Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

by

Ben Fountain

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk makes teaching easy.

Albert Ratner Character Analysis

Albert is a film producer who has been in contact with Bravo Squad since the Fox News footage of the firefight at the Al-Ansakar Canal came out. He wants to help produce a film about the Bravos and the fight. When he was a young man, Albert went to law school to avoid the Vietnam draft, and he openly opposes how little President Bush and other government officials seem to care about the lives of the soldiers fighting in Iraq. Despite this, Albert believes that the Bravo film will garner support for the war and offer the American public a much-needed morale boost. Throughout the novel, Albert is always on his phone with studios or agents attempting to secure a deal, and he promises to keep fighting for the movie even after Dime shoots down Norm Oglesby's deal. Even though he cares deeply for Bravo, Albert is a shrewd businessman: he implies that he'll still work with Norm after the deal falls through, even though Norm is mean, rude, and power hungry. Over the course of his career, Albert won three Oscars and also produced one of the greatest flops of all time.

Albert Ratner Quotes in Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

The Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk quotes below are all either spoken by Albert Ratner or refer to Albert Ratner. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Fantasy vs. Reality in the Media Theme Icon
).
Chapter 5 Quotes

What's happening now isn't nearly as real as that, eating this meal, holding this fork, lifting this glass, the realest things in the world these days are the things in his head.

Related Characters: Billy Lynn, Sergeant Dime, Shroom, Albert Ratner, Lake
Page Number: 53
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

So fuck that, he was done with football after his sophomore year, except the Army is pretty much the same thing, though the violence is, well, what it is, obviously. By factors of thousands.

Related Characters: Billy Lynn, Sergeant Dime, Albert Ratner, Norm Oglesby
Page Number: 164
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

Plus the fact that the war's put up some spotty box-office numbers, didn't I say that might be a problem? So we're bucking that too. I know fifty-five hundred sounds pretty lame after the numbers we've been talking about, but for young men like yourselves, young soldiers on Army pay, it's not nothing, right?

Related Characters: Albert Ratner (speaker), Billy Lynn, Sergeant Dime, Norm Oglesby
Page Number: 270
Explanation and Analysis:
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Albert Ratner Quotes in Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

The Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk quotes below are all either spoken by Albert Ratner or refer to Albert Ratner. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Fantasy vs. Reality in the Media Theme Icon
).
Chapter 5 Quotes

What's happening now isn't nearly as real as that, eating this meal, holding this fork, lifting this glass, the realest things in the world these days are the things in his head.

Related Characters: Billy Lynn, Sergeant Dime, Shroom, Albert Ratner, Lake
Page Number: 53
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

So fuck that, he was done with football after his sophomore year, except the Army is pretty much the same thing, though the violence is, well, what it is, obviously. By factors of thousands.

Related Characters: Billy Lynn, Sergeant Dime, Albert Ratner, Norm Oglesby
Page Number: 164
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

Plus the fact that the war's put up some spotty box-office numbers, didn't I say that might be a problem? So we're bucking that too. I know fifty-five hundred sounds pretty lame after the numbers we've been talking about, but for young men like yourselves, young soldiers on Army pay, it's not nothing, right?

Related Characters: Albert Ratner (speaker), Billy Lynn, Sergeant Dime, Norm Oglesby
Page Number: 270
Explanation and Analysis: