco Cornlius, este personagem mal aparece no livro, estando presente mais em espírito do que em acções. O foco está nas acções dos seus inimigos e outros personagens envolvidos na luta titânica que ameaça colapsar realidades. O ponto de vista é fragmentado e múltiplo, com a história a progredir de forma linear mas fracturando-se nas diferentes realidades em que se desenrola o conflito. Uma simultaneidade quase cubista, onde cada curto capítulo muda o cenário. Moorcock insere livremente diferentes mundos ficcionais da sua obra, com a realidade proto-steampunk dos romances da série Oswald Bastable a intrometer-se neste episódio do arco Cornelius. Romance complexo, de leitura fragmentada, forma um mosaico de episódios aparentemente desconexos mas unidos num rigoroso arco narrativo.
The Condition of Muzak: Neste romance final do quarteto Cornelius, Moorcock mergulha-nos num profundo barroquismo psicadélico. Estilhaça as continuidades narrativas num livro que vai evoluindo de fragmentos de aventuras até à pantomina. Os tempos fluem, passados e presentes coexistem na personagem de um Cornelius progressivamente amnésico. Tudo culmina numa Londres como espaço de utopias, num reino unido fragmentado em miríades de nacionalidades, onde todos, desde os antigos habitantes das ilhas britânicas aos emigrantes, demarcaram os seus territórios depois de uma guerra civil que colapsou a ilha, após uma era de guerra constante que transformou irremediavelmente o planeta. Guerra essa que poderá ter sido causada pelas manipulações dos companheiros de Cornelius, que se repetem em conspirações e ações ao longo dos vários tempos paralelos. O próprio Cornelius, o temível assassino inglês, dandy psicadélico que flui através de continuidades temporais, torna-se uma espécie de rei de uma Londres que ninguém reclama porque ninguém a quer, e após a morte da sua mãe, ao perscrutar os documentos do seu nascimento, intui que com tantos saltos no tempo, poderá ter num passado casado com uma mulher que abandonou, gerando-lhe um filho que é ele próprio. Dos romances do quarteto, este é o mais difícil de seguir, pela forma como Moorcock aniquila as continuidades narrativas. Aliás, nem vale a pena tentar extrair sentidos lineares desta complexa tessitura de fragmentos. Partes remetem-nos para outras aventuras de Cornelius, partes para outras séries, como a Oswald Bastable. O que se sente é uma progressiva evolução de narrativa pulp para algo mais experimental, uma grande comédia (uma harlequinada, para ser mais específico) que unifica todos os universos ficcionais saídos da mente deste escritor.
A Cure For Cancer: É complicado perceber com rigor de que cancro se procura a cura do título. Será a morte que consome a adorada irmã de Cornelius, cuja pulsão para as suas muitas lutas está em restaurar-lhe, por breves e incestuosos momentos, a vida? O será o cancro da inconformidade, da liberdade de pensamento, da multiculturalidade, da diversidade? Ao longo deste romance de contornos psicadélicos, as jornadas de Cornelius debatem-se sempre com poderosas forças que visam restaurar a ordem, quer arrebanhando os indesejáveis em campos de reeducação numa américa sob governo ordeiro, quer exterminando-os com napalm e armas químicas lançados pelos caças americanos a auxiliar os aliados britânicos, quer saturando a Europa de conselheiros militares numa guerra em que o inimigo imparável são os israelitas. Por detrás destas forças há agentes de organizações secretas que se aproveitam da confusão para dominar o mundo, ou usam o caos para incentivar a diversidade que tanto incomoda as forças conservadoras. Jerry Cornelius, misto de agente secreto com ser espiritual, símbolo sexual andrógino e estrela de rock, está de regresso para um alucinante périplo entre Inglaterra, Alemanha e Estados Unidos, por entre missões secretas, recontros empolgantes, conspirações inesperadas, muitas mulheres que se rendem aos seus encantos, num registo de pura aventura. Moorcock utiliza neste romance a estratégia narrativa introduzida por John dos Passos, misturando recortes de imprensa com a narração dos acontecimentos. Fiel ao espírito pulp do personagem que criou (apesar de ser um aproveitamento metacrítico das estruturas e conceitos do pulp), os recortes são da imprensa sensacionalista, que também fornece os delirantes títulos da míriade dos curtos capítulos em que se divide o romance.
The English Assassin: As várias realidades paralelas do multiverso colapsam numa guerra que opõe Cornelius e a sua aliada Una Persson aos seus inimigos de sempre. Apesar de ser um romance do arco Cornlius, este personagem mal aparece no livro, estando presente mais em espírito do que em acções. O foco está nas acções dos seus inimigos e outros personagens envolvidos na luta titânica que ameaça colapsar realidades. O ponto de vista é fragmentado e múltiplo, com a história a progredir de forma linear mas fracturando-se nas diferentes realidades em que se desenrola o conflito. Uma simultaneidade quase cubista, onde cada curto capítulo muda o cenário. Moorcock insere livremente diferentes mundos ficcionais da sua obra, com a realidade proto-steampunk dos romances da série Oswald Bastable a intrometer-se neste episódio do arco Cornelius. Romance complexo, de leitura fragmentada, forma um mosaico de episódios aparentemente desconexos mas unidos num rigoroso arco narrativo.
The Condition of Muzak: Neste romance final do quarteto Cornelius, Moorcock mergulha-nos num profundo barroquismo psicadélico. Estilhaça as continuidades narrativas num livro que vai evoluindo de fragmentos de aventuras até à pantomina. Os tempos fluem, passados e presentes coexistem na personagem de um Cornelius progressivamente amnésico. Tudo culmina numa Londres como espaço de utopias, num reino unido fragmentado em miríades de nacionalidades, onde todos, desde os antigos habitantes das ilhas britânicas aos emigrantes, demarcaram os seus territórios depois de uma guerra civil que colapsou a ilha, após uma era de guerra constante que transformou irremediavelmente o planeta. Guerra essa que poderá ter sido causada pelas manipulações dos companheiros de Cornelius, que se repetem em conspirações e ações ao longo dos vários tempos paralelos. O próprio Cornelius, o temível assassino inglês, dandy psicadélico que flui através de continuidades temporais, torna-se uma espécie de rei de uma Londres que ninguém reclama porque ninguém a quer, e após a morte da sua mãe, ao perscrutar os documentos do seu nascimento, intui que com tantos saltos no tempo, poderá ter num passado casado com uma mulher que abandonou, gerando-lhe um filho que é ele próprio. Dos romances do quarteto, este é o mais difícil de seguir, pela forma como Moorcock aniquila as continuidades narrativas. Aliás, nem vale a pena tentar extrair sentidos lineares desta complexa tessitura de fragmentos. Partes remetem-nos para outras aventuras de Cornelius, partes para outras séries, como a Oswald Bastable. O que se sente é uma progressiva evolução de narrativa pulp para algo mais experimental, uma grande comédia (uma harlequinada, para ser mais específico) que unifica todos os universos ficcionais saídos da mente deste escritor.
April 19, 2013
Except for THE FINAL PROGRAMME, the first book in the collection, the stories and writing are almost indecipherable at times; most times, actually. TFP isn't great either. The only really grabbing thing about it being that it's partially a re-telling of Elric of Melnibone's attempted rescue of his beloved cousin Cymoril from her brother Yyrkoon (from WEIRD OF THE WHITE WOLF), instead with Jerry rescuing his sister Catherine from their brother Frank. Pretty much the character of Jerry Cornelius was Moorcock going even nuttier and over the edge than usually, with the character meant apparently to be a psychedelic psychotic James Bond...
I generally love Moorcock's work, but Jerry Cornelius always left me scratching my head.
I generally love Moorcock's work, but Jerry Cornelius always left me scratching my head.
July 19, 2012
Surreal. Perverted. Hysterical. Challenging. Brilliant. Moorcock's '60s sci-fi tetralogy about a a time/space-tripping British dandy named Jerry Cornelius is difficult to describe. It kind of works on a visceral level, much like William S. Burroughs' "Naked Lunch". It actually reminded me (a lot) of the works of Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, and Tom Robbins, whose works are also pretty uncategorizable. Cornelius is definitely a fascinating anti-hero (think Austin Powers meets Doctor Who without the morals) who is bent on altering history for reasons that are never quite clear. Very cool stuff, if you are into trippy metaphysical sci-fi (which was very popular in the '60s, go figure...) and are looking for a challenging read. Definitely NOT light reading.
September 8, 2019
Still as enjoyable as the last time I read this many moons ago
For me the series matures as it progresses. Starting with a dayglo hip 60s pop version of a needle gun toting action hero (also made into a film) in The Final Programme it really gets into its stride with The English Assassin where the narrative fragments and become short vignettes where the primary action appears to constantly be happening offstage. The Condition of Muzak is the fully mature article where the fragmentation appears to reflect the mental state of the "real" Jerry Cornelius.
I'm definitely going to be returning to a few of my favourite Moorcock's.
For me the series matures as it progresses. Starting with a dayglo hip 60s pop version of a needle gun toting action hero (also made into a film) in The Final Programme it really gets into its stride with The English Assassin where the narrative fragments and become short vignettes where the primary action appears to constantly be happening offstage. The Condition of Muzak is the fully mature article where the fragmentation appears to reflect the mental state of the "real" Jerry Cornelius.
I'm definitely going to be returning to a few of my favourite Moorcock's.
July 4, 2007
This is a collection of the four best of Moorcock's Cornelius works: THE FINAL PROGRAMME, A CURE FOR CANCER, THE ENGLISH ASSASSIN, and THE CONDITION OF MUZAK. It is non-linear science fantasy at its absurdist best. As it says on the back cover: "Jerry Cornelius copulates, hallucinates, devastates, dies, and comes back from the dead... frequently." The initials "J.C." figure prominently in many of Moorcock's books, but it all started with these, the story of a rock'n'roll messiah. It's like a sort of evil Doc Savage on acid; the best work that came out of the English New Wave.
December 17, 2007
Jerry Cornelius is the messiah/destroyer of the world. A mod James Bond/Velvet Underground rocker who has cooler gadgets and cooler licks. Psychedelic trips, asassinations, and transexuals who race through time. What more do you want in your genre bending 60's British science fiction.
February 8, 2023
Just hilarious. Thanks to Moorcock for gifting Jerry Cornelius to the world. Absurd and irreverent.
May 23, 2013
Few people are neutral about Moorcock's "Jerry Cornelius" series. There's a large group who think the author was high on something when he wrote the stories, comparing them to a kind of prose version of T S Elliott's "Waste Land" full of pseudo-clever allusions, softcore porn, meaningless drivel in which nothing actually happens, or simply a series of vignettes which should properly be called writing exercises rather than a coherent novel. Others regard the stories as the definitive new-wave SF, epitomizing the sixties as no other series can, groundbreaking, original, poetic and a genuine new myth for the atomic age.
Well, like everyone else, I can't sit on the fence with this one. Count the stars. I will give a slight caveat, however - for anyone who likes a good, simple read, with everything spelled out in clear view, or even readers new to Moorcock, not familiar with his concept of "The Eternal Champion", it might be simpler to start with one of this author's more accessible works (The "Dorian Hawkmoon" series maybe) and work up. The Cornelius tetrology, you see, is, erm... "difficult reading"... sometimes, on first reading, it's hard to know exactly what's going on.
So let me try to simplify. Jerry Cornelius is a manifestation of the "Eternal champion" responsible for maintaining the balance between Chaos and Order. This particular incarnation operates in the modern era (at the time the works were written), but since Cornelius and his friends and enemies are able to skip between alternate universes and realities, the phrase "modern era" can be taken with a pinch of salt. Think of Cornelius as a kind of cross between "Dr Who" and James Bond - a secret agent (and former Jesuit Priest) who can travel in time at the cost of frequent amnesia, sometimes acting for Law, and other times for Chaos, aided by a series of weird friends and enemies (who frequently swap sides) and some amazing technology (such as a Rolls Royce converted into a submarine), and who, from time to time, goes into a kind of fugue, and must undergo a period of marine rejuvenation! Oh, and he's also a part-time vampire, an arms dealer, and related to the Wild Hunt, into the bargain! If you think that Moorcock has managed to cram just about every archetype from world mythology into his character, you aren't far wrong. In fact, the character has virtually become "open source" in that other writers have taken him as a template for all kinds of myth figures.
The plot? How long do you have? Essentially, Jerry begins by acting out an earlier Moorcock tale, the first in the "Elric" series, but with a vibra-gun instead of a sword. He accidentally kills his sister during a duel with his drug-addict brother, and spends the rest of the series trying to resurrect her. Meanwhile, he continues his task of trying to maintain the cosmic balance, continually metamorphosing himself and jumping from one reality to another. There's a lot more, though - and by the time you reach the "final" novel in the main tetrology - (All the four "main" novels are anthologized in this volume) you find out that there's even more (or maybe less) to Jerry than meets the eye! That's not the end though - there's a lot more short stories to come after this one, by Moorcock himself and others.
Really, I can't do justice to this - you just have to read Cornelius! Really.
Oh, and this volume is illustrated by the brilliant Malcolm Dean, if you need any more encouragement!
Well, like everyone else, I can't sit on the fence with this one. Count the stars. I will give a slight caveat, however - for anyone who likes a good, simple read, with everything spelled out in clear view, or even readers new to Moorcock, not familiar with his concept of "The Eternal Champion", it might be simpler to start with one of this author's more accessible works (The "Dorian Hawkmoon" series maybe) and work up. The Cornelius tetrology, you see, is, erm... "difficult reading"... sometimes, on first reading, it's hard to know exactly what's going on.
So let me try to simplify. Jerry Cornelius is a manifestation of the "Eternal champion" responsible for maintaining the balance between Chaos and Order. This particular incarnation operates in the modern era (at the time the works were written), but since Cornelius and his friends and enemies are able to skip between alternate universes and realities, the phrase "modern era" can be taken with a pinch of salt. Think of Cornelius as a kind of cross between "Dr Who" and James Bond - a secret agent (and former Jesuit Priest) who can travel in time at the cost of frequent amnesia, sometimes acting for Law, and other times for Chaos, aided by a series of weird friends and enemies (who frequently swap sides) and some amazing technology (such as a Rolls Royce converted into a submarine), and who, from time to time, goes into a kind of fugue, and must undergo a period of marine rejuvenation! Oh, and he's also a part-time vampire, an arms dealer, and related to the Wild Hunt, into the bargain! If you think that Moorcock has managed to cram just about every archetype from world mythology into his character, you aren't far wrong. In fact, the character has virtually become "open source" in that other writers have taken him as a template for all kinds of myth figures.
The plot? How long do you have? Essentially, Jerry begins by acting out an earlier Moorcock tale, the first in the "Elric" series, but with a vibra-gun instead of a sword. He accidentally kills his sister during a duel with his drug-addict brother, and spends the rest of the series trying to resurrect her. Meanwhile, he continues his task of trying to maintain the cosmic balance, continually metamorphosing himself and jumping from one reality to another. There's a lot more, though - and by the time you reach the "final" novel in the main tetrology - (All the four "main" novels are anthologized in this volume) you find out that there's even more (or maybe less) to Jerry than meets the eye! That's not the end though - there's a lot more short stories to come after this one, by Moorcock himself and others.
Really, I can't do justice to this - you just have to read Cornelius! Really.
Oh, and this volume is illustrated by the brilliant Malcolm Dean, if you need any more encouragement!
October 16, 2011
Jerry Cornelius was my first introduction to Moorcock and although I've since been working my way through his other books the Cornelius novels are still my favourites.
Although this volume contains 4 novels, I felt I was reading one extended book. Moorcock's disjointed time hopping non-linear narrative lends itself to flexible reading, of course. It's great fun, moving at times, vibrant, silly, epic and at the same time intimate. The shifiting styles of writing manage not to be jarring and never lose pace. The story may be silly at times but the writing is brave and great fun.
I'm a latecomer to Moorcock but as a contemporary reader I think this book has aged very well although it feels somewhat odd saying that about a book about so many alternate histories!
Although this volume contains 4 novels, I felt I was reading one extended book. Moorcock's disjointed time hopping non-linear narrative lends itself to flexible reading, of course. It's great fun, moving at times, vibrant, silly, epic and at the same time intimate. The shifiting styles of writing manage not to be jarring and never lose pace. The story may be silly at times but the writing is brave and great fun.
I'm a latecomer to Moorcock but as a contemporary reader I think this book has aged very well although it feels somewhat odd saying that about a book about so many alternate histories!
March 27, 2024
Lives up to its billing. A collection of provocative and satirical fantasy novels from the counter-culture era. Perhaps it dragged a little but that's probably inevitable when you read four of these heavy beasts back-to-back. Nihilism in the modern age will get you down after a while.
Also worth noting that Mrs C must be one of Moorcock's best comic characters.
Also worth noting that Mrs C must be one of Moorcock's best comic characters.
December 31, 2008
I have a dream...that Michael Moorcock would be in an amazing progrock band with...hmmm...Lemmy. Yeah Lemmy. And that all the songs would be as fantastical as the Elric Saga and the Cornelius saga (hey they are the same guy) and also, what's that you say? This dream has come true?!
October 31, 2018
I wanted to like this book because , after seeing the Final Programme and being struck by Jon Finch's louche and amusing performance, I wanted to be a Jerry Cornelius fan. But this series is pointless. It is not surreal or shocking or much of anything.
January 25, 2008
Delightfully anarchic and freewheeling. Moorcock creates an atmosphere that is psychedelic, apocalyptic, non-linear in time and subtly magical.
April 6, 2016
a big book of indecipherability.
November 23, 2012
One of my all time faves. Re-read bits of this all the time.
February 20, 2016
Yhis is a large, dense tome. There's crazy amount of stuff going on. Instead of trying to make one coherent impression of it, I thought it'd be best to keep a running commentary, diary style.
I started this on Jan 27th, reading only during my commute. It took 3 weeks and 2 days....
...Finished "The Final Programme". At first I was seeing these weird Elric overtones in the Cornelius family drama. Then it just got weird, and carried on. And then it was over. I'm still not sure what the message was. There's entropy, and the "end of history"; but beyond that, it's one big WTF. Must be what taking drugs is like. The language is designed to overwhelm, the pages turn... but there's no enlightenment in the end. But of course, this isn't the end, so who knows?
...I'm not quite done "A Cure for Cancer"- tomorrow, I think. Just a few general thoughts. First of all, I'm reminded of a novella by H.G.Wells (I forget the name), about an American (I think) businessman who decided to destroy Europe. It goes into detail about just how he did it (Scandinavians all fell asleep. Netherlands drowned, I think)... and it's this kind of tone that's the backdrop of the story.
Second- sex. lots and lots of it. It's the 70s and (almost) everyone is doing it with (almost) everyone else. It's the most mundane thing in the world.
Third- Moorcock keeps name-dropping lots and lots of musicians. I have no idea if these are real or made up, and i'm too caught up in the ride to wiki and check. I'm sure if I was a music aficionado, I'd get more out of this, and may even understand the "flow" better.
Overall, to use my own musical allegory, the main impression is that of a CACOPHONY.There's this whirlwind of action, sex, globe-trotting spy action, and in and out jumps the rehash of the Cornelius family drama (again)... You're trying to reconcile what happened in "The Final Programme" and does this have any bearing on here and now (there's hints pointing yes), all the while Jerry questions the nature of time and space, almost as if winking to you across the 4th wall. You try to slow down to assemble the facts, but the flow is getting stronger, and the nihilistic noise rises to a pitch, and you can't stop. The chapter titles are obscure, and sometimes they're describing exactly what'll happen and at other times they leave you stumped as to how on earth can the title and the content have anything in common? Some chapters are a few pages, others a few paragraphs. Nothing is certain.
...And done with "Cure for Cancer". it really IS like a piece of music- it just fades after hitting a crescendo.I'm no closer to understanding anything about Jerry, or anything else, but I'm dragged along and it's impossible to stop.
... "The English Assassin" is insane. The book makes no sense, it's being told out of order (I think, after being about halfway through). At first I thought it was a direct sequel-ish to "Cure for Cancer", because that's what the global political situation seemed like. But now that I read more of it, and some more names got dropped, I'm almost getting "Nomad of Time" cross-over vibes. And still, very little makes sense. But the imagery is awesome, and I keep trying to grasp the plot, not to mention reconcile it with the previous parts of the quartet... Even if it turns out to be all in vain, it's a hell of a ride.
... Ok, 3/4 into "English Assassin". Peace Talks section was mindblowing (cool cameos: I may have been right about my hunch last time...and Beesley is WHO?) Also, my head hurts trying to figure out how these sequels work... or don't.. or is this the multiverses screwing everything up? Forget Erikson's timeline issues, Moorcock questions the very existence of a timeline.... but for once my OCD re: timeline is undisturbed. I'm not sure it's possible to make sense. I'm not sure I want to.
...finished "The English Assassin". Um, ok. So, really, it' "builds" on what happened at the end of "Cure for Cancer", just with bigger cast and... lots more...entropy. And it gets really metaphysical with all the multiverse-s... Seriously, trying to follow it would drive me crazy: Just need to take it as an array of themes. And images. And life-stories. And... just what the hell happened between the Cornelius kids? Figuring out the Tiste races of Erikson is easy by comparison.
This is like abstract art, only literature. With the flow defined by an internal music piece. And dressed in trappings of Absurdist post-apoc in lots of places. I don't know.
...Roughly one third into "The condition of Muzak" and things are slowly clicking into place. clever is the only word to describe the whole thing. I'm trying to think of what I can compare this with. it's a little bit like Amberghris trilo, but taken to a whole other level.
... Getting to the end of "Condition for Muzak". still lost, just gone back to being a sequence of episodes. I keep feeling that I'm about to grasp it, but I'm not. Now they've introduced the allegory, waiting to see if it's actually deconstructed properly so that my feeble mind can "get it"
... 100 pages left. There's entire (short) chapters explaining stuff, and then lots more episodic fragments of shattered histories. Increasingly more philosophizing, as the other players' motivations throughout this kaleidoscopic merry-go-round ride are being revealed.
... less then 30 pages to go (of "the Coda"). Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?" © I don't know, Freddy. Can't say I really care, either.
I'm not sure if there's anything really clever left to find in here. The Ride itself- was exhilarating. Trying to piece stuff together is tantalizing. Whether there's any satisfaction to be found in solving the puzzle (or not- I STILL don't know!) is, imho, irrelevant at this point.
At any rate, the Quartet takes that quintessential experience in every "nerdy" person's life where they populate their dream-scapes with people from their life--and goes abso-fucking-edibly wild with it. This maybe a spoiler, maybe not. I'm 30 pages from the end, and STILL guessing-that's how "obtuse" the Quartet is. But I loved it.
...Ok, done. "clever" is still probably the best word for it. Not a whole lot to add that hasn't been said yet. I think it's safe to say I recommend this to just about anyone. with interest in sci-fi, who's not turned off by the myriad references to sex. And some incest.
I started this on Jan 27th, reading only during my commute. It took 3 weeks and 2 days....
...Finished "The Final Programme". At first I was seeing these weird Elric overtones in the Cornelius family drama. Then it just got weird, and carried on. And then it was over. I'm still not sure what the message was. There's entropy, and the "end of history"; but beyond that, it's one big WTF. Must be what taking drugs is like. The language is designed to overwhelm, the pages turn... but there's no enlightenment in the end. But of course, this isn't the end, so who knows?
...I'm not quite done "A Cure for Cancer"- tomorrow, I think. Just a few general thoughts. First of all, I'm reminded of a novella by H.G.Wells (I forget the name), about an American (I think) businessman who decided to destroy Europe. It goes into detail about just how he did it (Scandinavians all fell asleep. Netherlands drowned, I think)... and it's this kind of tone that's the backdrop of the story.
Second- sex. lots and lots of it. It's the 70s and (almost) everyone is doing it with (almost) everyone else. It's the most mundane thing in the world.
Third- Moorcock keeps name-dropping lots and lots of musicians. I have no idea if these are real or made up, and i'm too caught up in the ride to wiki and check. I'm sure if I was a music aficionado, I'd get more out of this, and may even understand the "flow" better.
Overall, to use my own musical allegory, the main impression is that of a CACOPHONY.There's this whirlwind of action, sex, globe-trotting spy action, and in and out jumps the rehash of the Cornelius family drama (again)... You're trying to reconcile what happened in "The Final Programme" and does this have any bearing on here and now (there's hints pointing yes), all the while Jerry questions the nature of time and space, almost as if winking to you across the 4th wall. You try to slow down to assemble the facts, but the flow is getting stronger, and the nihilistic noise rises to a pitch, and you can't stop. The chapter titles are obscure, and sometimes they're describing exactly what'll happen and at other times they leave you stumped as to how on earth can the title and the content have anything in common? Some chapters are a few pages, others a few paragraphs. Nothing is certain.
...And done with "Cure for Cancer". it really IS like a piece of music- it just fades after hitting a crescendo.I'm no closer to understanding anything about Jerry, or anything else, but I'm dragged along and it's impossible to stop.
... "The English Assassin" is insane. The book makes no sense, it's being told out of order (I think, after being about halfway through). At first I thought it was a direct sequel-ish to "Cure for Cancer", because that's what the global political situation seemed like. But now that I read more of it, and some more names got dropped, I'm almost getting "Nomad of Time" cross-over vibes. And still, very little makes sense. But the imagery is awesome, and I keep trying to grasp the plot, not to mention reconcile it with the previous parts of the quartet... Even if it turns out to be all in vain, it's a hell of a ride.
... Ok, 3/4 into "English Assassin". Peace Talks section was mindblowing (cool cameos: I may have been right about my hunch last time...and Beesley is WHO?) Also, my head hurts trying to figure out how these sequels work... or don't.. or is this the multiverses screwing everything up? Forget Erikson's timeline issues, Moorcock questions the very existence of a timeline.... but for once my OCD re: timeline is undisturbed. I'm not sure it's possible to make sense. I'm not sure I want to.
...finished "The English Assassin". Um, ok. So, really, it' "builds" on what happened at the end of "Cure for Cancer", just with bigger cast and... lots more...entropy. And it gets really metaphysical with all the multiverse-s... Seriously, trying to follow it would drive me crazy: Just need to take it as an array of themes. And images. And life-stories. And... just what the hell happened between the Cornelius kids? Figuring out the Tiste races of Erikson is easy by comparison.
This is like abstract art, only literature. With the flow defined by an internal music piece. And dressed in trappings of Absurdist post-apoc in lots of places. I don't know.
...Roughly one third into "The condition of Muzak" and things are slowly clicking into place. clever is the only word to describe the whole thing. I'm trying to think of what I can compare this with. it's a little bit like Amberghris trilo, but taken to a whole other level.
... Getting to the end of "Condition for Muzak". still lost, just gone back to being a sequence of episodes. I keep feeling that I'm about to grasp it, but I'm not. Now they've introduced the allegory, waiting to see if it's actually deconstructed properly so that my feeble mind can "get it"
... 100 pages left. There's entire (short) chapters explaining stuff, and then lots more episodic fragments of shattered histories. Increasingly more philosophizing, as the other players' motivations throughout this kaleidoscopic merry-go-round ride are being revealed.
... less then 30 pages to go (of "the Coda"). Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?" © I don't know, Freddy. Can't say I really care, either.
I'm not sure if there's anything really clever left to find in here. The Ride itself- was exhilarating. Trying to piece stuff together is tantalizing. Whether there's any satisfaction to be found in solving the puzzle (or not- I STILL don't know!) is, imho, irrelevant at this point.
At any rate, the Quartet takes that quintessential experience in every "nerdy" person's life where they populate their dream-scapes with people from their life--and goes abso-fucking-edibly wild with it. This maybe a spoiler, maybe not. I'm 30 pages from the end, and STILL guessing-that's how "obtuse" the Quartet is. But I loved it.
...Ok, done. "clever" is still probably the best word for it. Not a whole lot to add that hasn't been said yet. I think it's safe to say I recommend this to just about anyone. with interest in sci-fi, who's not turned off by the myriad references to sex. And some incest.
November 14, 2025
This is what you should know about the Cornelius books.
You ought to read them in order, to have any hope of making sense of them.
This is the author riding the multiverse concept VERY HARD, 30 to 40 years before it became popular to do so. Moorcock did not invent the idea but he went awfully far with it.
The same characters will appear over and over, sometimes in different guises. All of the parade of Eternal Champions appear.
These books are not to everyone's taste, but once I parsed what was happening I very much enjoyed them (although by midway through the 4th book things really peter out).
Nice to have this somewhat recent omnibus edition to share a shelf with my White Wolf hardcovers.
You ought to read them in order, to have any hope of making sense of them.
This is the author riding the multiverse concept VERY HARD, 30 to 40 years before it became popular to do so. Moorcock did not invent the idea but he went awfully far with it.
The same characters will appear over and over, sometimes in different guises. All of the parade of Eternal Champions appear.
These books are not to everyone's taste, but once I parsed what was happening I very much enjoyed them (although by midway through the 4th book things really peter out).
Nice to have this somewhat recent omnibus edition to share a shelf with my White Wolf hardcovers.
May 30, 2007
The first story in this volume, The Final Programme, is a re-telling of another story from Moorcock's opus, "The Stealer of Souls." Only while that story is a more-or-less straightforward sword and sorcery adventure (tho one that explores the themes of fratricide and incest), "The Final Programme" takes place in an alternate 1970s universe that resembles nothing so much as Austin Powers on bad acid. If you are into psychedelia, absurdism and the grotesque, that story alone is worth the price of admission.
From there, however, the book meanders into much more difficult territory. It becomes an epic saga about a number of London residents, only told through a kaleidoscopic array of alternate realities and identities. No real indication is given of which plotlines go together, while the book saunters merrily through most every setting of Moorcock's voluminous writing career.
The trip is ultimately worth it, if you are a sincere fan of Moorcock's and deeply interested in his artistic and political philosophy. But the patience required is more than most readers can muster.
From there, however, the book meanders into much more difficult territory. It becomes an epic saga about a number of London residents, only told through a kaleidoscopic array of alternate realities and identities. No real indication is given of which plotlines go together, while the book saunters merrily through most every setting of Moorcock's voluminous writing career.
The trip is ultimately worth it, if you are a sincere fan of Moorcock's and deeply interested in his artistic and political philosophy. But the patience required is more than most readers can muster.
September 16, 2010
No, I have not read all 974 pages of this quartet. I got it because I wanted to read , which I did and it was great, but I don't plan at the moment to go any further. I did the math and Moorcock was 26 when this was published, and so he was probably writing it while he was 24 or 25. London, 1965. It's a trippy book, lots of fun, and it makes sense largely be insisting that it is making sense. The reader is just along for the ride. It is frequently referred to as James Bond on acid, but I was reminded even more of the atmosphere in Mario Bava's film Danger: Diabolik. That film didn't come out until 1968, but change was in the air. This is the first Moorcock book I have read, having always in the past written him off as a sword and sorcery type, based purely on the covers of his paperbacks. Now I see how he could be habit forming.
September 23, 2008
A napalm bomb against linear structure…psychedelic hermaphrodite messiah meets James Bond parody Jerry Cornelius (yes another J.C.) is the “hero” through these interconnected “novels”.(though he is dead throughout most of one of them) More William Burrough type cut up then straight forward narrative these books throw pop culture and history into a blender and create a world where the U.S. napalms London, a women has the power to absorb others, characters disappear and reappear, news clipping become part of the story. A psychotropic kaleidoscope.
February 4, 2012
I decided to try this because I like the Elric saga. I managed to slog my way through this book, but I'm not entirely sure how. After finishing it, I'm still not entirely sure what the heck the book is about or what the main story was.
September 14, 2012
If you're ready to have your mind blown apart (in a good way) then you owe it to yourself to read this series. Admittedly the first two books are the best. The final two are like watching the movie Memento while on three hits of Window Pain blotter acid. Worth it though.
September 3, 2007
I put this book down after reading vol. 1 & 2 and haven't picked up again yet.
March 21, 2013
Holy Lord. I'm baffled. It was interesting, but I'm quite sure I missed a lot. Worth reading for fans of psychadelic/cyberpunk/Alan Moore, but a curiosity at best.
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