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| (Allison & Busby 1977, Art: Richard Glyn Jones) |
Interviewer: "What do you think is your best (work)?"
Michael Moorcock: "The latest one. It always is. But really, it is without doubt The Condition of Muzak. It's technically the best, stylistically the best, and covers a much wider range of subjects in a much deeper way. It's my masterpiece. Nobody else could do anything like it - not that I'm suggesting that anybody else should want to… Actually, when I finished it I thought it was rotten. But then, I always do. I don't at this current moment."
Vortex V1N4, April 1977 ("and I type rather fast...", Interviewed by Mark Ambient)
The Condition of Muzak (1977) is the final installment of Moorcock's
"Cornelius Quartet", a series of novels chronicling the 20th
Century exploits of the frequently-hedonistic, sometimes-tenebrous, occasionally-epoch-spanning "agent
provocateur" Jerry Cornelius, as well as those of his similarly-indefatigable friends and enemies. Like the previous books in the Cornelius Quartet (The Final Programme (1968), A Cure For Cancer (1971) and
The English Assassin (1972)), The Condition of Muzak is written in a style which ignores (and quickly transcends) the usual strictures of traditional fantasy or science fiction. Although Moorcock does use
certain science fantasy concepts to add wind to the sails of his Jerry Cornelius stories, these genre-warping myth-odysseys are more intended to be approached as "modern literature". Appropriately enough, in 1977 The Condition of Muzak won not the science-fiction Hugo Award, but the Guardian Fiction Prize (of course, this did not prevent "The Cornelius Quartet" from also landing on several "essential science fiction" lists).
The Rituals of Infinity
As the fourth novel in a series, it should be obvious that many elements of The Condition of Muzak can be best
appreciated after having read the previous three novels (although, for a while Moorcock proposed that each of the books in the Quartet could possibly be used as starting points). Therefore, this chapter will probably be most rewarding if the reader has visited the previous chapters on this site devoted to Jerry
Cornelius' world:
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| (L'Atalante 1991, Art: Kiki) |
On one level, the Cornelius Quartet's most striking accomplishment is its exploration of story structure. From one novel to the next, the Quartet progressively introduces bolder and bolder narrative techniques over its four installments.
The series kicks off with The Final Programme, a "controlled experiment" with a relatively straight-forward, plot-driven narrative embracing a "normal" approach to continuity. Although The Final Programme does contain some fairly wild imagery (and some scenes are almost impossible to visualize in a physical sense), this first novel could still be enjoyed simply as a kind of retro-future, psychedelic love-letter/requiem to "bohemian" London in the 1960s.
However, in A Cure For Cancer, the premise of the series begins to attain additional levels of complexity, as the reader is never entirely sure whether this novel takes place before or after the previous novel, or even exists in the same universe. Loyalties and conflicts established in the first novel are reconfigured without explanation, dead characters return without fanfare, and at least one character has changed gender. Nonetheless, on a structural level this novel still carries a sequential narrative which seems to be based in a single "continuum" (although the plot twists come much faster, and their arrivals more impromptu). The second novel also ends much the same way as the first, with Jerry bringing forth a global catharsis/apocalypse of some sort. On a character level, the Cornelius "company" begins to come into sharper focus, as Moorcock spends a bit more time fleshing out their individual voices and personalities. Aside from all of this, A Cure For Cancer also contains a strong commentary on the devastating effects of iron-fisted geopolitics.
The third novel, The English Assassin, soon leaps off of an even higher stylistic diving board. Like the previous novel, this one opens up with no clear chronological connection to what has gone before, and proceeds with a strange/familiar story in a strange/familiar world with strange/familiar characters. However structurally, it soon begins to adopt a meticulously-fractured narrative where scenes are not necessarily dependent on immediately preceding ones (and in fact, seem to lead into narrative "buds" without further immediate development). In other words, at this point the author has seemingly done away with both a consequence-based (sequential) narrative and a set framework of character relationships (although the personalities of the cast always remain true). Much of this middle portion comes across as an almost dream-like parade of free-standing vignettes, which Moorcock has once cited as "moral constructs, or parables if you like." However, in the final stretch, things begin to coalesce into a satisfactory "reveal" with some sense of closure to questions raised in the opening portions of the book. On a thematic level, The English Assassin also steps further away from the playful vivisection of 60s pop culture found in the two earlier novels, and takes a more sober view of modern society during the latter half of the Vietnam War era.
With the fourth and final novel, The Condition of Muzak, Moorcock completes his exploration of the possibilities made available by the Jerry Cornelius concept. Following a neo-realistic "Prelude" sequence, the bulk of the novel continues to refine stylistic territory developed throughout the three previous novels until it reaches an unexpectedly moving climax in the form of a "Christmas miracle" (attended by the company's full cast). This is followed by a "Coda" sequence (picking up from the scenario offered in the opening "Prelude") which closes out the entire tetralogy with its only "true" death scene. Additionally, the The Condition of Muzak's structure charts out the "macro-structure" of the entire tetralogy itself (but in condensed form).
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| (Fontana 1979, Art: Bill Sanderson) |
The Nature of the Catastrophe
As mentioned earlier, what makes The Condition of Muzak immediately different from its
predecessors are the beginning and ending portions of the book
("Prelude" and Coda"), which describe a drastically different reality, one where a
teenage Jerry Cornelius lives with his mother in a somewhat disreputable
corner of London. In contrast to the invincible, jet-setting
"Messiah to the Age of Science" introduced previously, Jerry is a wistful
guitar player who dreams of future fame and fortune with his
largely-marginalized "art-rock" band. Gone are needle-guns, transmats, and ornithopters, as well as the encroachment of foreign armies invading domestic shores. These sequences at first describe the beginnings of a hopeful, naive creative artist, and then in the final entries report on his eventual fate as a commercial (but creatively-starved) success. This "domestic reduction" of Jerry's
character is similarly applied to Jerry's techno-agent associates from the
previous novels. Characters like Una Persson, Major Nye, Frank Cornelius,
and Miss Brunner are re-imagined as "local color" - although, like Jerry,
they still retain unique personality strains from their "science fantasy" incarnations. In other words, the high technology geopolitical machinations
of the earlier novels are proportionately transmogrified into a small-scale
urban diorama, one which is essentially as down to Earth as what might be found in a Dickens novel
(however, it's worth noting that the "post-apocalyptic" central part of the book winds up in Dickensian territory as well - see below).
A Sailor on the Seas of Fate
Apart from these "domesticated" opening and closing sequences, the bulk of the novel is
concerned with the further, fractured supra-exploits of the incarnation of Jerry
Cornelius made familiar through the earlier novels. Although hints suggest that some of these episodes actually take place during (or prior to) the events recounted in the three previous novels, in general the mood reflects a world which continues to
tear itself apart into smaller and smaller bits, and Jerry for the most part
seeks to disentangle himself from the intrigues and manipulations of his old
friends and enemies. Hints of this "retreat" had actually first appeared in
An English Assassin, where Jerry spent much of the book off-stage
(functioning primarily as a non-communicative, near-catatonic "MacGuffin"). In
The Condition of Muzak, Jerry more actively expresses disinterest
with the rampant conflicts of the outer world and opines that he would much rather enjoy a state of post-conflict entropy. Despite being involuntarily drawn into the intrigues of his
associates in the "Development" section
of the book, in the closing "Recapitulation", Jerry winds up creating a solitary refuge for himself in the
ruins of a Derry & Toms department store complex overrun by vegetation (a
suburban jungle which has become a literal jungle).
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| (Fontana 1978, Art: Bill Sanderson) |
Commedia dell'arte
Commedia dell'Arte, the art of Italian comic theater (specifically a kind where "stock" character roles are employed in a repertoire of semi-improvised plots), is also woven through the Cornelius Quartet. In Muzak especially, this exists as a third narrative, alongside the science-fantasy narrative and the "real world" framing sequences. In fact, an "Appendix" at the end of Muzak references 18th century pantomimes where actors began these productions wearing outsize masks ("...on a theme usually taken from folklore, Romance or Classical Mythology"), and then later are "transformed magically into members of the Harlequinade, to act out their parts in a fantastic, musical, satirical and symbolic manner and bring the whole entertainment to a satisfactory resolution.""When I encountered the Commedia dell-Arte, I found a new set of stock characters which, like the stock characters of Greek mythology, are always useable, always relevant, but don't have the grandiosity of Greek mythology, and don't simplify the moral issues as villains in black hats do."
MM: Death Is No Obstacle, 1992
"The Birth and Adventures of Harlequin"In the latter part of this sequence, Jerry is excavated from the tropical ruins of Derry & Toms, and the story concludes in a "happy ending" delivered via a fable-like Christmas party. All of the players are present and accounted for, and Jerry is happily reunited with his sister Catherine through the gracious generosity of Una Persson.
"Harlequin Invisible; or, The Emperor of China’s Court"
"The Metamorphosis of Harlequin"
"The Death of Harlequin"
"The Mirror; or, Harlequin Everywhere"
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| (Orion Phoenix 1993, Art: Robert Cracknell) |
Structure: A Mirror of Tetralogy
The beginning of The Condition of Muzak includes a statement from Moorcock: "Although
these books may be read in any order, the reader might wish to know that the
structure of this volume reflects the structure of the overall tetralogy."
Although probably not a running concern as the reader navigates through the
Cornelius Quartet on his/her first reading, it's interesting to appreciate (after the fact) the
methodology by with Moorcock has structured this final volume. The
"Introduction" section follows a fairly sequential thread of events, much
like The Final Programme does. Additionally, some of the plot elements here are
also tied more explicitly to concepts visited in The Final Programme. For example, the first five chapters if the "Introduction" sequence could possibly be slotted in prior to the beginning of The Final Programme (although the remaining five chapters might also function as a prelude to the events of A Cure For Cancer).
However, Muzak's next act ("Development") jump-cuts to a seemingly unrelated thread, which, like A Cure For Cancer, gradually becomes more and more whimsical in its approach to sequential storytelling. The "Recapitulation" presents its chapters as a series of episodic parables, in the way that The English Assassin is structured at points.
Although placed a bit earlier, the "Reunion Party" is clearly an alternate
interpretation/reflection of "The Peace Talks" from The English Assassin. The
"Recapitulation" naturally is also a narrative microcosm of
The Condition of Muzak, with the Christmas Party being a kind of
final reiteration of the Reunion Party. The "Recapitulation" also opens with a
"Young Jerry Cornelius" about to go to war, which mirrors the naive teenage
Jerry Cornelius seen in the "Prelude", who is just starting his music career.
In "The Metamorphosis of Harlequin" Jerry goes into "hibernation" as seen in
The English Assassin. A
few scenes later, Jerry becomes Pierrot, which is what he emerges as at the
end of The English Assassin. There are many similarly interesting
structural clues which can be discovered and appreciated in re-readings of
the tetralogy.
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| (Centipress 1982, Art: Tais Teng) |
(On the symphony form) "You can still play the same tunes, but you play them at a different speed, and with different colors and emphasis."
MM: Death Is No Obstacle, 1992
The main sections of The Condition of Muzak are labelled with terminology used to define large-scale musical structures ("Prelude", "Exposition", "Development", "Recapitulation", "Coda"). Aside from these headers, other "motivic" strokes can be found throughout the book, appearing as literary melodic shapes which are re-imagined in diminished and augmented forms, and in different keys and tempos.
For example, in the opening sequence ("Tuning Up (1)"), Nye and Hira are reunited with a tattered Jerry Cornelius in the freshly-bombed ruins of Angkor Wat. This scene is later sounded in a different key amongst the florid ruins of a Derry & Toms made tropical through Jerry's own machinations (in the "The Metamorphosis of Harlequin", found in the "Recapitulation").
Then, the first chapter of the book proper ("J.C.") introduces the "real world"
Jerry Cornelius, and here the motif of a ruined Derry & Toms (an
"abandoned shell") pops up again as a background note. Here also Jerry muses on plans to turn his balcony
refuge into "an ornamental conservatory with semi-tropical plants" - which
is exactly what he does to Derry & Toms in the previously-cited
Harlequinade scene. In the same chapter, Frank soon arrives and asks, "What
is the time? My watch has stopped". This beat references early scenes from
both The Final Programme and the first Elric story "The Dreaming
City" (it may also be meaningful
that Frank's watch has stopped, perhaps intimating that the Cornelius clan
in this vignette is unhinged from the normal time stream). Jerry then opines
about someday buying the nearby nunnery of St Clares. In the "mythopoeic"
time stream, Jerry does indeed take over the convent and quickly turns it
into the first of his worldwide "Transmog Clinics". It's also notable that
Frank exhibits an opportune loyalty to the "Service", which is a role he
embraces in the post-apocalyptic world later as well (at a post-war Buckingham Palace run by Beesley found
in "The Birth and Adventures of Harlequin").
The Sundered World
As touched upon earlier, in each of the four installments of the Cornelius tetralogy, Moorcock progressively introduces bolder and bolder structural techniques which tend towards allowing disorienting narrative leaps, and otherwise do not force the books to adhere to any obvious single continuity. One way to rationalize these impossibly-related episodes would be to propose that the Cornelius novels are drawn from some sort of Jerry Cornelius "multiverse". In his "Eternal Champion" sequence, Moorcock presents the concept of an iconic hero-archetype who manifests in different times and in different bodies to fight for (or against) the forces of Order and Chaos. All of these characters and worlds exist in connected parallel universes which, considered as a whole, Moorcock calls the multiverse. This premise underlies several different book series (which sometimes intersect in "multiverse crossovers").
It's possible to view the contradictory, continuity-free Cornelius novels as being the result of a multiverse made entirely of reiterations of Jerry Cornelius, Una Persson, Mrs Cornelius, Frank Cornelius, Catherine, Miss Brunner, Major Nye, Colonel Pyat, Prince Lobkowitz, Bishop Beesley, Mr Koutrouboussis, Shakey Mo Collier, Gavin "Flash" Gordon, etc. In other words, one could imagine that the Cornelius novels encompass multiple planes in parallel continuums, and that the books sometimes unceremoniously flip back and forth between them according to a story's needs. It's as if individual chapters from several different series in the Eternal Champion books (Elric, Hawkmoon, Corum, Erekosë, Aubec, etc.) were reorganized into a non-intuitive sequence, and then served as one great big meal with Jerry and his friends taking on all of the roles.
This interpretation is sometimes supported by scenes in the earlier novels (in particular the shorts collection The Nature of the Catastrophe) where Jerry and his friends visit a "Time Centre", a kind of time-space hub where various co-existing continuums can be accessed (this is also a narrative mechanism found in the Oswald Bastable novels).
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| (Fontana 1988, Art: Paul Damon?) |
Continuity Collapse
Although the "Cornelius Chronicles as multiverse" concept may be appealing
to some, it's also likely that this is not the "real" case at all (or at least
is incidental to the tetralogy's true objective). Considering the culture in
which these books were written, it may seem more appropriate to suppose
that the need for an over-arching "rationale" was simply discarded as being beside the point. It may be more appropriate to simply experience the Cornelius
stories as "legends" (certainly the presence of Time Centers and Shifters goes by the wayside in the later novels).
In most modern fantasy and science fiction, much effort is expended to establish "continuity", or "canon". Novels and movies which engender many sequels and other forms of expansion take pains to make sure that the details and circumstances of each installment work to form a "realistic" mythology, as if the entire series were created complete, out of whole cloth. Although this facet of continued storytelling is very rewarding to many long-time fans, it can be extremely limiting from a creator's point of view. As a series gets older, it unavoidably acquires continuity "factoids", much like an ocean vessel collects barnacles on its underside throughout its sailing voyages. This makes it much harder to introduce fresh concepts.
With the latter part of the Jerry Cornelius stories, Moorcock seems to have innocuously jettisoned this kind of "franchise baggage", erasing any need to be concerned with a chronological continuity. By removing the expectation of a cause-and-effect plot delivered in an obviously sequential manner, and by deliberately neglecting to offer up any definitive explanations of the wide leaps in premise and character identities, many sequences in The English Assassin and The Condition of Muzak become more like "legends" which have been passed down from a distant mythology.
In fact, the legends and mythologies of the "ancient world" are now viewed in the way that Moorcock seems to be presenting these particular Cornelius stories. For example, in both the Greek and Arthurian tales, there is no "canon", but rather various iterations of the same characters, with each story adapted by different authors to a unique time and place of its telling. In fact, many IPs ("intellectual properties") are constantly being "rebooted" for new audiences. However, what's unique with the Cornelius books is that a single author is here creating multiple legends sprouting from his own original text (admittedly, with help from friends in the early days), and indeed blends them together as a key stylistic/narrative device. Although this concept of "myth iteration" is also developed in the Eternal Champion books through its use of several different characters and worlds (thus avoiding binding continuity violations), the Cornelius novels simply re-configure Jerry and his friends in different times and places without explanation (and obviously at a much higher velocity of regularity).
It's notable that the Cornelius Quartet omnibus includes an Appendix which chronicles "apocryphal sightings" of various incarnations of Jerry Cornelius scattered throughout history (also found in The Nature of the Catastrophe, 1971). Since Jerry's "death" is recorded multiple times in this chronicle, that reduces the possibility of there being a single Jerry Cornelius bouncing around by way of Time Centre hi-jinks. And since these events are (apparently) all happening in one continuum, that negates the implication of a multiverse made up of many Jerry Cornelius "Champions".
The "plurality of myths" approach also ties in with Moorcock's use of the Cornelius characters in the previously-described commedia dell-Arte roles, as he slots in his Harlequins, Columbines and Pierrots where he sees fit in order to get his points across (besides liberating the story possibilities, this of course also helps highlight the delightful idiosyncrasies of Moorcock's characters across a wider variety of landscapes).
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| (Titan 2016) |
Non-Intuitive Continuity Clippings
Although there is a marked laxity in the Cornelius Quartet's need to maintain of a fictional, narrative-based continuity, there is a kind of textual continuity present in these books, one which is based on effect, rather than "data-collection". Where other book series use encyclopedic "world-building" devices to create a sense of "home" for their readers, Moorcock uses much more oblique methods to create a unique form of "literary verisimilitude" in his Cornelius fables. One of these methods was described earlier as the "motivic foreshadowing" found interspersed throughout any given sequence. Another method can be seen in the bits of isolated "copy" injected before the main structural sections.
"I use those newspaper quotes and so forth for sardonic or ironic effect, sometimes trying to broaden the 'attack' from the specific to the general. They are narrative. In fact Jerry Cornelius is all narrative. It's just that it's only barely linear some of the time and not at all linear most of the time. So you use association, poetic method, symbols, images and so forth to connect the logic of the narrative..."
MM: www.multiverse.org
"Thinking about methods - prefiguring things with apparently random remarks, chapter headings etc. This is why, even if readers don’t remember reading a certain ref. it appears familiar to them when it turns up again. Thus a chapter heading (A) will refer to an event in chapter (G). This creates flow in place of traditional narrative dynamics while at the same time doing something to destroy restrictions of linear narrative - i.e. ‘non-linear’ is not the same as ‘random’. Books - any art - must have shape, but the shape can be very different.. . . It’s an attempt to describe and to dramatise my own view of the world - i.e. one which is non-linear. I can see so many possibilities all at once I can’t choose one - and would not wish to choose one. I'm not confused by multiplicity - I’m delighted by it."Like the previous three books in the Cornelius Quartet, The Condition of Muzak continues the stylistic technique of tactically interspersing various quotes from "historical" 20th century documents. As seen in the two quotes above, Moorcock's intention is to have certain clippings add meaning to scenes found in other parts found earlier or later in the book, thus contributing to the non-linear (prismatic) storytelling style of the series.
MM: Muzak Notebook, pp. 163-4, dated 18 April 1976 (The Entropy Exhibition, Colin Greenland)
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| (Bastei Lubbe 1982, Art: Patrick Woodroffe) |
Bloody Muzak
"All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music."
"Muzak is a trade name for piped music used in restaurants, supermarkets, bars and other public places."
Appropriately, The Condition of Muzak begins with the above first sentence and ends on the second. The first quote (attributed to Walter Pater) goes on to characterize music as a unique art form in which the medium and message are one and the same (unlike literature or sculpture, for example). By exchanging "music" for "Muzak", perhaps Moorcock is saying something about the synthetic nature of the modern creative arts. Or, he is intimating that the contents of this particular book are a re-synthesis of earlier "primal" texts (i.e., the tetralogy as a whole). It's fun to speculate. In Death Is No Obstacle, Moorcock at one point characterizes the title as being "ironic, self-mocking", and explains that, although the book is a very serious effort, there was a possibility of it being "rubbish". Of course, he also notes that "alot of the techniques in The English Assassin and The Condition of Muzak are pointing out that these books are more complex than they might seem".
Final TitbitsThe concept of entropy frequently pops up in the Cornelius novels. Some writers have equated "Entropy" with Chaos, with Jerry serving Entropy much as Elric is a patron of the Chaos lords. In this case, the gross Bishop Beesley and the arrogant Major Nye represent the forces of Order, characterized as agents of power within unrestrained religion and military organizations, respectively.
Regarding the "real world" opening and closing sections of The Condition of Muzak, some writers have also characterized these scenes as being the "real" Jerry Cornelius, and that all of the mythopoeic "urban adventurer" sequences are actually daydreams and wishful fantasies of the hapless teenage iteration (...The realisation comes that Jerry is seeking sanctuary in different universes of Time in separate private mythologies...", Tom Hutchinson, The Times). I personally don't subscribe to this interpretation, since it seems to suggest that some kind of "underhandedness" has been at large in the first three books, or that this "real world" incarnation has any more (or less) validity than the "mythopoeic" realities. As far as I'm concerned, it's all true (and all false!).
“It becomes complicated because you’re trying to break down expectations. You’re trying to destroy generic links, so that people won’t impose an order on something that you‘re not intending should be there. The Jerry Cornelius books were done that way, so readers could take whatever they wanted from them. They‘re based on the idea that people will make their own interpretation. What you don’t want is for them to read it as something conventional.“
MM: Starlog n.168 (1991)
Other Notable Links and Publications
- "The Repossession of Jerry Cornelius" (John Clute, 1977, preface to The Cornelius Chronicles)
- The Entropy Exhibition (Colin Greenland, 1983)
- Michael Moorcock: Fiction, Fantasy and the World’s Pain (Mark Scroggins, 2015)
- The Law of Chaos: The Multiverse of Michael Moorcock (Jeff Gardiner, 2015)
- "Moorcock's Metaphysics (5): Jerry Cornelius" (Chris Bateman)
- "The Hipster On the Seas of Fate" (Arthur B.)
- Wiki Entry
Next: Gloriana, or The Unfulfill'd Queen
Previous: The Adventures of Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius in the 20th Century
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| (L'Atalante 1991, Art: Kiki) |
