Barbara?

[Paul Mackin]

Not surprising Terrance didn't remember. Barabara does name four
characters--Byron, Blicero, Enzian and Tchitcherine. She apparently knows
that Byron is a light bulb and suspects if one really looked one could find
a connection with Blicero's soldiers--they're in the same fucking boat
somehow. Barbara also knows Enzian and Tchicherine are half brothers so she
figures the brotherhood theme must be lingering someplace closeby Anyway
here's the "meat" of Barbara's analysis: More Dougian than Derridian

        P..
:


" . . . .  If you want me to write you a
'blurb' on Gravity's Rainbow and what I learned about war and humanity from
Thomas Pynchon, I can do that. I've been toying with the idea of writing
something on Byron and his bulb buddies anyway. I think there's a similarity
between them and Blicero and his soldier(s). It's not a big similarity, but
just enough for one to make a 'connection.'  You know, bulbs afraid to
explode against corporate corruption, boys afraid to speak up before being
sent to die--they're both being FUCKED over by the POWERS that be in the
worst and most degrading ways IMAGINABLE, and they're too fucking SCARED to
do anything about it!  There's tremendous POWER in their numbers, but the
people are too SCARED and too manipulated by external POWER they don't even
unite against their rape and destruction.  It's been happening everywhere
the same way for as long as we can remember.  We're so accustomed to it now,
we don't even feel it slipping in.

Maybe you won't like that subject though. I could see how it might turn your
stomach a little. How about the 'brotherhood' theme, then?  Half-breed
Enzian on a mission to erase his race. There's a curious bit of irony.
Makes a girl wanna look twice, you know.  I could talk some about that.  If
Enzian and Tchitcherine aren't a picture of  the brotherhood of man, I don't
know what is.  Pynchon makes sure (or not) his reader comes away from that
book feeling 'connected' to the world. And if you don't catch it in the
humanism, you can catch it in the psychoses. In Paranoia all things are
connected too."