Day / Gately interface: no cockle-warming cliché

Day's sharpest thrust is to note that he has driven Gately past the reach of the clichés — and he's right, Gately has no comeback. But the whole scene turns on the difference between not-having-a-comeback and losing. Gately's plain register holds under a rigor he cannot match: "I ain't AA Day man. No one like individual can respond for AA," "I'm sorry if that seems descending," "So scream. They can't kick you out." The ironist mistakes the absence of a rebuttal for victory; the book knows that remaining in the room without a rebuttal is the thing that heals. Day wins every exchange and stays sick; Gately loses every exchange and stays sober. The cliché's inability to defend itself dialectically is not its weakness but the exact site of its power.