GRGR(3): Jessica and Roger, Mind-to-mind

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

Michael Perez wrote:

> In response to Keith's:
> "Love in particular seems to be often ignored in GR, but aren't there
> instances where it attempts to rear its head?"
> Calbert wrote:
> "So far Roger and Jessica fit the bill. Does anyone find it insincere
> or in other ways questionable?"
>
> Yes, in addition to consideration of Jessica's other romantic interest,
> Beaver, both of her relationships are built upon opportunism.  With all
> the chaos of wartime London, these three have two of many uneasy, but
> convenient, coalitions.  The togetherness of either linking will not
> last past the war, when everyone goes back to their mundane post-war
> lives.  Oh, perhaps, during the reconstruction and relief of victory
> (which at this point is far from assured) the bonds may continue for a
> while, but Jessica will not fall for a statistician or whatever Beaver
> is other than a battery mate (she isn't too attached to him now).  Love
> is sometimes something that passes the time.

"They are in love. Fuck the war.

In love? Oh boy, Oh girl! No this is not love like Zoyd for his daughter,
No! What kind of love is it? Is it Romeo's love? For Rosaline? For Mercutio
or Benvolio? For Juliet? Love, what is love? What of the Ancient Grudge
break[ing] to New Mutiny? Fuck the war! What is the war? A mother, with a
"cruel, accidental resemblance to life," that has been "reconfiguring time
and space into its own image." Is the war a conscious entity, a
pornographic film? What is the "true war" but "a celebration of markets,"
"buying and selling" and "a raw material to be recorded in History, so that
children may be taught History as a sequence of violence, battle after
battle," propaganda for the blackened soul, information for exchange, lives
in the balance, where "the Home Front is something of a fiction and a lie,
designed too subtly, to draw them apart, to subvert love in favor of work,
abstractions, required pain, bitter death." "Perhaps it's theater, but they
seem no longer to be allies"...new mutiny, cold war, "it is marginal,
hungry, chilly--most times they're too paranoid to risk a fire--but it is
something they want to keep, so much that to keep it they will take on more
than propaganda has ever asked them for." Yes! they are in LOVE!  imho

Crest fallen sidekick in an old cafe
never slept with a dream before he had to go away
there's a bell in the tower
Uncle Ray bought a round
don't worry bout the army
in the cold cold ground
in the cold cold ground
                -Waits-

Terrance