the Boards-prep colloquy: what plateaux-hopping to the top does to somebody

Pemulis diagnoses Hal's crisis in the anthology's own pedagogy vocabulary. Hal's "hinges are starting to squeak," and Pemulis's theory is that "this is what plateaux-hopping up to the top does to somebody" — the climb up the developmental plateaux to the very top exacts a psychic toll, wears out the mechanism. It's the suicide-of-success warning (cf. 089/091) put in a friend's mouth over Boards-prep: reaching the summit of the ranked body doesn't complete you, it squeaks your hinges. The plateaux the whole regimen is organized around have a cost at the top that the doctrine doesn't advertise.