A father and son who cannot communicate about the thing between them — the wordless look, and "anything is possible…
echoes
From: Nothing Happened (the Open City version of \"Signifying Nothing\")
- Early text: The confrontation is a total failure of communication:
the father "does not say anything, however, this look he gives me says it all";
the son can extract no meaning and settles for a shrug at the limit of the
knowable — the moral, he decides, of any incident that strange is "anything
is possible." [Open City text]
- IJ echo: The Incandenza father-son silence — most sharply the
professional-conversationalist episode, in which the disguised James
Incandenza, convinced his son never speaks, cannot hear Hal talking right in
front of him (scene 005, pp. 27-32).
- Weight: shared-preoccupation