[Michael Bailey]

all good and cogent and true.

My few and weak arguments for Zoyd -

a) personal - it just hits me that way, de gustibus et cetera

b) like Benny at the end of V., he hasn't learned a goddamned thing

c) like  Oedipa at the end of CL49, he is facing a necessity of taking
some kind of major action that will change his life, and just as in
CL49 we haven't a fricking clue what it'll be

d) Like Slothrop at the end of GR, but not as drastically, he is
fading away in many significant respects - diminution of hirsuteness,
loss of home, Prairie is growing up and making his fatherhood less
urgent, his forlorn love of Frenesi is even more hopeless as he both
befriends Flash and also perceives him as threatening (not somebody he
can supplant)

e) like in M&D, he's one of a pair of close friends, though this
closeness with van Meter is only touched on cursorily

f) like Webb in AtD, the consequences of his life choices begin to
seriously disrupt his day to day existence

and like most Pynchon protagonists, we aren't meant to completely
sympathize with him



-- 
 - "yep, he'd murmur, still making stupid mistakes and how about
yerself?" - Zoyd, p 24