Lateness and the Inhospitable in Stanley Cavell and Don DeLillo

Drawing on the influential work of Theodor Adorno and Edward Said, we argue for a distinctly later style in the work of the philosopher Stanley Cavell and novelist Don DeLillo. Taking as our primary case studies Cavell’s In Quest of the Ordinary and DeLillo’s Point Omega, we assert this mature mode is one of dissonance, difficulty, intransigence, and fragmentation. Such stylistic resistance is related generally to a withdrawal of the desire to convince; in the work of both philosopher and novelist we establish an inhospitality of form and language. We conclude that this inhospitality reflects shared ideas of America.