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| Holt Reinhart 1971, Tom Hachtman |
Around 1967, Michael Moorcock's "urban adventurer" and "Messiah for the Age of Science" Jerry Cornelius (The Final Programme) returned in ideas for the novel A Cure For Cancer. Initially serialized in New Worlds #188-191 during the second quarter of 1969, the initial book edition was published in 1971. The most famous edition in the United States was probably the Avon books omnibus The Cornelius Chronicles (1977), which collected all four books in the Cornelius quartet (The Final Programme, A Cure For Cancer, The English Assassin, The Condition of Muzak).
I had started the book using another character’s name and hadn’t got very far when I realised that this was effectively a sequel to the Jerry Cornelius novel. I put what I’d written aside and thought about it all, eventually conceiving the notion of writing a tetralogy of books about Jerry, each one expanding upon the various moral questions raised in The Final Programme. I visited New York in 1967 and told George Ernsberger about my scheme and George, was, again, enthusiastic. Eventually, in 1968, I had a contract from Avon for the remaining three books.
By this time The Final Programme had been bought by Allison and Busby who were equally enthusiastic and had also bought Behold the Man in its novel version. They, too, were pleased with the tetralogy idea and guaranteed to publish them in England. It gave me the necessary encouragement to carry on with A Cure For Cancer which took, in all, some three years to write, appearing first as a serial in New Worlds.Like The Final Programme, Cancer describes Jerry's disturbing and whimsical exploits in a dystopic version of Europe and America. However, the sequel doesn't directly follow the genocidal ending of The Final Programme - or maybe it does, it's a bit confusing... Assuming the first novel "actually happened", this novel apparently opens in a new cycle of existence where, in addition to a "negative image" version of Jerry himself, other deceased characters from Programme reappear in transformed guises (and sexes). However, Jerry again ends up remaking reality in a Stormbringer-style Götterdämmerung by the end of the whole affair.
- New Worlds-Jerry Cornelius (1972) - Jerry Cornelius And Co.
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| Penguin 1973, David Pelham |
Armed with a vibragun, Jerry Cornelius runs an organization which captures millionaires and other figures of capitalism and takes them to "reclamation Centres" where they become "transmog patients". After their treatment, these newly-converted acolytes live in peaceful subservience to Jerry's "programme" (a reference to the cult-like following Jerry grew in The Final Programme). Besides transporting patients from one reclamation centre to another, Jerry also works on a "randomizer" machine which will ultimately help revive his dead lover-sister Catherine (killed earlier in The Final Programme). The main narrative follows Jerry's struggles in Europe and America against the ex-cleric Bishop Beesley, who is part of an enemy organization opposed to Jerry's goal of an accelerated "heat death" of the universe (a side effect of Jerry's randomizer machine). The backdrop to this spy-adventure narrative is an American invasion of Europe in the guise of "international aid". In the end, Jerry uses the randomizer machine to siphon the entire multiverse into enough raw energy to revive his dead lover Catherine just long enough to have sex with her. With the world newly-remade, a now-pregnant Jerry ventures forth to continue another cycle of reality.
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| Allison & Busby 1971 Malcolm Dean |
Aside from the new-wave pulp hijinks in which Jerry and his "commedia dell'arte" troupe (with Jerry as Harlequin of course) become involved in, Moorcock as usual also presents a sociopolitical subtext through his character grotesqueries. Moorcock has stated that some scenes in A Cure For Cancer were created as a reaction to televised horrors from the Vietnam War, primarily those resulting from American "foreign policy" (to put it non-politically). In Cancer, American forces arrive in a skeptical Europe searching for "fifth columnists", and ultimately lay waste to the Continent. Commanding General Cumberland recites a speech apparently taken from a speech made by the historical American commander General Westmoreland during the Vietnam War. Scenes of napalm and blood soon occur, the realistic horror blunted only by its placement in a "fantasy" setting.
It starts with the diagnosis of the problem: here is a society in decay. I opened with all of the material for that, then I brought it down to specifics. The chapters get shorter, the rhythm gets more staccato... It is a book about Vietnam. I make the diagnosis, then go to the source of the evil, to examine American imperialism. I wasn’t saying Americans were evil, because I’ve got a lot of idealism invested in America. I just wanted to know what had gone wrong... I was substituting England for Vietnam, to bring the war home; to say the same awful distortion of ideals could occur here and we could be its victims.It seems to me that the “cure for cancer” of the title may actually be unintentional suicide. Did America’s interference in Vietnam (the "cure" for Communism) essentially kill the patient? On the other hand, I can also see Jerry's ultimate goal of "rebooting the multiverse" to be a self-destructive cure for cancer – cancer in this case being American imperialism (although by the time Jerry triggers the machine the American forces are already in retreat). In the narrative itself, Bishop Beesley is working on an article titled “Heroin: A Cure For Cancer?” In other words, depending on a character's viewpoint, the cure for cancer may be heroin, American imperialism or another fantasy Götterdämmerung.
- Death Is No Obstacle (1992)
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| Futura-Quartet 1976, Patrick Woodroffe |
The novel also has several other targets besides the Vietnam War. Injustices perpetrated by the American government during World War II are evoked when refugees from war-torn Europe are corralled into American internment camps (surely as topical now as ever). A profusion of sordid chapter titles and texts ("The shoutlines and titles are all real, mostly from Bluebook and other sensational US ‘men’s’ magazines." - Tripwire 2008 interview) highlight corporate media's tendency towards exploitative "yellow journalism". Religious hypocrisy is also targeted, as any scene with Bishop Beesley would be ample cause for excommunication. The background hum under all this is of course, nihilistic London youth culture, although it is somewhat turned down in volume from The Final Programme.
In our terms we found a cool way of dealing with hot material. The essence of the stories is their irony, their attempts to concentrate as much information as possible into as small a space as possible, their obsession with contemporary imagery, their strong reliance on metaphorical imagery drawn from many disparate sources—pop music, astronomy, physics, cybernetics, etc. They are, ideally, deeply serious in intention.
- New Worlds - Jerry Cornelius (1972)
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| Allison & Busby 1971, Richard Glynn Jones |
However, social politics aside, this is still a really funny novel, probably the first one of Moorcock's satires in which I felt consistently amused all the way through. I think having read the Nick Allard/Jerry Cornell books also prepared me a bit more for this kind of non-genre fantasy. I also believe it's no mere coincidence that Cardinal Orelli from The Rituals of Infinity reappears here, since some of the mechanics in The Cure For Cancer (dimensional tunnels, bad clergy) were present in that novel as well. In fact, the Jerry Cornelius of Cancer seems to have a bit more Professor Faustaff in him than in previous outings. Another thematic echo occurs at the end of the book when Jerry finds himself in the middle of a frozen-over Earth, the result of an entropic "heat-death". This ending almost makes one wonder if Jerry's story could branch off into The Ice Schooner or The Silver Warriors. One of the amazing things about Moorcock's multiverse is that everything is seemingly connected, all of it adding to a sense of inevitability. I suppose a critic could claim this a recycling of ideas, but I actually perceive it more as thematic echoes rippling throughout the multiverse, something which also actually occurs in "historical" history.
Returning to some of Cancer's more specific elements, Jerry now is armed with a vibragun, which "shakes" things to oblivion. Frank however, still wields a needle-gun. Their duel somewhat echoes Elric and Yyrkoon's conflicts, there armed with Stormbringer and Mournblade.
Jerry sometimes uses the alias "Michael Aserinsky". In real life a scientist named Eugene Aserinsky was a pioneer in sleep research who died in a car crash, probably after falling asleep at the wheel. Michel Jouvet was also a sleep researcher. Coincidence?
In Jerry's fantastical London, the ruins of a silver bridge connecting Great Britain to France can be found, as well as flying ornithopters. These are both constructs found in the Runestaff books of Hawkmoon.
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| Fontana 1979, Bill Sanderson |
In some ways A Cure For Cancer is structured in the same way as the books in the Hawkmoon sequence and other Moorcock genre novels: four "books" (Diagnosis, Emergency Operation, Second Operation and Final Operation), each divided into several chapters. However, here the book and chapter titles describe a medical protocol and the general steps of a surgical procedure. If Jerry's adventures represent one level of narrative and the American invasion in the background represent a second, the chapter titles obviously describe a third stream relating directly to the book's title on a literal level. Each chapter is also preceded by text from either a news article, advertisement or some kind of indoctrination pamphlet - this would be a fourth level of narrative. In addition to all of that, Moorcock also sprinkles transmogrified place names, terminology and in-jokes on every paragraph of every page. The juxtaposition of all of these layers obviously creates a very dense texture which can be disorienting. I actually really enjoyed reading the book through a second time while only paying attention to the "surface" adventure yarn. Future readings will probably be spent concentrating on the other layers on a similar individual basis. You certainly get your money's worth with a book like this.
Cornelius was an experiment. I wanted a character that would actually carry a lot of ideas, but I would deal with ideas without recourse to the normal techniques of realist fiction. At the same time it didn't have very much to do with science. At that time science fiction usually had to be rational, it had to be rationalized in some way. Cornelius was not rationalized. There was no rationale, you had to guess what was going on and in a way it was like writing fiction that somebody in the future might understand better than somebody in the present. It's as much of technique as it is character. It's a way of addressing the news as the news comes at you. I wanted to be able to write something that would deal immediately with my own issues with the contemporary moment.
- YouTube interview
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| Titan 2016 |
Diagnosis: In Brief: Jerry goes on a mission to Germany in order to infiltrate Dr. Karen von Krupp's operation. Although Jerry and Karen become romantically involved, Karen's husband Bishop Beesley captures them. Beesley's attempt to brainwash Jerry fails, and the lovers escape back to Jerry's Ladbroke Grove HQ.
- Preliminary Consultation: After an afternoon tryst with American military advisor Flora Hargreaves in the rooftop gardens atop Derry and Tom’s department store, agent Jerry Cornelius (now “negative”, or black-skinned and white-haired) is attacked by an armed helicopter. After commandeering the heli, he takes it to Ladbroke Grove to pick up a “crash transmog”, an ex-Chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain, but now an involuntary candidate for Jerry’s anti-capitalist “organization”. Jerry takes his unwilling passenger to the Sunnydales Reclamation Centre for conversion therapy.
- Tissue Sample: After some casual arson at the British Library (a small gesture against history), Jerry heads to the Mercury Club to meet his Greek contact Spiro Koutrouboussis (an ex-millionnaire now an administrator for Jerry’s organization), who warns him that an enemy agent named Dr. Karen von Krupp is soon due to arrive in England. Jerry’s mission is to intercept her in Germany and neutralize her “reconversion” operation. Passing by the ruins of a collapsed silver bridge and below airborne ornithopters, Jerry drives his Phantom VI Rolls-Royce into the sea, after which it transforms into a boat and then a submarine. Dodging depth charges laid by American blockade ships, he arrives in Brussels, France.
- Blood Sample: After an evening tryst with fellow agent Una Persson (his wife in The Final Programme), the next morning Jerry is recognized and intercepted by the corpulent, degenerate ex-clergyman Bishop Beesley (originally Miss Brunner's lackey in the previous book). Beesley tries to ingratiate himself with Jerry but fails. Undeterred, an outraged Beesley follows Jerry to Germany in his Cadillac.
- Analysis: After transforming his car into a plane (losing Beesley’s tail), Jerry visits dental surgeon Karen von Krupp at her castle near Cologne and instantly falls in love with her. He takes her and her assistant (daughter) Mitzi to his base in Paris, but a fellow organization agent named Pyat betrays him. Held prisoner by Beesley (Karen’s husband), Jerry is dressed in drag as a form of reconversion therapy. Jerry uses the music of Jimi Hendrix to distract Beesley, Pyat and Mitzi so that he and Karen can escape into the Shift (a trans-dimensional tunnel similar to the ones Faustaff used in The Rituals of Infinity). There, Jerry glimpses a small goateed man holding a metal box ("the machine"). They eventually make it back to England.
- Result: Jerry and Karen philosophize at Jerry’s HQ in Ladbroke Grove. Jerry seems to make contact with someone named “Mo”. Una Persson sends a postcard to Jerry. He later refreshes his energies inside a strange webbed machine.
Emergency Operation: In Brief: When Beesley's forces raid one of Jerry's conversion centres, Jerry and Karen go undercover to America on a rescue mission. When they are assigned to an internment camp, Captain Brunner comes to Jerry's aid. Jerry eventually gains control of Beesley's sea transport and saves his abducted transmog patients.
- Anaesthetic: Jerry and Karen enjoy various odd phenomena in London, essentially killing time. “Flash” Gordon Gavin is seen approaching some American tanks. Mo Collier collects the dead outside Jerry’s flat.
- First Incision: Jerry escorts a group of transmog patients from his Ladbroke Grove HQ to the Sunnydales Reclamation Centre on his ship The Pierrot. Unfortunately, the Sunnydales facility has just been attacked by Beesley’s forces and the resident patients spirited away to America. Jerry tells Koutrouboussis that Beesley is after "the machine", and that Beesley believes that Jerry is in possession of it.
- Infection Exposed: In pursuit of the abducted Sunnydales transmogs, Jerry and Karen fly to America and pose as refugees (ex-members of the religious clergy) in order to wait for Beesley’s arrival. Jerry becomes distraught when Karen begins seeing other clergymen, but takes comfort in Mrs Persson’s postcard. When a political revolution breaks out in the United States (President Paolozzi is replaced by Ronald Boyle), Jerry and Karen decide to flee the country. However, they are accosted at the airport and placed on a mysterious bus.
- Extent Estimated: After the bus drops them off at Camp Resurrection (a Pennsylvania concentration camp), Jerry and Karen have a private meeting with Captain Brunner (formerly Jerry's female nemesis in The Final Programme). Brunner sympathizes with Jerry’s cause and offers his Duesenberg to enable his escape. Brunner also joins Jerry on his departure, but Karen elects to stay behind.
- Transfusion: Jerry and Brunner relax at Niagara Falls, but Beesley and Mitzi eventually catch up with them. Brunner escapes by leaping into the Falls, but Jerry is captured.
- Stitching: Near London, Beesley’s party changes cars. When Jerry notes that Boyle’s American forces are laying waste to London (as well as America itself), Beesley nonetheless shows support for the new American President’s actions. They board Beesley’s yacht the Teddy Bear, where the reclaimed, “reconverted” ex-Chairman of the British Arts Council now serves as a steward. Heading south, near Minnesota Jerry seduces Mitzi and escapes. Afterwards, he spends some time with various Sioux and other Indian tribes, assisting them in their campaigns against the white invaders. In Las Vegas, Jerry warns his old friend Murphy about the amassing Indians. Jerry eventually flies to San Francisco where he ambushes the Teddy Bear, and forces Beesley and Mitzi overboard. After taking command of the yacht, Jerry decides to deposit his rescued Sunnydales transmogs at the emergency Reclamation Centre in Sumatra.
Second Operation: In Brief: While searching for his missing "randomizer machine", Jerry runs into his brother Frank, now allied with the American invasion force rolling across Europe. After Jerry regains his device Frank attacks him, but Jerry's brother is defeated and captured. Unfortunately Beesley raids Jerry's HQ and takes the device for his own purposes.
- Lights: Back in London, Koutrouboussis informs Jerry that “Flash” Gordon Gavin may have information regarding the whereabouts of his missing “machine”. After a jam session in Soho, Jerry rendezvous with Flash at Kew Gardens. In return for a supply of oil, Flash gives him a note which holds a strange map drawn in Jerry’s brother Frank’s hand.
- Cut One: Jerry arrives at Buckingham Palace, where he finds that Frank is now serving under American General Cumberland, who is now taking control of Europe. Cumberland gives a propaganda speech (based on a real life Westmoreland speech) to an assembly of skeptical European leaders, extolling America’s benevolent role in the suppression of European “Fifth Columnists”. Frank tells Jerry that if he wants to find his lost machine then he must go back to Derry and Tom’s roof garden.
- Cut Two: London burns under Cumberland’s onslaught (which Moorcock has described as the novel's displaced “grand finale”). At Derry and Tom’s roof garden, he meets the mysterious goateed man, who tells Jerry that the machine is with Flora Hargreaves, Jerry’s old American military advisor lover.
- Extraction: Jerry heads to his underground lab/morgue below the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford where he uses his life force to reawaken his frozen lover-sister Catherine - although her consciousness quickly dissipates. Afterwards, he enters a room containing a machine with webs and recharges himself. At Milton Keynes, he finds Flora Hargreaves who is holding onto Jerry’s lost “randomizer” machine. Frank arrives and tries to arrest them but is betrayed by Flora. Defeated, he begins to quickly age as Jerry hustles him out of the American facility as a hostage.
- Saturation: Back at Sunnydales, Frank is put into a “blank room”. However, after Jerry has a psychotic episode with Flora he impulsively smashes Frank’s isolation tank. He eventually arrives at Koutrouboussis’ office where the randomizer machine is being examined. Frank then appears and threatens Jerry. Next, Beesley and his assistant Mitzi arrive, accompanied by Cardinal Orelli (from The Rituals of Infinity). Mitzi kills Frank, Koutroubousis and Flora Hargreaves. Beesley departs with the machine.
Final Operation: In Brief: Jerry attacks Beesley's hideout and derails the Bishop's plans, but is eventually captured himself. With the aid of the randomizer machine and the timely arrival of Una Persson, Jerry escapes. He then uses the machine to briefly revive his dead sister-lover Catherine, in the process rebooting the multiverse.
- Radiation Treatment: After another visit to Catherine at his Ashmolean base, Jerry "shifts" to Beesley’s lair where the Bishop is operating a steam-driven machine designed to impose ordered “Utopia” (reversing the effects of Jerry's machine). Jerry attacks Beesley’s construct, causing it to go haywire. Jerry escapes into the street and hijacks a mini-hover.
- Check Temperature: On the way back to London, Jerry sees Cumberland self-immolate (possibly due to Jerry's vibragun) while commanding his troops. After the mini-hover runs out of juice, Karen drives up. Jerry kills her with his vibragun and takes her vehicle to Ladbroke Grove. He later surfaces in Holland Park where he gives up in despair to Mitzi and Cardinal Orelli.
- Pulse Check: Beesley accuses Jerry of wanting to foist a premature Apocalypse on his transmog converts. Mitzi notes that the sun has stopped moving across the sky. When Beesley asks Jerry how to power the randomizer machine, Jerry asks Cardinal Orelli to place his hands inside the machine’s opening slot. When Orelli does this his life is sucked out and the machine comes to life (ala Elric's Stormbringer). Jerry recharges himself with the machine’s power and attempts to escape. Beesley and Mitzi nearly recapture him but the fortuitous arrival of Mrs Una Persson (on a dogsled and armed with a steel bow) saves him from their clutches. The sun begins moving again. Mrs Persson tells Jerry that the Americans have all departed Europe. They go back to Jerry’s Ashmolean morgue where Mrs Persson allows the machine to consume her life force so that Jerry can attempt to reanimate Jerry’s sister Catherine.
- Respiration Check: Jerry uses the machine to dissipate and then collect the entire multiverse in order to funnel its energies into Catherine’s inert form. Catherine awakens, and Jerry has now reversed polarity so that he is now white (no longer “negative”).
- Operation Successful: Jerry and Catherine stroll through Holland Park, now covered in snow (due to the entropic heat-death caused by the machine). Beesley and Mitzi have been turned into marble statues. After Jerry and Catherine make love, Catherine dies again. A now-pregnant Jerry Cornelius locates Mrs Persson’s abandoned dogsled and heads out into the wilderness in order to find new converts.
The complete review's Review
Next Chapter: Sailing to Utopia
(Previous Chapter: Hawkmoon: The History of the Runestaff)
