GRGR(29): Some Are "E"

[Paul Mackin]

On Mon, 12 Jun 2000, David Morris wrote:

> 
> >From: Jeremy Osner
> >
> >Jessica left, she went to Cuxhaven (wait *Cuxhaven* -- 'n isn't that
> >where Slothrop was last we saw him, before he went into the mountains?
> >Everything seems to be coming together in Cuxhaven);
> 
> A lot of the action happens in Cuxhaven, Lord knows why...  It is where 
> Slothrop was supposed to have picked up his never-to-be-seen "papers."  It 
> is where Major Marvy gets his balls removed.  It is where, later, the 
> Counterforce has the Gross Suckling Conference.  Does anyone out there have 
> a clue as to why Cuxhaven should be so central a spot in GR?

Cuxhaven takes on added importance in that it was where the Brits
experimented with the captured rockets. Perhaps what transpired at
Cuxhaven represents the symbolic meaning of the separation of Roger and
Jessica as in the following passage:

"Those death-rockets now are in the past. This time she'll be on the
firing end, she and Jeremy--isn't THAT how is was always meant to
be? firing them out to sea: no death, only the spectable, fire and roar,
the excitement without the killing, isn't that what she'd prayed for? back
in the fading house . . . (p. 629)


An interesting reversal might be that the British rocket firing at
Cuxhaven was called Operation Backfire.  A backfire is a kind of
counterforce. FWIW.

Roger and Jessica's separation seems to want to have a lot of symbolic
importance. 

			P.