the impossible choice, doubly distanced
It had begun to occur to me, driving back from Natick on Tuesday, that if it came down to a choice between continuing to play competitive tennis and continuing to be able to get high, it would be a nearly impossible choice to make. The distant way in which this fact appalled me itself appalled me.
Context
Hal's whole addiction admitted in a subordinate clause and then held at two removes: the choice between his sport and his substance is "nearly impossible" — the dope has drawn level with the one thing he was built and raised for — and the only thing that reaches him about this is the flatness of his own reaction, appall at his lack of appall. The confession arrives filed as trivia in an anhedonic fact-shuffle, which is exactly how far gone he is: the news that he might pick getting high over tennis lands with no more weight than the atomic weight of carbon.