"Muzak is a trade name for piped music used in resturaunts, super markets, bars and other public places", michael Moorcock helpfully explains in the appendix at the rear of The condition Of Muzak paperback. perhaps envisioning an age when the book would still be in print in an era where the hollow reed melodies would no longer happen, an age when people did not gather in public places. Hmmmmm...
Muzak in many way was just a series of noises that approximate the sound of actual music, unasked for but cordially piped into public areas as they did in golden days of yore, when we thought such things would last forever. "When we were beautiful, mister Poirot." you remember those days? When people could congregate together, breathing and rebreathing the same air. While also listening to, if barely registering, the piped in sounds of muzak.
Nothing to be heard here. Nothing to aspire to. Oh, our arrogance, my dears.
there is an unspoken artificiality to what was going on but nothing appeals to the very soul of modernity like artificiality. Like so much in the life and lives of jerry Cornelius and friends, at once frivolous and deadly. it is strange to think of this novel as a period piece but in truth that former world has passed away, every iteration of it. The kalidoscope of the multi verse whirling away right before our eyes. we squint, attempting to find resolution and it just looks more confused and bloody glorious. It is something of a jolly romance, with some beautifully realised and crafted vigennettes which frustratingly slip away just as we grasp them, when they are at their most sweet and compelling. just go for it, give nether a fig nor a penny farthing for nailing it down. go back to the start, hold on tight, take a ride on the wild side.
Things End, Things Begin, Things Aint Af Orrible, then they get better, sort of, before they fall apart again. Well, you get the picture. I think it would be a terribly dangerous thing to know someone like Jerry Cornelius, for a multiplicity of reasons. Mad, bad and dangerous to know, as they say. Fortunately he is just fictional enough to put on a bookshelf for safe keeping. a hero for the Neververse. Just dont introduce him to your sister. Or your brother. Or your ma for that matter.
Journeys end in lovers meeting, after all.
