Tennis and the Feral Prodigy (pp. 175–176)
Here is how to read the monthly E.T.A. and U.S.T.A. and O.N.A.N.T.A. rankings the way Himself read scholars’ reviews of his multiple-exposure melodramas. Learn to care and not to care.
Context
The son learns his stance toward judgment from the father's. Hal is to read his rankings "the way Himself read scholars' reviews of his multiple-exposure melodramas" — care and don't care, memorize and forget, "never tell anyone where you are." It's a small, precise transmission: not a skill or a sickness this time but a posture, the exact double-mindedness toward being ranked and reviewed that the father modeled. The boy inherits how to hold the world's verdict at arm's length, which is its own kind of wound given how much the whole family turns out to care.