re Zoyd

[John Carvill]

> Although our author feels, for my taste, a little bit too much compassion
> for the poor cop struck inside LAPD arcana (some passages read as if TRP
> wanted to make Detective Bigfoot Bjornsen the most likeable character in
> his whole collected works), I think the Doc/Bigfoot relation is more complex
> and elaborated than the one of Zoyd/Hector in Vineland.

The similarities between the Zoyd/Hector and Doc/Bigfoot dymanics are
unmissable. Possibly so unmissable that they suggest a smokescreen?
Certainly seems a more complex setup than Zoyd/Hector.

Bigfoot is probably the most enigmatic character in the book, the
off-screen presence of Mickey Wolfmann notwithstanding. It's hard, at
first reading anyway, to say exactly what Bigfoot is really up to. Or
how he really feels about Doc, or hippies in general. And why does he
talk so fancily? Overall, to me, Bigfoot feels probably the least like
himself, I mean the least like you expect him to be. Make sense?