the listening that makes two people unalone · S5

The book's clearest account of its one reliable antidote to the theme, and the point is that it isn't the Remarks — it's the attention. Lyle's listening is effortful ("working as hard as you"), and it does the one thing the whole novel says almost never happens: for a moment it makes the gap close, both parties "briefly, feel unalone." Presence, not eloquence, is the technology; being received without judgment is the cure the sauna-line keeps coming back for.