Lyle as E.T.A.'s real counselor; the Schtitt/Incandenza/Lyle school

texture · UNDATED (standing)

• When: UNDATED — standing state of the Academy
• What: With staff counselor Dr. Dolores Rusk "regarded by the kids as whatever's just slightly worse than useless," the psychic slack is taken up "for practical purposes" by, first-named, Lyle — then "a dewimpled Carmelite who works the kitchen day-shift, occasionally Mario Incandenza, and many times Avril herself" (scene 091). Scene 135 sets Lyle inside E.T.A.'s governing philosophy: against the "deLint-like carrot-and-stick philosophies" of hometown coaches stands "the more paradoxical Schtitt/Incandenza/Lyle school" — the idea that achievement doesn't confer interior worth. Lyle is thus bracketed with the two founding authorities of the Academy's ethos.