the listening that makes two people unalone — "Like all good listeners, he has…" · S5
Like all good listeners, he has a way of attending that is at once intense and assuasive: the supplicant feels both nakedly revealed and sheltered, somehow, from all possible judgment. It’s like he’s working as hard as you. You both of you, briefly, feel unalone.
Context
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.