John Cage, who died immediately after this book intended to honour his 80th birthday was published, was a man marvellously indulged and humoured. Perhaps no one among 20th-century buffoons accumulated so much intellectual capital or secured such wide forbearance, and few have been so famous. He was included in every reckoning of modern music's development and achievement and granted a potent influence on artists in diverse media and of all ages. He was at once the intellectuals' composer - the kind of symptomatic figure that cultural analysts with small musical equipment would be sure to refer to - and the archetypal risible modernist, all plonks and tinklings, for the man in the street. Like Andy Warhol, with whom he had much in common, he became a household name yet produced practically nothing of real and permanent value. Cage was America's best Dadaist, best Surrealist, best self-publicist, self-archivist, and its worst composer.

LRB 7 January 1993 | PDF Download