IVIV20: Before 20.2, a few thoughts on narration

[Paul Nightingale]

For my commentary on 20.1 I chose to recall moments that are invoked by
narration. Under the paving-stones, the beach; under the beach ... what?

Throughout, Doc spends a lot of narrative time, either in the company of
Bigfoot or thinking about him; what concerns us is the writing of a
relationship that begins with Doc switching on the TV and finding his place
in the audience. Bigfoot's narrative function is to challenge Doc to be more
than a (mere) hippy bum, the kind of generic figure that Bigfoot caricatures
when we first 'see' him on TV. In fact our introduction is to Doc's reading
of a TV commercial, Bigfoot "moonlighting"; we are given access to his
disdain for what he sees, ie how he has been represented, his disdainful
reading of a reading. Consequently, the text quite explicitly asks 'me' to
read a reading: this construction is preferable to speaking of reliability.
The narrative will subsequently draw attention to Doc's attempts (seriously?
unsuccessfully?) to disguise himself; his quest to be a PI is inseparable
from frequent makeovers that, reminiscent of Slothrop, become more and more
unlikely. By the time we reach Ch20 he has abandoned Bigfoot; on 350 we have
a reading of Bigfoot (and of course it might not even be him/his "beat-up El
Camino") that stands in stark contrast, as a farewell, to the
reading-as-introduction on 9. Ch20 then opens with "when he got back" (351).
Yes, to his apartment; but "an act of return" also, perhaps, to an earlier
narrative moment. It seems to demand our attention that Farley's
enlargements turn up after 200+ pages, perhaps a nod to the PI narrative
that fits itself into a few action-packed hours/days.

One should also say the action in 20.1 is quite inconsequential, one scene
followed by another, followed by another, as in, well, channel-hopping. I am
positioned as an idle TV viewer; the action is elsewhere, with Doc's hope
that Bigfoot is on the case.

Going back: on 352 Doc does as Aunt Reet told him on 112 (another 200+
delay) and calls his parents. According to Aunt Reet, speaking at the end of
the narrative's first week, it was "a week and a half" since the last call,
so 352 takes us back to a time before the narrative begins. Her "they think
you're a dope dealer now" (112) becomes Leo's "[s]he thinks you're dealing
grass" (353).