Don DeLillo approaches his 15th novel, Point Omega, not only as an accomplished literary giant but as a septuagenarian, an elder statesman seeking a clear understanding of the meaning of life. This begs the question: is Point Omega a novel written for public consumption or a meditative exercise used to generate epiphany? Or is it both?

Although “the action” of Point Omega unfolds in Anza-Borrego, a remote region of the southeastern California desert, the prologue and epilogue occur at a real historical event: a video exhibition of Douglas Gordon’s 24 Hour Psycho at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art during late summer 2006. Gordon extends Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho well beyond its original 108-minute running time to 24 hours. In both prologue and epilogue, an anonymous viewer, uninvolved in what occurs subsequently in Anza-Borrego, offers casual McLuhanesque insights worthy of a marginally committed pseudo-intellectual. Nevertheless, how prologue and epilogue frame the narrative proves elusive and interesting.

A couple of weeks after meeting at the Gordon exhibition at MOMA, aspiring filmmaker Jim Finley visits Iraq war insider and “defence intellectual” Richard Elster in Anza-Borrego. Elster waxes philosophic, amongst other things, about the differences in the experience of time between the East — specifically, New York City — and the American West. Finley repeatedly hard-sells Elster on his artistic concept of filming Elster’s extended one-shot testimonial against a blank grey wall without film editing. The subsequent arrival of Jessica, Elster’s daughter, in Anza-Borrega, drives the novel’s lean, spare plot forward, impelling the reader to interpret Elster’s ruminations about philosophy and Finley’s theory of film amidst whatever action Jessica provides.

Surprisingly, desultory intellectual abstraction does not doom Point Omega as a failed novel. Written in natural, unpretentious prose, DeLillo communicates esthetics not driven by plot line. In an attempt to communicate esthetics amongst his other novels, such as his sociologically analytic depiction of ’70s Bronx subway graffiti artist Moonman 157 throughout Underworld, DeLillo unravelled esthetic sensibilities that embellished clear, if overarching, plot lines. In Point Omega, however, DeLillo’s juxtaposition of parallel esthetics is independent of the plot. One does not depend on the other.

Such ruminations cause no adrenaline rushes, and in DeLillo’s case, this is positive. Point Omega lacks the juvenile sexcapades that mark — or, as in the self-indulgently decadent Cosmopolis, that scar — all DeLillo novels. Indeed, emphasis on lofty discourse and metaphysical appreciation of the American desert landscape makes Point Omega exquisite, but only for readers familiar with DeLillo — particularly his novels about the American West, including the sinfully underrated early classic, Running Dog.

Point Omega is an echo of DeLillo’s portfolio, so those who read Point Omega without having read earlier DeLillo novels will likely close the book and scratch their heads in confusion.