Word: hal
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...Windsong, senior Nicholas Gagarin's first novel, is about this yearning to go up. It tells the story of three boys' attempts to get there: Hal, who tries to go up through his love for a girl named Flo: a character referred to only as "the boy," who attempts to get aloft with the help of Esalen, the California sensitivity institute; and Gagarin himself, who interrupts the narrative occasionally to tell of his attempts to find salvation through his perception and interpretation of the liberation of Harvard last spring. None of the characters quite gets there-but then again...
...then there is Hal. It is his story that occupies most of Windsong's pages and therefore his story that we are most interested in. Sadly, it is also his story that is the least interesting of the three...
...HAL IS A rich kid. He has parents who can send him to St. Paul's to prep, to Harvard, to Austria every Christmas to ski in the Alps. He is witty, he is bright, he is good looking, he is strong. But he has a problem: he loves Flo and she will not reciprocate...
There are several problems with this major part of the book-but the main one is simple: Hal isn't much. He isn't much, because there seems no reason for his love for Flo other than the reason that she would be another beautiful object to possess. From Hal's vantage point, we get the impression that what interests him about her are her clothes (They are described in detail every time she appears), her beautiful auburn hair, and the fact that she can't be had. He may love her for other reasons-but they aren't really...
Richard Burton told David Frost on TV that his worst moment as an actor was a long-ago scene as Prince Hal in Shakespeare's Henry IV. After some lusty drinking and a prolonged period onstage, Burton wet his chain mail. He then played a duel scene with Sir Michael Redgrave, as Hotspur, and broke his sword. Forced to win the duel without a blade, he hoisted the bulky knight to his shoulder and tossed him across the stage. "Dear boy," said Sir Michael backstage, "I thought you were sweating rather more than usual...