a man dies of the language gap — "everything the Canadian homeowner says means…" · S2
everything the Canadian homeowner says means no more to poor old Don Gately, whistling a jolly tune and trying to look menacing in his clown's mask, than the cries of, say, North Shore gulls or inland grackles
Context
The book's blackest failure-to-connect: DuPlessis cooperates completely, gives up the safe combination and the hidden coins, and pleads with perfect clarity that a gag will kill him, and all of it lands on Gately as so much birdsong. There is no malice and no misunderstanding of intent, only a channel that cannot carry the message, French into an English ear, and the gap is lethal. A fully articulate man is killed by the plain fact that the person in the room cannot hear what he is saying.