Word: hal
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Bill Brock followed with an easy 6-2. 6-2 triumph over Navy's Hal Cummings at number five, sophomore Ed Devereux breezed by Mike Brown in less than half an hour-6-0. 6-2-at six. and classmate Dave Fish, newly installed at the second position, took Bob Custer in straight sets-6-4, 6-2-to clinch the match...
Instead, the author gets sucked down to' Hal's earth level. Hal's reality becomes the only reality of his narrative, and the novel gets lost in the details of a pursuit that means nothing to us. It is too humorless and too straight in the writing...
Near the book's end, Hal thinks, "Maybe it's possible to go up and never come down, to stay up, to be always up, to be always stoned." As we and Gagarin know, that's the whole ballgame. But how did Hal find that out? The only answer is that he, like us, has read the other parts of the book. But that's cheating, and this novel, which aims very high, suffers severely as a result...
What is left is a kind of sour Love Story. Or a Graduate that leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth. Hal is no Dustin Hoffman, to be sure. He dumps cruelly on two girls who love him (Susan in Zurs and Emily in New York). His thoughts are too often too rich and too banal. (Experiences are frequently described as "nice" and "good.") He develops a minor drinking problem and it becomes a self-conscious preppie debauch...
...unlikeable character such as Hal certainly could work in a book, but only if the narrator has some distance on him and realizes his absurdity. Gagarin-as we know from the superior Esalen and Harvard portions of the book-has seen "up." Why couldn't he write about Hal from up there...