Hal at the Inner Infant meeting (pp. 804–805)
All through his own infancy and toddlerhood, Hal had continually been held and dandled and told at high volume that he was loved […] getting held and told you were loved didn’t automatically seem like it rendered you emotionally whole or Substance-free. Hal finds he rather envies a man who feels he has something to explain his being fucked up, parents to blame it on.
Context
The inverse wound the whole family-Hamlet argument keeps circling, stated plainly. Kevin Bain sobs for parents who were never there and then died; Hal, watching, realizes his own case is the exact photographic negative — held, dandled, told "at high volume" a hundred times a day that he was loved, the full Avril love-regime applied without stint — and it left him no more whole or free than the neglect did Bain. And the devastating turn: Hal envies the man who at least has parents to blame, "something to explain his being fucked up." The Incandenza system's signature damage isn't too little love, it's love administered at high volume as performance, love that leaves the child empty and, worse, with no grievance to point to — nothing to indict, because on paper he was adored. The maternal love-bombardment n269 and 154 anatomize, felt from inside as a wound that can't even name its cause.