The "fugue-state" — the self that watches its own body perform
echoes
From: Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley
- Early text: the drill-induced "mental state at once flat and
lush, numbing and yet exquisitely felt," a "still point" where "you lose
awareness of your limbs" — "a fugue-state I’ve decided that my whole time
playing tennis was spent chasing." [the closing Hessel Park tornado
set-piece] [e-text]
- IJ echo: Hal's dissociated, self-observing consciousness — the felt-but-sealed
interior, the mind watching itself from a slight remove; the novel's
broader preoccupation with dissociation under repetition and pressure
(E.T.A. drilling; the AA surrender of the watching self). The "still point"
where the limbs disappear is a benign, athletic cousin of Hal's terminal
estrangement from his own performing body.
- Weight: shared-preoccupation