Cornelius Chronicles V02

So if a little imagination helps, consider what it's like when your imagination is unreined. No reason to let a little reality stand in your way. And when the forms are constrained, it only somehow heightens the free play. Reinvention of self has rarely gone so far. Jerry's or yours. Moorcock wrote about these stories: "Part of my original intention with the Jerry Cornelius stories was to 'liberate' the narrative; to leave it open to the reader's interpretation as much as possible - to involve the reader in such a way as to bring their own imagination into play." These chronicles are among my favorite literary works. Each is a different literary experiment. Transform the mundane, don't let it run you down. How cool can you be? How important can you be? How intriguing can the folks you hang out with? Only Jerry seems to know. Let him show the way. Profound? Well, it's at least great, incredibly well-written fun. Read "Dancers at the End of Time" if you want to see how well Moorcock can construct a "traditional" story. But if you want to see Moorcock's talent unleashed, give The Cornelius Quartet a try. P.S. This version includes an outstanding introductory essay by John Clute: "The Repossession of Jerry Cornelius" Although a brief 15 pages, it made this tetralogy more meaningful more meaningful for me, albeit at the cost of being quite revealing of what Jerry Cornelius was about. I welcomed the early revelation.

The Cornelius Chronicles along with The Adventures of Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius, Life and Times of Jerry Cornelius, and The Entropy Tango represent some of the best fiction Moorcock has ever penned.As a young teenager I devoured Moorcock's Eternal Champion books, but it wasn't until college that the Cornelius books held any interest for me, and at that point I had stopped reading SF/Fantasy altogether (I had Nabokov to read...). In many ways Jerry is the mature reader's Eternal Champion--the novels do echo many of the themes found in the other EC novels.I actually find it quite daunting to sum up The Cornelius Chronicles in such a limited space. My 1977 Avon edition is almost 1000 pages and the four novels that make up the Chronicles (a tetrology?) offer different experiences and styles.My nutshell: The Chronicles are concerned with Jerry's struggle for identity amidst the entropy of urban life in 1970's London. Satirical, funny, sexy, and sad; filled with a wonderful cast of characters. It really is genre-busting--from 60's spy flick to urban realism. Postmodern (in the literary sense; search for Brian McHale). In many ways it reminds me of Pynchon's V.Find and buy these books if you can. Hopefully they will, as the author states above, be published again. Of Moorcock's "SF" work, these (with Behold the Man) are the ones that should stay in print--eternally.

These four Jerry Cornelius books are some of Moorcock's best work. Carrying on the Eternal Champion, in this series he moves away from heroic fantasy and towards satire, and science-fiction. Unfortunately, it is hard to find. If ANYONE has a copy for sale, email me!