"His revenant": Schtitt's affection for Hal; the leap of exponents

texture · UNDATED (standing, YDAU)

• When: UNDATED (Hal's YDAU competitive explosion)
• What: After Hal Incandenza's YDAU "quantumish competitive plateaux-hop" — what Schtitt terms a "leap of exponents" at a post-pubescent age when such improvement is "extraordinarily rare" — Schtitt "calls Hal Incandenza his 'revenant,'" and "sometimes points his pointer at him in an affectionate way from his observation crow's nest." At dawn drills he singles Hal out ("Mr. revenant Hal Incandenza," "our revenant"), needling and affectionate at once. Schtitt also dispatched the scooter-borne order for the unexplained public Hal-vs-Stice exhibition (scenes 125, 132), for reasons "no one has yet pinned down," days before the WhataBurger.