The book of Enoch

"Enoch" is a disjointed, but nevertheless interesting book. The book is ostensibly about Bigfoot, but since there is no official, scientific evidence for the creature's existence, the speculations contained in it are just as good (or bad) as that of any other book in the genre.

What makes "Enoch" interesting is something else. It expresses a more spiritual attitude to the Bigfoot phenomenon than the more mainstream literature or websites, which attempt to sound as "scientific" as possible. (Mainstream as in "mainstream within the Bigfooting community".) The author insists that the fantastic story she is re-telling is literally true. Thus, the book has been dubbed Non-Fiction by the publisher.

Autumn Williams saw Bigfoot as a child, and has been on a personal quest ever since to understand the nature of the creature. Originally, this led her into the world of "Bigfoot research", with its conflicts, hoaxes and frantic attempts to procure the smoking gun evidence for Bigfoot's existence. She even starred in a MonsterQuest-style TV show for one season. (The male denizens of the Bigfooting community still comment on her blond hair and Hollywood-actress look.) About two years ago, Williams quit as a Bigfoot researcher, instead becoming what she calls a witness-advocate. Rather than trying to prove Bigfoot's existence to the world, she decided to search on her own, to finally reach some kind of closure. While Williams doesn't think of her quest as spiritual, I think it's obvious that it is, on some level, precisely that.

Apart from causal eye-witnesses and rowdy Bigfoot hunters, there is also a small group of people known as "habituators". They claim to have ongoing contact with Bigfoot, almost literally in their back yards! No hard evidence for their claims exists, but Williams have decided to side with the habituators despite this. She claims to be in contact with a man in Florida named Mike, who claims to be on a first-name basis with a Bigfoot family in the swamps of Florida (where the creature is often referred to as the Skunk Ape). Mike is just as elusive as Bigfoot himself, and it's easy for a sceptic to claim that Williams made him up. All his sensational photos of Bigfoot have been stolen, and when the creature refuses to get photographed again, Mike obliges and throws his new cameras into the swamp!

Still, the story is interesting on some kind of metaphorical level. Mike is a rough, reclusive outdoorsman who feels let down by life. It's implied that he may have lost his family, and he certainly longs for children, but for some reason cannot have his own. He becomes spiritually redeemed by a Bigfoot named Enoch, and eventually gets to meet both his family (including Enoch's baby girl) and an entire Bigfoot clan living in the Florida swamps. Enoch turns out to be more "human" than animal, and Mike decides to protect his new-find friends by keeping their location a secret from both the outside world and the Bigfoot research community. In the last scene, we see Mike playing fondly with Enoch's little daughter... The throwing away of the cameras implies that Mike, unlike modern Western man, voluntarily renounces his exclusive control and his "rights" to study and catalogue the natural world.

The Green, Edenic and spiritual vibes are obvious. In the hands of a more able writer, this could have been a great novel! I suppose Bron Taylor would have called this "naturalistic animism". It's also interesting to speculate about the name Enoch. While Mike claims it's based on some kind of vocalizations made by his furry friend, it's also a Biblical name. Note the similarity with the name of Daniel Quinn's intelligent gorilla, Ishmael, which is also Biblical. Ishmael, too, imparts Green wisdom to the world, but perhaps in a more preachy manner than Mike's smelly wild man.

Closer to home, there are also similarities to Christopher Noël's book on Bigfoot habituators, "Impossible Meetings". In fact, Mike seems to be one step ahead of Noël's anonymous witnesses, who experience Bigfoot as a mischievous and slightly threatening presence in their backyards, whereas Mike has bonded with the creature on its own turf.

It will be interesting to follow the Enochian quest in the near future... At least, this book by Autumn Williams show what many people *want* Bigfoot too be. That's pretty interesting in itself.