quick hits (some of which I've opined on elsewhere a day or so ago but can't remember in which thread):
-Pemulis' DMZ research is replete with people who NEVER recovered from its effects, so for Hal to still be affected by it a year later is entirely possible. It seems fairly clear to me that he wasn't necessarily "ok" when he left first hospitalization, but, rather, that he was allowed to go back to ETA where he is protected/watched over by Tavis et al. The real mysteries are more to do, as raised in posts above, with the fact that he is apparantly quite sane inside his head (just unable to communicate/express this) and that he remains a good (even improved?) tennis player.
-I tend to ascribe a lot of explanatory power to his childhood mold incident (the recounting to him of which by Orin seems to be a fairly old memory from before the recent years when Orin has gotten more pathological): I link the mold to his lexical genius, as well as to why he might react particuarly oddly to DMZ, since it, like LSD, owes its discovery to molds. If he was tweaked one way by the original mold eating (which might even be hypothesized to be ditchweed DMZ), then a second dose in YDAU might tweak him to a more unique place than most, especialy if combined with any mental strain (anhedonic depression, etc) from his THC withdrawl.
-The tennis playing bothers me less. There are all sorts of common examples of people who have great difficulties with expression or motor control in certain conscious activities, but not in other either more "unconscious" or rote or, simply, already mastered areas. The country singer with the terrible stutter except when he sings, or a multitude of anecdotes of peole with things like Tourettes except when on stage or broadcasting, or a grab bag of odd combinations of ability/disability in Oliver Sach's case studies. This seems especially likely in a book where ideas about things like "losing yourself" in an activity or avoiding "analysis paralysis" are prominent themes. Think, for example, of the difference between Pemulis and Wayne, one of whom is a masterful analytic tactician (math, eschaton, etc) whose nerves criple him in tournaments, and the other of whom is a true tennis genius notable for his tendency to talk very little or seem very interested (or obsessed/tortured) by over-analyzing things. Hal's condition during the Year of Glad may reflect this.
-This leaves the question of when did Hal go to the concavity with Wayne and Gately, and how did he manage to communicate with them enough to carry out such an endeavor? Well, among other things, we have Wayne being inadvertantly dosed, Gately seeing the ghost of Hal's father (and being, anyway, an increasingly adept companion/guide to people crippled by their addictions or withdrawls), etc. Seems possible to come up with some slightly hand-waving explanation that allows this particular threesome to actually carry out the mission with the help of these odd alternate sources of communication or alterations of experience that are available to (or, rather, forced upon) them.
-in honor of the recent thread noting links between Harry Potter and Hal Incandenza, a final theory: by birth, fate or DMZ, Hal, Gately, and Wayne have all become adept at Parseltongue, and in Hal's case, he can no longer speak anything else.
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