| Zusammenfassung: | This essay follows the life of the character Jerry Cornelius from his initial appearance in New Worlds magazine in the short story "Preliminary Data" (1965) through his swan song in the final book of the Cornelius Quartet, The Condition of Muzak (1977). I argue that the character and the stories in which he appears disrupt narrative through ambiguity, irony, and experimental technique—reflecting a supposed historic rupture in the late 1960s. In particular I posit a queer reading of Jerry Cornelius: the character moves or oscillates among different binary identity positions, focusing specifically on gender, sex, and sexuality, with the oscillation of the character finally rupturing the narrative form of the stories.
|
|---|