White Noise

Jan 23, 2012

Ian Graye rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: reviews, exert-yourself, de-lillo-rama, read-2012

My Review

My more formal review as at 23 January, 2012 is here:

http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/2905...

In the Ring with Deadly Don DeLillo

Compere: Yes folks, welcome to Gym Combat, Nottingham’s premier gym and home to Saturday Night Fight Night. Tonight …what…what…

Spontaneous applause breaks out as former undefeated Commonwealth & IBO Welterweight World Champion, Jav Khalik, enters the ring.

Compere: Jav, why don...more

like 27 likes

· see review

Mar 30, 2008

David rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2008, intellectual-con-artist-at-work

Ooh look! It's a can. Looks like it might have worms inside. Let's open it up again.

Updated (i.e. "final") review: March 30th, 2008

So. I had read three quarters of this and decided to chuck it, but last night my compulsive side won over, and I went ahead and finished it. I still can't wrap my mind around the notion that I should somehow regard it as a "great book of the 20th century", and none of the 19 comments in this thread to date really addresse...more

like 45 likes

· see review

Oct 08, 2007

amber rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: for people who take pills for a reason

My first Don DeLillo. Not for people who use the word postulate. My experience was almost entirely ruined by the used copy I received which had notes in the margins. It says "Help" when Jack Gladney talks about Hitler on multiple pages (Has this person never heard of Hitler?), it says "sheesh" when his son, Heinrich, goes into a long-winded ramble about brain chemistry and how he couldn't know what he really wants. The best of all the marginal note stupidity from anonymous th...more

like 40 likes

· see review

Dec 29, 2011

Stephen M rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: my-favorites

After getting through this book for a third time, I'm still blown away by it. Although the social satire becomes more obvious on multiple readings, there are more than enough mind-blowing moments to make it worthwhile. I still have a few questions.

What does Wilder crying at the end mean? Is that him finally speaking? Or is it some semblance of hope?

Is Dylar real? Is it a placebo?

What happens to Mr. Gray at the end? At one moment he is about to die, then the ne...more

like 20 likes

· see review

Jul 28, 2011

Dorothea rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: negative hipster assholes

Recommended to Dorothea by: My Dad!

Reading White Noise by Don DeLillo is the literary equivalent of 18 paranoid hours of non-stop channel surfing while chain-smoking and nursing a migraine in a smoggy, over-crowded city. On meth.

Do you want to know why this is one of the most important books of the 20th century? Because it's a good example of the postmodern simulacra, absurdist philosophy that plagued the latter half of the 20th century and still plagues us today. I felt bleak and empty for several days after readi...moreReading White Noise by Don DeLillo is the literary equivalent of 18 paranoid hours of non-stop channel surfing while chain-smoking and nursing a migraine in a smoggy, over-crowded city. On meth.

Do you want to know why this is one of the most important books of the 20th century? Because it's a good example of the postmodern simulacra, absurdist philosophy that plagued the latter half of the 20th century and still plagues us today. I felt bleak and empty for several days after reading this book, and I'm still recovering.

It had a lot of potential. It could have been a great commentary on life in a media-saturated society that worships safety and bright colors in the temples of grocery stores, a society that will suffocate in the toxic by-products of its own vain materialistic pleasures, conveniences and distractions.

But a great commentary would have been too meaningful and after all, this is the age of negation and disorder wherein everything is turned inside out, and to live fully without fear is to kill freely without hesitation. This is the age of futility wherein the best artists have to be indifferent or even hostile to supreme coherence and only depictions of anti-heroism will be praised and given National Book Awards.

DeLillo is a talented writer, but he wasted his talent in this work and missed an important opportunity to demand change. Don't get me wrong, I'm not upset with his depiction of a dystopic American setting. The Toxic Airborne Event was brilliant, timely and necessary, but he never asks his readers to take even a cursory look at the causes and consequences of our toxin-producing lifestyle. And it was right there! I also take issue with his demonic proposal that there is liberation to be found in murder, that there is no immortality, that important "psychic data" can be gleamed from commercials and television programs.

Yeah, I know, it's only fiction, yeah I know, he meant something else entirely, turn it inside out and upside down and this is what he really meant, have a Coke and a Dylar and put a bullet in my head, it's opposite era!(less)

like 14 likes

· see review

Apr 07, 2010

mp rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed

I am having a very difficult time trying to decide if White Noise is actually an intelligent work which I completely failed to understand. Or is it just one of those novels which try to sound all smart and deep and profound, but do not actually make much sense.

The characters are all strange, the dialogue and prose is weird. It is perhaps not rare for authors to create characters that are unsentimental, and totally incapable of having a normal conversation. But I find it difficult to ...moreI am having a very difficult time trying to decide if White Noise is actually an intelligent work which I completely failed to understand. Or is it just one of those novels which try to sound all smart and deep and profound, but do not actually make much sense.

The characters are all strange, the dialogue and prose is weird. It is perhaps not rare for authors to create characters that are unsentimental, and totally incapable of having a normal conversation. But I find it difficult to appreciate such a use of artistic license if it doesn't make any point at all and serves no purpose.
On top of being obscure, the prose lacks fluidity. There are abrupt scene changes and needless interruptions of scenes. In several places, DeLillo interrupts a dialogue to throw in a bunch of brand names, unrelated to the scene, and then carries on with the dialogue again.
I think one of the things that I was very disappointed with was that DeLillo did not convincingly explain the transformation of an ordinary man (well, ordinary in DeLillio's universe) into a murderer, which is specially disappointing for a novel which revolves(or pretends to) quite a bit around human psychology.

I gave it three stars because for first 100 pages or so, Don DeLillo did succeed in making me think that he was building up to something really good. However, by the time I finished the book, I was so numbed by the absurd dialogue that I had already forgotten what it was that I had liked initially.

Few examples of meaninglessness:

"He looks like a man who finds dead bodies erotic." (This one takes the cake.)

"The point of rooms is that they are inside. No one should go into a room unless he understands this. People behave one way in rooms, another way in streets, parks and airports. To enter a room is to agree on a certain kind of behavior that takes place in rooms. This is the standard, as opposed to parking lots and beaches. It is the point of the rooms. No one should enter a room not knowing the point......" (What will I ever do without these words of wisdom!)(less)

like 10 likes

· see review

Feb 23, 2008

Christy rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Teenagers being raised in suburbia who totally hate it/their parents

Recommended to Christy by: Someone who thought confronting consumerism was shocking.

I noticed there is a "Don Delillo's White Noise: A Reader's Guide" out there. I find that funny, but also somewhat offensive.

I'll come right out a say that I don't like Delillo, and am shocked by people who claim that he is a "good writer." Is being a good author the same as being a good writer? Shouldn't an author have something worthwhile to say, and shouldn't he be able to keep us interested while doing so? His characters are terribly one-note, his dialogue pai...moreI noticed there is a "Don Delillo's White Noise: A Reader's Guide" out there. I find that funny, but also somewhat offensive.

I'll come right out a say that I don't like Delillo, and am shocked by people who claim that he is a "good writer." Is being a good author the same as being a good writer? Shouldn't an author have something worthwhile to say, and shouldn't he be able to keep us interested while doing so? His characters are terribly one-note, his dialogue painfully contrived. I've decided the dialogue is so bad because this is just Delillo's inner monologue we are being subjected to. I'm not even suggesting that he really talks this way, but I am suggesting that he wishes he talked this way, because he thinks it sounds cool. I consider it "bad writing" when no character has a voice that is unique or even slightly different than everyone else's. It's like watching the Gilmore Girls, which, I think you'll agree, is a pretty bad show.

The characters are depressed and depressing. They are childish, ridiculous, and shallow. These had the potential to be statements in themselves, and one might be tempted to accept White Noise as some sort of literary experiment, albeit an untimely (embarrassingly late) one. Unfortunately, all of his writing seems to employ the same devices (shockingly frank, sparse writing about people with sparse souls - can you believe what's happened to America's values?) I was browsing through reviews of his (new?) book Falling Man, which apparently is a post September 11th character/civilization study, and it sounds like Delillo is up to his old tricks. Someone mentioned that it includes the line "The crowd was skilled at being a crowd." Do you sort of feel like that line might also be in White Noise? I can't say for sure, as it has been several years since I read it. But it certainly might as well be. I think it might be in every Delillo book ever written. It's the kind of statement that causes one to pause and think, "Yes, in its own way that is actually quite descriptive and possibly brilliant." But then you keep reading and realize this man is full of nonsense, and it really isn't insightful at all because his books are all full of similarly pointless one-liners that don't lead anywhere.

Don Delillo doesn't have anything to say that hasn't already been said in every disillusioned 15 year old's poetry journal. And he says it badly.(less)

like 14 likes

· see review

Sep 15, 2007

Ethan rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Americans

Shelves: memebase

We drove 22 miles into the country around Farmington. There were meadows and apple orchards. White fences trailed through the rolling fields. Soon the signs started appearing. THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA. We counted five signs before we reached the site. There were 40 cars and a tour bus in the makeshift lot. We walked along a cowpath to the slightly elevated spot set aside for viewing and photographing. All the people had cameras; some had tripods, telephoto lenses, filter kits. A man...more

like 10 likes

· see review

Sep 28, 2008

Rose rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: hipsters

Recommended to Rose by: 1001 books

Shelves: 1001-books, not-completed, utter-dreck, read-in-2008, overrated

I'm so happy that I finally reached a point in this book where I could accept that I wasn't going to finish it. I stuck with it for a long time because I'd heard good things and because I actually enjoyed it a lot at the beginning. But after the toxic event, it's just really stupid.

Few writers could make a massive, deadly toxic gas leak boring. But somehow, I feel the Don DeLillo has done it here. Such an interesting thing to read about - potential for some serious action and dr...more

like 12 likes

· see review

Jan 24, 2010

Kemper rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 100, classic-lit

A few years back, shortly after Katrina had her way with New Orleans, Time magazine did a cover story about how Americans prepare and cope with disasters. And we don’t do well with them. The story pointed out that while Americans love to obsess about all the potentially horrible things that can happen, we refuse to take actions to prevent or minimize their impact because we don’t want to admit that they’re really possible.

That’s why Americans will freak out if you try to spend a fe...moreA few years back, shortly after Katrina had her way with New Orleans, Time magazine did a cover story about how Americans prepare and cope with disasters. And we don’t do well with them. The story pointed out that while Americans love to obsess about all the potentially horrible things that can happen, we refuse to take actions to prevent or minimize their impact because we don’t want to admit that they’re really possible.

That’s why Americans will freak out if you try to spend a few hundred million dollars of tax money on something like shoring up the levees in New Orleans or making stricter building codes for hurricanes in Florida despite the fact that doing so would have saved many lives and countless billions in rebuilding costs before Hurricanes Katrina or Andrew. (My favorite recent example of this is when the Republicans tried to turn a few million dollars for a volcano eruption early warning program into an example of Obama’s wasteful spending, yet when an actual volcano eruption occurred in Sarah Palin country shortly after that and early warning was credited with saving lives, you never heard about it again. Oh, you wacky right wingers!)

On a more personal level, your average American will obsess endlessly about their weight, their cholesterol, heart disease, cancer, swine flu, bird flu, etc., but most will do so as they still don’t exercise, eat poorly, avoid regular physicals that might provide early detection of a life-threatening illness or get vaccinated. Or people will refuse to evacuate an area where potentially devastating storms are headed.

I kept thinking about that Time story while reading White Noise. The book itself lives up to it’s billing as a post-modern masterpiece with a black, absurd sense of humor, and it’s got layer after layer of themes. But it was DeLillo’s masterful presentation of how people worry themselves to death about death while still trying to deny that it's ever going to happen that I found really engaging.

The story revolves around Jack Gladney, a professor at a small college who created a department and academic field of studying Hitler. Jack and his wife Babette have a typical nuclear family circa 1985, with several divorces and a large group of children from their previous marriages, and their kids seem a lot more adult than the parents in a lot of ways. Jack spends most of his time getting into surreal discussions with his children and colleagues about a number of trivial subjects, but their suburban tranquility is eventually disturbed when a train accident leads to an ‘airborne toxic event’, and the entire community is forced to flee.

After the event, Jack learns that he may have been exposed to potentially fatal doses of the toxins, but it’s uncertain when the effects may start. This leads to both Jack and Babette admitting to each other that they’ve both got an intense fear of death. In Babette’s case, she’s taken extreme measures and been keeping some pretty serious secrets to deal with her phobia.

Even though both Jack and Barbette believe they’ve got a larger than normal dread of death, the lengths they go to in admitting potentially lethal problems are hilarious in a demented way. After the train accident, the kids are watching the toxic cloud grow larger from their view of the train yard and try to alert Jack that there may be trouble. Jack refuses to admit that it’s even possible that middle-class people such as themselves will be victims of an industrial accident. Only the poor people who live around train yards and factories have to worry about such things Jack assures the children even as the cloud grows larger.

So they sit down to dinner instead of packing up the car and getting to a safe distance. When emergency vehicles go down the street and use loudspeakers to tell everyone to evacuate, and the kids again urge that they should leave, Jack and Babette want to debate whether the guy on the loudspeaker said that they should leave NOW or whether they still have time. Surely, he would have told them to run immediately if there was any real danger, wouldn’t he?

Later, when Jack is talking to a doctor about his blood test results, he insists on lying about his health habits, claiming that he eats well, exercises, doesn’t drink, etc. as the doctor is trying to explain what they’ve found. Even though the results of a chemical test are sitting in an envelope in front of him, Jack’s irrationality makes him lie to the doctor as if pretending to live a healthy lifestyle will change the outcome. It’s a terrific scene of both bargaining and denial.

There’s also great satire about academic careers, suburban American consumer culture, family life, media and a couple of hundred other things. It’s a treasure trove of dark deadpan humor with brilliant writing. (less)

like 23 likes

· see review

Apr 09, 2008

Marco rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: smart people who don't get fat on American Idol.

This is probably the most accessible of Delillo's works, the one which I could pull off my shelf, dust off it's weathered skin, and hand to you, saying, "This is what the master does best." Or something a little less Masterpiece Theatre-y, but you get my drift.

It also contains a single line that probably sums up his entire literary career: "All plots move deathward."

Wikipedia talks about the book being a "absurdist family drama combined with acad...more

like 20 likes

· see review

Jul 19, 2008

Jonathan rated it

· review of another edition

Every so often you string together a series of stale intellectual months, your mind descending almost imperceptibly into fog as insights slip from sight before you ever quite see them and meanings merge with the things they're meant to make clear, and it may even begin to seem useless to bother with any cognition that concerns itself with more than the next paycheck, lay or meal – until you bumble into a book like White Noise and find yourself suddenly jarred back to something like clarity and ...more

like 5 likes

· see review

Dec 14, 2011

Paul rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: novels

I saw to my consternation that I'd given two stars to this smirkfest yet stuck it on my Finally Threw it At the Wall shelf. This is a contradiction. So : One Star For You, Mr DeLillo. Fuck off.

like 15 likes

· see review

Sep 14, 2007

Nathan rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: people who die

Shelves: lies, great-lies-of-the-20th-century

Unconnected with picking up "White Noise" (it's a book that I picked up for free when a friend of mine was liquidating his library upon moving - one of those books that you never had a chance to read in college and always meant to) I've been thinking a lot about death lately - not from a religious perspective (inasmuch as that's possible) but more in terms of my growing realization that I'm kind of ready to go. I don't mean this in any suicidal way - I don't WANT to go, and I don't ha...more

like 4 likes

· see review

Sep 20, 2011

Ikra Amesta rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: times-100-best-novels

No review. I just put a piece of conversation from the book between Jack Gladney and his son, Heinrich, that took place inside of Jack’s car. I assume people can weigh the quality of this book from there. So Heinrich started the conversation:

“It’s going to rain tonight.”

“It’s raining tonight.”

“The radio said tonight.”

“Look at the windshield. Is that rain or isn’t it?”

“I’m only telling you what they said.”

“Just because it’s o...more

like 5 likes

· see review

Sep 03, 2009

Joshua Nomen-Mutatio rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: People Who Think About Death-Anxiety and Technology and Entertainment

Shelves: fiction

DeLillo is pretty quotable. Here's a few from White Noise:

"How strange it is. We have these deep terrible lingering fears about ourselves and the people we love. Yet we walk around, talk to people, eat and drink. We manage to function. The feelings are deep and real. Shouldn't they paralyze us? How is it we can survive them, at least for a little while? We drive a car, we teach a class. How is it no one sees how deeply afraid we were, last night, this morning? Is it something w...moreDeLillo is pretty quotable. Here's a few from White Noise:

"How strange it is. We have these deep terrible lingering fears about ourselves and the people we love. Yet we walk around, talk to people, eat and drink. We manage to function. The feelings are deep and real. Shouldn't they paralyze us? How is it we can survive them, at least for a little while? We drive a car, we teach a class. How is it no one sees how deeply afraid we were, last night, this morning? Is it something we all hide from each other, by mutual consent? Or do we share the same secret without knowing it? Wear the same disguise?"

"The family is the cradle of the world’s misinformation. There must be something in family life that generates factual error. Over-closeness, the noise and heat of being. Perhaps even something deeper like the need to survive. Murray says we are fragile creatures surrounded by a world of hostile facts. Facts threaten our happiness and security. The deeper we delve into things, the looser our structure may seem to become. The family process works towards sealing off the world. Small errors grow heads, fictions proliferate. I tell Murray that ignorance and confusion can’t possibly be the driving forces behind family solidarity. What an idea, what a subversion. He asks me why the strongest family units exist in the least developed societies. Not to know is a weapon of survival, he says. Magic and superstition become entrenched as the powerful orthodoxy of the clan. The family is strongest where objective reality is most likely to be misinterpreted. What a heartless theory, I say. But Murray insists it’s true."

"No sense of the irony of human experience, that we are the highest form of life on earth, and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die."

And one from another novel that I've always loved ever since my first film class:

"Film is more than the twentieth-century art. It's another part of the twentieth-century mind. It's the world seen from inside. We've come to a certain point in the history of film. If a thing can be filmed, the film is implied in the thing itself. This is where we are. The twentieth century is on film. You have to ask yourself if there's anything about us more important than the fact that we're constantly on film, constantly watching ourselves."

-from The Names

And:

"The term itself--my life--is a desperate overstatement."

-from Valparaiso

I'll write about this one another day, just posting these quotations for the time being. A placeholder for a review.(less)

like 10 likes

· see review

Sep 21, 2007

Shannon rated it

· review of another edition

I had 2 cut this rant 7x b/c it was too long...I can't stand postmodernists, nihilists, & existentialists! I feel like they should all move to California, stew in their own self-possessed malcontent/overly intellectualized postulating that never incites any action besides high minded bitching & moaning. Why make hopelessness out to be so deep & profound, as if that was the final answer that offers any solution to ANY of the million problems raised in this book? It's SO DEPRESSING & EVERYONE WAS ...moreI had 2 cut this rant 7x b/c it was too long...I can't stand postmodernists, nihilists, & existentialists! I feel like they should all move to California, stew in their own self-possessed malcontent/overly intellectualized postulating that never incites any action besides high minded bitching & moaning. Why make hopelessness out to be so deep & profound, as if that was the final answer that offers any solution to ANY of the million problems raised in this book? It's SO DEPRESSING & EVERYONE WAS SO LOST & ASSANINE & WARPED & DEEPLY FRUSTRATING & SELFISH & DIVORCED FROM REALITY!
So much of it drove me nuts.
BUT IT WAS THE CONVERSATION WITH THE NUN ABOUT FAITH & BELIEF THAT REALLY PUT ME OVER THE TOP! Some of it was painfully true: "The nonbelievers need the believers. They are desperate to have someone believe." "As belief shrinks from the world, people find it more necessary than ever that someone believe...Those who have abandoned belief must still believe in us. They are sure that they are right not to believe but they know belief must not fade completely. Hell is when no one believes. There must always be believers...We surrender our lives to make your nonbelief possible. You are sure that you are right but you don't want everyone to think as you do. THERE IS NO TRUTH W/O FOOLS." And then Delillo states his own view 2 pages prior "But you're a nun. Nuns believe these things. When we see a nun, it cheers us up, it's cute & amusing being reminded that someone still believes in angels, in saints, all the traditional things." I think it is true that our faith & belief are for others as much as they are for ourselves. But Delillo's presentation of this character was all over the place. I'm inspired by her strength & even by her resolve to devote herself to the good things in which she can't even fully believe. It freakishly draws our admiration & disgust at the same time. "We take vows. Poverty, chastity, obedience. Serious vows. A serious life. You could not survive without us." Winnie & this nun are the only 2 characters who have some handle on reality in the last section of the book. But this twisted commentary on faith, "dedication" & "pretense," really was the last straw for me in this book.
& WHAT WAS THE POINT OF WILDER RIDING HIS TRIKE ACROSS THE HIGHWAY? Was that supposed to be an allusion to the way we live life...ignorant of oncoming danger...absurd/foolish as children? Is it a commentary on Jack's remaining years cheating death? Thinking it's going by so fast...when really from proper perspective (reality's view or God's from the perch of the little old ladies) it's a snail's creeping pace. What was the point of that terrible ride? & why finish the book w/ a sunset & the check-out line? Both scenes are of anticipation/the inevitable/waiting which relate to death. But really I was expecting more closure. He DID just shoot a man, come home w/ a bullet wound, & left his neighbor's car full of bloody carnage!
I love the writing & don't regret reading it. There are still numerous passages that I find painfully beautiful & there R many surprising truths woven into all the crazy crap. But still that was not an easy read, & I had to power walk & pray for the depraved world at length before I could sleep with any sort of peace last night. This is how I felt both times I read The Awakening. Great writing, some amazing characters, I recognize that there were some valid points being made, but really I want to smack these characters, the author who created them, & then dedicate my life to fruitful action so I DON’T end up doing NOTHING & thinkin I’m deep.(less)

like 2 likes

· see review

Apr 04, 2007

Elliot rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: People experiencing feelings of detachment or dread

This is probably my favorite novel of all time, so I was a bit frustrated when a friend I recommended it to didn't like it enough to finish it. I think that you have to feel a bit isolated (but be maintaining your sense of humor) in order to enjoy this book. For me, it perfectly articulated the end-of-the-millennium dread I was experiencing (and periodically continue to experience). The themes that resonate with me the most are the quantifying of mortality (to be able to see your statistical od...more

like 3 likes

· see review

Dec 25, 2011

Moonbutterfly rated it

Shelves: literature, favorites

This is one of those books that is an acquired taste. It's more philosophical and thematic, rather than, driven by characters and plots. The structure of the book is not complicated and consists of three parts. First there is life before the toxic disaster, then the actual disaster happens, and finally life after the disaster. More importantly there are several themes and symbols in the book; television, commercialism, consumerism, plots, disasters, identity, and death. Death is actually the mai...more

like 4 likes

· see review

Mar 14, 2008

Sbate rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: normal people, Children of the 80s, Rick Roll

Recommended to Sbate by: My Priest

This was the best book in the earth. It makes things so vivid he is a lucid storyteller. He is like a new prescription eyeglassess in this book. I love him. I wrote to him but the letter came back. - He predicted 9-11 in this book. This book predicts the internet and the cell phone. He knows our society and our fears. Incidentally Dylar is now a real chemical product. It is a flea contraceptive.

like 3 likes

· see review

Mar 17, 2009

Craig rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die

probably more like 4.5 stars.
This book amazed me on several levels: philosophically, intellectually, and emotionally. Delillo presents many analyses of modern fear and society (this work holds up remarkably well over time and addresses a very similar social context as our current one). I may not have understood the ending as well as I expected to beacause I did not like the abrupt ending. I did thoroughly enjoy the dialogue between the father and the nuns in the hospital about belief an...more

like 1 like

· see review

Apr 01, 2009

Matt rated it

· review of another edition

I put this book on my 2009 Literary Resolutions List, which comprises 15 books culled from Time's List of the 100 Greatest Novels since 1920. I thought it was a novelization of that movie where Michael Keaton hears dead people. I was wrong.

I really didn't like this book. It annoyed, irritated, and grated on me.

The book follows Jack Gladney, who is a professor of Hitler Studies (a throwaway joke that is stretched throughout the entire book) at an eastern college. He's on...more

like 15 likes

· see review

Dec 28, 2010

Lacey rated it

Shelves: own

I really liked this novel. Quite a lot. In fact, I would have given it 5 of 5 stars if a. I wasn't trying to be more discerning with my rating system, reserving 5's for only those novels I consider all-time favorites b. if the third and final portion of the book hadn't dragged on a bit too long. That is my only real criticism of the book, that that third part of the book is a bit too long because the rest if pure gold.

Some people seem dissuaded by this book because it is highly regarde...more

like 1 like

· see review

Sep 20, 2010

Mark rated it

· review of another edition

Because of Don's writing skill and the strange mixture of events that happen in the book, I'm sure there is a larger theme, but I wasn't drawn into the book enough to spend much time identifying it. I know it had something to do with the new economy of the 1980s and the fear of death, and if I'm really forced to hang out there and say what I mean, I might say the theme is that this new economy with its consumerism and irresponsible industry is killing everything, even the dignity of a natural d...moreBecause of Don's writing skill and the strange mixture of events that happen in the book, I'm sure there is a larger theme, but I wasn't drawn into the book enough to spend much time identifying it. I know it had something to do with the new economy of the 1980s and the fear of death, and if I'm really forced to hang out there and say what I mean, I might say the theme is that this new economy with its consumerism and irresponsible industry is killing everything, even the dignity of a natural death. But I didn't really think that through because the book didn't excite me enough.

There were pieces of what Don did that I liked. He had characters that I enjoyed including the main character who asked interesting questions to people he talked with, and some side characters like his strange colleague obsessed with the power of TV waves and Elvis, and also his wife's father, a burly man knowledgeable of mechanical systems and other manly pursuits. The women in the book were pretty interesting too. I also liked how Don would describe small emotions and experiences that I didn't think people could describe at all. They are the kinds of little things that you might start telling your friends about by saying, I was walking down the hallway, and I thought, oh wait never mind, its too hard to explain, but trust me it was a weird feeling. I can't think of any examples right now, but he describes these small things that happen to everyone by way of fresh, out there metaphors (metaphors, not analogies right?). The book had some funny parts, but it hardly ever made me lol. Maybe it wasn't supposed to. There was enough in there in the way of strange people talking about new things to make me keep reading and stay pretty well engaged, but near the end I was also ready to get it done and mark it as read on this website.

So, White Noise is well done, and I suspect it is deeper than I know. But I didn't care enough about knowing those depths by the time I finished. Personal 3 bones, suspected 5 bones.(less)

like 1 like

· see review

Aug 29, 2010

Adam rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 1970-present, prose

DeLillo’s White Noise, in which the domestic drama, the academic satire, the apocalyptic drama, the crime novel, and the social satire meet and mingle, deals, among other things, with the difference and distance between experience and expression. This point is most eloquently written into the novel by DeLillo in his exploration of the representative nature of language, and the often severe [and, to our narrator Jack/J.A.K. Gladney, severely distressing:] lack of a concrete connection between the...moreDeLillo’s White Noise, in which the domestic drama, the academic satire, the apocalyptic drama, the crime novel, and the social satire meet and mingle, deals, among other things, with the difference and distance between experience and expression. This point is most eloquently written into the novel by DeLillo in his exploration of the representative nature of language, and the often severe [and, to our narrator Jack/J.A.K. Gladney, severely distressing:] lack of a concrete connection between the signifier and the signified. The lack of Germans in Germantown is most distressing to Jack, as he searches in vain for them, and the hilarious conversations between Jack and his son Heinrich depict Jack’s anxiety over the absence of meaning in words. Jack is extremely keen to find meaning in words and convince himself of their intrinsic ability to act on the world. He is convinced that Hitler’s power came from the German language, he names his son Heinrich because he assumes it is an inherently powerful name. He even alters his own name to ‘J.A.K.’ because he did not believe that ‘Jack’ would be an appropriate first name for a pioneer of Hitler studies [the narrator’s occupation’s significance is fairly obvious, I should think:]. It’s not just language that DeLillo connects to experience and expression. Déjà vu, one of the symptoms of contamination from the airborne toxic event which occurs roughly a third of the way into the novel, renders even past experience, which our characters are so eager to connect with, and are so dependent on, suspicious.

The novel is essentially about, with regard to the characters anyway, about how we deal, or fail to deal with the postmodern condition, with the representative nature of language, a nature we are now acutely aware of, with the construction of self by/from mass media, with the pretension of religion. The characters are in search of a time when language was concretely related to objective reality, when objective reality existed [or at the very least, was thought to exist:], because they wish to find a beginning for their journey, which in the postmodern condition feels hopelessly illogical and fragmented. The characters are lost and hoping to find guidance, and they look to the past to find a starting point for a journey which even near its end doesn’t yet feel like it’s begun. Paradoxically, in spite of their search for the concrete, they don’t want to arrive at the one place they certainly know they will arrive at. The characters are obsessed with simulations and with the past. At one point, Jack looks at old photo albums with his wife, instead of having sex. Even the present is too much to deal with for the characters because it necessarily involves, bar the magical appearance of a pause button, the slow linear march to death. The characters also don’t wish to deal with death because they feel that there is a guided path to follow in life, even if they have not found it yet, while death is uncharted territory, with everyone who has been in the position to chart it obviously being literally incapable of doing so.

Jack repeatedly attempts to adopt the language and behaviour of other traditions to solve his problems, but his appeals to the past and planned fusing of it with the present repeatedly fails to achieve the desired effect. To escape the emptiness of his mundane life, Jack frequently attempts to find profundity [and occasionally does:] in the mundane and materialistic [and the random:]. Religion is not an option for Jack. It is seen as hollow, as outdated by most characters in the novel. The German nuns near the end disturb Jack so much because he finds that even their faith is lost, and that they have the same opinion of religion as he does. Even though religion is not an option, the faith of others was an unknown source of comfort for Jack. A faithless world is extremely distressing to him. The nuns’ [lack of:] beliefs also marks another point in the novel where the lack of things to take for granted is a source of concern for the characters, and especially Jack. If we cannot even assume that ‘the dead’ are dead and ‘the living’ are living, what can we assume? [See the conversation between Orest, Jack, and Heinrich if you have no idea what I’m on about:]

Dylar, the drug humans can take to alleviate the consuming fear of death, was most interesting to me in its relationship to language. On Dylar, a human can literally feel a non-existent hail of bullets. This does not give us a particularly comforting concrete association between the signifier and signified, however. Regardless of what the person on Dylar may feel like, the hail of bullets never actually materializes. The disconnect between language and meaning is even greater than ever, and the confusion, imprecision and even potential meaninglessness of language is acutely revealed. Jack’s existential angst can essentially be traced to his insistence on tracing a concrete relationship between word and meaning. Jack also cannot stand the fragmentation of the postmodern condition, and desperately seeks, as I described earlier, to seek a connection with a mythical past. Jack, stuck in a shrinking and unchangeably constricted world, seeks the mythic spaciousness of the past.

Jack does eventually have his epiphany. After shooting Mink and being shot [I’m disinterested in extensive summary here, there are plenty of plot summaries you can read elsewhere:], Jack is released by that horrific pain from his self-absorption and his preoccupations. He is returned once and for all to the ordinary and the meaningless. He finally finds meaning in the postmodern world, but only after being snapped out of the past. He is forced by the parodic showdown between himself and Mink to confront and accept “the old human muddles and quirks” and feel “compassion, remorse, mercy,” emotions Jack had suppressed for so long in search of nonexistent profundity. Jack’s epiphany seems to me to come in the act of writing and not in the actual events he writes about, during which even after the violence he is as naive [during the conversation with the nuns:] and dishonest about himself [he doesn’t admit to shooting Mink:] as ever.

I think that there is some clarity in the final chapter, though I know that others disagree. The narrator of the last chapter, post-‘epiphany’ Jack, seems particularly content to live in the present. It seems to me that we can frame his contentment as the acceptance of mystery, confusion, fragmentation, as the acceptance of looking for beauty and meaning not in concrete relationships and clear-cut ideas, but in ambiguity and uncertainty. He chooses, finally, to adapt to a disorderly world. The incongruous and disruptive presence of Wilder’s tricycle on the highway in the final chapter is so because the pace of life is interrupted not by progression but by regression and innocence. Somehow, the cars all escape hitting Wilder, and all of a sudden the order of the road, the presumed truths are thrown into question, forcing the drivers on the highway to confront their concrete ideas of the world. The final conclusion of the language issues the novel deals with seems to be that we must satisfy ourselves with language being an artful way to arrange the chaotic postmodern condition, that we cannot expect language to resolve our mysteries and fears, but that there is beauty in the puzzles themselves. Perhaps, DeLillo seems to be suggesting on a level broader than the language stuff, we ought not to seek indeterminable truths by the way of logic, or to surrender ourselves to technology, or to seek comfort in religion, but instead to find a different faith, the faith in mystery itself, the unknowable, the uncertain, the confused. Jack, who spends most of the novel pondering big questions, doesn’t even bother in the final chapter to find the meaning behind Wilder’s bizarre trip, instead simply starting to discuss, after relating that tale, the family’s visits to the highway overpass. Jack doesn’t discuss death in the final chapter. Presumably his near-death experience has ironically allowed him to progress beyond his consuming fear of death, death being, of course, the greatest mystery of all. How else can we interpret the final chapter, except to conclude that Jack’s newfound ‘faith’ in mystery is what finally frees him from his great existential dilemmas. The final three scenes [the highway, the sunset, and the rearranged supermarket:] which comprise the final chapter are collectively a subversion of the notion that are in control of everything, even death. Once Jack accepts that he is not in control of death, that he has no solution to it, he is free. How ‘happy’ an ending this is depends on your worldview, and DeLillo’s is ambiguous based on reading the novel. Perhaps Jack is finally happy and free, but also terribly deluded, and not really free but rather trapped in a delusion, a construct which enables him to deal with the unfathomable reality and the very real existential issues we must confront in our lives. After all, Jack does not find a solution. He merely sidesteps the issue altogether, finding a way not to confront it. (less)

like 4 likes

· see review

Sep 28, 2008

Lavinia rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2007, fiction

The book contains some interesting themes and motifs: consumerism [really liked the episode when Jack is trucked by the shopping demon], fear of death [both jack and his wife have an (un)justified fear of death, being ready to be part of some experiments to obtain Dylar, the miraculous medicine that banishes fear], media [almost permanently there’s a TV or a radio opened somewhere in the house], disintegrated and reunited families [both spouses have children from previous marriages plus one toge...moreThe book contains some interesting themes and motifs: consumerism [really liked the episode when Jack is trucked by the shopping demon], fear of death [both jack and his wife have an (un)justified fear of death, being ready to be part of some experiments to obtain Dylar, the miraculous medicine that banishes fear], media [almost permanently there’s a TV or a radio opened somewhere in the house], disintegrated and reunited families [both spouses have children from previous marriages plus one together]. All these gathered may form an image of postmodern America, reduced to that white noise, which, I’m told is a combination of different frequencies of the sound.

***
so, never judge a book by its cover [editia romaneasca :P]. am avut impresia, la inceput cind am vazut cartea, ca e ceva s.f. / horror / thriller si mi-am zis: ok, acum trebuie sa o citesc pt. ca e un cadou si raul necesar asteapta sa vada daca merita citita :D. mare usurare cind de fapt am aflat citeva info de pe net, cum ca nu e ce ma asteptam eu, ba se mai si studiaza prin universtitatile americane ;).

deci, printre altele: consumerism [mi-a placut episodul cind jack incepe sa cumpere in disperare din mall, spre deliciul familiei si la un moment dat in iulius mall fiind in ziua cu grand opening am simtit aproape pe propria piele nebunia], teama de moarte [jack si sotia, amindoi pocniti de o teama de moarte mai mult sau mai putin justificata, gata sa se supuna unor experimente ciudate pentru a obtine dylar, miraculosul medicament care alunga teama + norul toxic si toata nebunia ce decurge din amenintarea cu diferite boli] , media [aproape in permanenta undeva e deschis un radio sau un televizor din care se aude o frintura de stire sau ceva spectaculos], familii dezintegrate si reunite [cei doi au copii din casatoriile anterioare + unul impreuna, iar in permanenta alti copii, tot de-ai lor, ii viziteaza sau pleaca in vizite]. toate astea [+ altele] adunate dau o imagine posibila a americii postmoderne, redusa de autor la acel zgomot alb din titlu, despre care aflu ca ar fi de fapt o combinatie a frecventelor diferite ale sunetului. imagine care e redata cu mult umor dar si ironie [vezi cap. 17, delicios].

placut & recomand.(less)

like 2 likes

· see review

Aug 21, 2008

Lara rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: heart-breaking

I think I loved this podcast as well as I loved the book itself...

I don't often read other people's reviews of a book after I've already read it myself, but this time was an exception. I feel strangely put-off by the conversation at hand, and my only real thought is that if you can provoke such a variety of strongly-held opinions with your work, you must be doing something right.

I felt neither belittled nor bored by Delillo's prose. I found the entire thing in tur...more

like 2 likes

· see review

Aug 19, 2008

Dusty Myers rated it

· review of another edition

White Noise is best read as an historical farce, like The Country Wife or The Taming of the Shrew. It's an anatomy in the Northrop Frye sense, where characters announce in dialogue all the clear ideas they're meant to embody. Which of course is classic DeLillo; it's a mistake to write this guy off because his characters don't speak realistically.

It's not a mistake to write him off entirely, though. I've prattled on about DeLillo before, how tired he makes me. All of his standard fa...more

like 1 like

· see review

May 16, 2008

Adam rated it

· review of another edition

This is probably the most accessible pomo book I've ever read. As such---however---it has a representative set of strengths and weaknesses as PoMo books go:

1: Development: White Noise does not develope linearly, rather it works as a system (every pomo novel does this to a point) the towns are not real places, but generalizations, people don't talk like real people but in this stilted diconnected manner. The book does not end after a crisis, but when the system has completed. I ...moreThis is probably the most accessible pomo book I've ever read. As such---however---it has a representative set of strengths and weaknesses as PoMo books go:

1: Development: White Noise does not develope linearly, rather it works as a system (every pomo novel does this to a point) the towns are not real places, but generalizations, people don't talk like real people but in this stilted diconnected manner. The book does not end after a crisis, but when the system has completed. I find this sort of set-up fascinating--and Delillo avoids most of the problems inherant here (a big one can be that characters become alienating types that are hard to empathize with---many many people read for empathy).

2: Development (II): Systems take a long time to set up. In a more traditional book one would have an exposition which would last from 10 to 50 pages. A system only starts clicking once patterns start being perceptible---here it takes up the entire part I of the book (the first third of the novel). This requires the reader to hold on and have faith that the book is going to "go somewhere." Delillo has this problem---I can tell you that the book definately does pay off, but a lot of readers won't stick along to see it.

3. Fragmentation: Delillo uses fragmentation masterfully---with bad pomos the fragmentation never adds up to anything---the reader is presented with a series of disconnected scenes that don't create a body. Delillo's fragmentation is like putting together a puzzle--each piece seems meaningless, but as the picture comes together you start seeing greater things afoot.

4. Themes of disconnection/artificiality: Definately present (as well as a more classical theme--death). Strangely enough, I feel these themes--while still valid--seem very stuck in their times. Perhaps I'm optimistic, but I don't see commercialism having unquestioned power (oh it still has power alright, but people are uneasy about it---maybe this book is one of the reasons why).

In any case read it. It's a necessity!(less)

like 2 likes

· see review

Mar 16, 2008

Aaron rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Masochists. No, really.

I suppose I'm still technically reading this book, though I am about 3/4ths of the way through when I moved to another country, so God knows if I will have the enthusiasm and/or desire to ever finish it. At first intriguing, even a bit exciting, then very very boring for a long period of time, even during the book's "climax," all the characters are well crafted and yet almost entirely unsympathetic, the plot is . . . is there a plot? Not really, not like you and I think of plots anyway...more

like 1 like

· see review

title link	preview: White Noise
avg rating	preview: White Noise Goodreads rating: 3.82 (22781 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6719051-white-noise?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1260725876m/6719051.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6719051-white-noise?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]White Noise by Don DeLillo[/url]

White Noise

Friend Reviews

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topic
Discuss This Book

combine
Other Editions (40)

Genres

Readers Also Enjoyed

About Don DeLillo

Books by Don DeLillo

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website

Trivia About White Noise

Quotes from White Noise

Groups That Shelved White Noise