White Noise

May 07, 2013 Jenn(ifer) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: believers

Recommended to Jenn(ifer) by: the sentry to the island of misfit toys

Shelves: 5-f-ing-stars, game-changers, read-in-2012, the-tops, you-should-read-this, own, my-reviews-that-dont-suck

If I had it my way, as soon as you clicked on my review this song would blare from your speakers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N3N1M... (and the video is amazing; I would rather you watch it than read my nonsensical ramblings)

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This book smells like napalm. It sounds like air being slowly released from a balloon. It tastes like ashes of the American dream.

I wander the city, invisible earmuffs blocking out the sounds, eyes glued to pages, smile glued to my face. People look at me as...more

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Apr 09, 2012 B0nnie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“What if death is nothing but sound....electrical noise….you hear it forever…sound all around…uniform, white.”

Think about that. Death: white noise. A metaphor for the substance of nothingness.

However you wish to describe it, death casts a large black shadow on us. It covers human beings but not animals - because animals are not afraid of death. Get rid of that shadow, problem solved…

What if there were a pill that that fixes the fear-of-death part of the brain and cures you of this "conditi...more

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Feb 22, 2012 Shan Jago rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

First of all, my biggest issue with White Noise is that it lacks the realistic depths reached by such great artistic achievements like Monty Python or The Last Unicorn. Besides, I’m simply too lazy to suspend my disbelief. And how about that dialogue? C’mon, man – have you ever encountered anyone that sounded smug and pretentious? That spoke to their loved ones using pet names? That asked dumb questions of their family? Nope. Me neither.
All the people I know talk real pretty and poetic-like. Ju...more

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Mar 02, 2012 Ian Graye rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviews, exert-yourself, de-lillo-rama, read-2012, reviews-5-stars

100 Words in Search of a Precis (For Those of Us Who Prefer the Short Form of Stimulation)

At its heart, “White Noise” is a comic dramatization of the fear of death.

In modern consumer society, we are only fulfilled if our shopping bags are filled full.

We do it in crowds. It must be right, if we’re all doing it. It’s part of the natural order. It’s “ordernary”.

It’s a collective delusion, “a convenient fantasy, the worst kind of self-delusion,” designed to distract us from our incapacitation in t...more

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Apr 19, 2012 Jeffrey Keeten rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I had this babysitter named Bernice who also was the postmistress of our wind swept Kansas town. My mom would drop me off at the post office which I'm pretty sure using the post office as a day care may have been against regulation, but this was small town America. Bernice was ultra-religious and obsessed with death. She had me convinced that she had a pact with GOD that when her time came she would ascend on a cloud in the same manner as Jesus Christ.

She told me if I prayed fervently I too wou...more

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Nov 23, 2012 Paul rated it 1 of 5 stars

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.

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Mar 30, 2008 David rated it 1 of 5 stars · 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 addresses why I should. So, I am asking for enlighte...more

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Oct 08, 2007 amber rated it 5 of 5 stars · 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 though, is the discuss...more

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Dec 29, 2011 Stephen M rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: obras-maestras

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 next it cuts away to an argument about...more

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Oct 13, 2012 Con McVeety rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Part One: Discovery in a National Book Store

Some books have such profound impacts on the reader, that it changes the way the reader thinks, the reader remembers the book crystal clear in his head years later, and the reader will never be the same anymore. That book for me is Don DeLillo's “White Noise”, unlike anything I read at the time and I became obsessed a little with it.

As best as I can estimate at the moment it was eight years ago that I found myself in the fiction section of Barnes a...more Part One: Discovery in a National Book Store

Some books have such profound impacts on the reader, that it changes the way the reader thinks, the reader remembers the book crystal clear in his head years later, and the reader will never be the same anymore. That book for me is Don DeLillo's “White Noise”, unlike anything I read at the time and I became obsessed a little with it.

As best as I can estimate at the moment it was eight years ago that I found myself in the fiction section of Barnes and Noble, it could of been in anyone of their stores across the world, being that each are the same inside, I believe that they have the paint color on the walls copy righted, but I was in the Downtown Pittsburgh one that day. Unable to decide for sure if the book I held in my hand,” The Confederacy of Dunces”, was what I wanted to spend cold hard cash on I decided to give the fiction section another go. My reading at the time was a few classics, Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" and "The Grapes of Wrath", plus a some Chuck Palahniuk novels I was all about, but I wanted to read something different or by a different author. When I came to the D’s , DeLillo suddenly register in my head, I knew nothing of his books, only remembered a tag on a Palahniuk book I owned saying that Chuck Palahniuk is this generations answer to Don DeLillo or something linking the two. Libra had JFK on the cover, Underworld was so thick, Cosmopolis a limo, but White Noise’s cover caught my eye, the photo of the high light poles in a parking lot and two red slides, beg of me to read. What could this book be about I had no clue, but on the back something about modern life and an airborne toxic event and I was sold. I made my way to the counter, passed a giant Harry Potter display with brooms and spectacles, a girl middle school aged plead with her mother to buy her Harry Potter, but sweetie you all ready have that one at the house , I overheard her mother say. I was out the door in less than five minutes, no one in line, and caught the early trolley back home.

The way Don DeLillo wrote struck a chord with me right away. How he described the cars dropping off students at a college campus as if Don DeLillo was a cinematographer setting a scene in a movie. Then there was how the characters spoke in an intellectual way that examined the modern world, that they weren’t just talking in relation to the plot, they spoke deeply and unlike any other characters I read, and conversated unlike how anybody talked in real life. I knew then that I stumbled upon something great and original.

Part Two: Bored at a House Party

I washed dishes back then, at a resturant inside of a Mall in Pittsburgh’s South Hills, what bothered me most about the job wasn’t that it was hard and underpaid work, the fact that no one respected you that you work with, or even the fact that you went home smelling putrid, no it was all the uneaten food on the customers plates brought back to me to throw away. A Few weeks after buying White Noise, I went to a party after work with just about everybody I worked with. The house that housed the party was lower than the street we parked and we had to descend a small set of city steps to get to the front door. I wasted no time and just drank, drank form the keg, had a couple Red Stripes, shots of I don’t remember what of, and I was sitting in the living room, the Strokes "Someday" was playing and everyone was in their own groups talking, groups I was outside of, so I just orbited form group to group, beer in hand waiting for a point to join in. Most of the party goers talked about work, what they cook and who they fucked, I remember someone saying that taking E in the Shower was better than sex. Things were becoming rather hopeless I was bored thought just saying fuck it and walk home and then, well then there she stood, a young women my age that I worked with, she wore her hair in bangs, and like me wasn’t the most sociable at work and there she was in the dinning room just standing by herself. Needless to say I made a B-line towards her, I can’t remember what I said but she laughed, we just talked about the party being a bust, that if we just left no one would even notice, a dude was passed out under the dinning room table, commandeered for beer bong, we said who’s that we don’t work with him. The conversation somehow veered towards books, she asks what I was reading I told her White Noise. The look on her face I’ll never forget she looked like she smelled a skunk that just walked in and toke a fucking shit. She said White Noise isn’t that that dumb movie with Michael Keaton and the Internet being haunted. No I told her spilling a little of my beer I told her, White Noise by Don DeLillo a book that was nothing to do with the movie. White Noise is what happens…wait I won’t ruin it the book I mean. She looked at me I was drunk and told her a little more about the book how it’s about this family in the modern world content with just consuming things till a train derails and cause a man mad disaster and the family has to leave their home, comfortable existence and ordered to take shelter with the rest of the town. I looked at her to see if she was still listening to me, and I said there’s a part with a father and son in a car during a rainstorm, and the son tells the father that it’s not raining, because they aren’t wet and father and son argue like this for a few more lines, and that White Noise is just unlike anything she’s probably read. We talked some more till my ride had to leave or she leave first, it doesn’t matter, two months later her and I stared dating. I can say without doubt that she was the only women I ever loved, but in the end she got away or I got away, the day she broke up with me we held each other in each other’s arms and cried. We dated for two years, I still think of her more then I should, because there is no chance of us getting back together. Oh and she read White Noise she said that she liked Heinrich best of all, How I miss her so.

Today I was at the grocery store and a child would not stop crying, I just wanted to buy some iced tea, there was two yellow caution sings near the butter and eggs, Hall and Otts played on the speakers above, fluorescent light, people pushed carts, some had to bring lists with them, me I had no list didn’t know why I was there, why I felt…
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Jul 28, 2011 Dorothea rated it 2 of 5 stars · 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 reading this book, a...more 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 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)

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Apr 07, 2010 Megha rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviews

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 appreciate s...more 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 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)

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Nov 06, 2012 Rob rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: time-all-time-100, 2011

I recall a conversation that I had with one of my college writing professors; this was during one of the periods when I was writing one of my ill-fated for-credit novels [1]. We were talking about characters, character development, and (more specifically) about how you as the author can attempt to engage the reader through those characters, and thus why it becomes important for your characters to develop—to have an arc—to experience conflicts, and to struggle against those conflicts, and to chan...more

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Feb 23, 2008 Christy rated it 1 of 5 stars · 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 painfully contrived. I've decided t...more 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 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)

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Sep 15, 2007 Ethan rated it 4 of 5 stars · 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

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Sep 28, 2008 Rose rated it 1 of 5 stars · 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 dread! But there w...more

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Jan 24, 2010 Kemper rated it 4 of 5 stars · 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 few hundred mill...more 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 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)

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Apr 09, 2008 Marco rated it 5 of 5 stars · 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 academic satire." Yeah, that's a good start. Really,...more

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Jul 19, 2008 Jonathan rated it 5 of 5 stars · 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 e...more

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Sep 15, 2012 Paul rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american-novels

This is supposed to be a postmodern classic; I'm not so sure. It's meant to be a literary classic; one of the great novels of the twentieth century. Again I'm not sure, but I really enjoyed it. It is a very funny novel about very serious subjects.
Jack and Babette Gladney, live in a typical american town where Jack is an academic who teaches Hitler Studies (without knowing any German). They have assorted children from previous marraiges; all of whom are interesting characters in their own right....more This is supposed to be a postmodern classic; I'm not so sure. It's meant to be a literary classic; one of the great novels of the twentieth century. Again I'm not sure, but I really enjoyed it. It is a very funny novel about very serious subjects.
Jack and Babette Gladney, live in a typical american town where Jack is an academic who teaches Hitler Studies (without knowing any German). They have assorted children from previous marraiges; all of whom are interesting characters in their own right. Jack and Babette are both iin middle age and both terrified of death. They both wonder who will die first; not an uncommon question, I suspect; even if it isn't asked. After the initial scenesetting there is an "airborne toxic event" and the town is evacuated. Jack seems to have been exposed to the chemical and is told he may or may not be in trouble and may or may not die from it at some point in the future, Jack discovers that Babette is so afraid of death that she has contacted a rather dubious scientist who has a drug that may "cure" the fear of death. She sleeps with him to pay for it. There are lots of comedic toings and froings. The german lessons are hilarious. Jack's friend Murray provides the philosophy and is equally funny. The children entertain by being typically obsessive/irritating/lovely. Various ex spouses wander through in a random manner, as does Babette's father.
There are some wonderful reflections on modern life. The passage describing bewildered shoppers when the supermarket moves all the goods around is priceless; we all know supermarkets are modern cathedrals and DeLillo illustrates this well. The reflections on death are funny and profound;
"Doesn't our knowledge of death make life more precious?'

What good is a preciousness based on fear and anxiety? It's an anxious quivering thing”

There are some very funny moments; and it's a good way to ponder death and the cessation of being without getting too morbid. The ending is pants (that's a technical term)and I think Delillo got up one day and said; that's enough. Despite that it is a very accomplished analysis of modern fears and alienation.(less)

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Sep 14, 2007 Nathan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who die

Shelves: lies, great-lies-of-the-20th-century, this-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 have any deep...more

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Jun 10, 2012 the review man rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: postmodern

Don DeLillo writes about that which he does not understand; consequently, White Noise is a questionable work of art. And as we all know, the best way to pass off mediocrity as quality is to label it as 'satire'.

White Noise's main character is the chair of the Hitler department at a university. This piece of information, which shows up every four or five pages—he even carries Mein Kampf around with him as if his life depended on it—is largely irrelevant to the plot. The main character (who's so d...more Don DeLillo writes about that which he does not understand; consequently, White Noise is a questionable work of art. And as we all know, the best way to pass off mediocrity as quality is to label it as 'satire'.

White Noise's main character is the chair of the Hitler department at a university. This piece of information, which shows up every four or five pages—he even carries Mein Kampf around with him as if his life depended on it—is largely irrelevant to the plot. The main character (who's so dull that I've already forgotten his name; Jack something?) could have just as easily been a dental hygienist or a construction worker or the CEO of a multinational corporation because his current profession adds little to his character 'arc', provides few details about his backstory and does not contribute to the plot in any significant way. It's the sort of gimmickry I might expect from a Wes Anderson imitator.

Dr. Jack The Hitler-obsessed has been married five times (we'll never know why) and has a bunch of cardboard cut-outs for children. He speaks in stilted language, almost as if he's a character in a badly written novel. (Oh wait, he is.) At some point, his father-in-law (well, his fifth father-in-law) gives him a gun. Not even a Chekov's gun. A literal gun. Care to guess how the story ends?

The novel is apparently about entertainment and the media (possibly what the title mockingly refers to?). We know this because every two or three pages, DeLillo casually lets us know what's playing on TV or the radio. "The next world war will be fought over salt," we hear on the radio; a few pages later, it's a television ad about how you should try this brand of fish sticks or that new swimming program. Then he writes a literal toxic spill instead. The resultant chemical cloud forces everyone to evacuate the town, and one character breathes in a bit of the stuff at one point. After some medical testing, it's determined that it'll kill him eventually.

Wait, is this a metaphor? This stuff is so obvious from DeLillo's writing that it's almost painful. It's like watching one of those cheesy murder mysteries on TV where they keep cutting from a character to a murder weapon lying on the ground. We get it—we figured out what the gun was for the first time we saw it. Thelma Schoonmaker you aren't.

Not to be outdone, DeLillo decides that this novel has to be a dissertation on the nature of death. Most of White Noise's characters are blatant author mouthpieces spouting whatever unoriginal nonsense DeLillo himself believes about death. Jack The Hitler-obsessed is so paralyzed by the thought of death that he constantly rambles on about it as if his thoughts are deep, meaningful and worth listening to. What DeLillo fails to realize is that everyone over the age of 10 has already worried about death and that they probably learned more about it from The Discovery Channel than from White Noise.

To be fair, DeLillo does try, and it's evident. There are germs of good ideas sown throughout the book. The chemical spill could have been a really cool and effective thematic device (it just didn't cut it for me), and there were real opportunities for DeLillo to connect Hitler, death and media oversaturation. However, they really seemed to fall flat on first reading. (Perhaps a second read-through would result in more appreciation for DeLillo's craft?)(less)

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May 07, 2012 Jm_oriol rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. La novela sigue la vida de un profesor de una pequeña universidad americana, Jack Gladney, y su familia. Es el fundador de todo un departamento que estudia la vida y obra de Adolf Hitler, aunque no sabe alemán y la única asignatura que aun imparte es Nazismo avanzado. Su mejor colega, Murray, es profesor del departamento de cultura popular, y su ambición es crear un departamento parecido para estudiar a Elvis, y de momento se dedica a un cursillo sobre accidentes de coches, y a estudiar a la gen...more

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May 18, 2013 Nate rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2013-cycle, bloom-four

Video Review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-PVlw...

In some ways I'm really ashamed it's taken me this long to read this book. Honestly it's probably been marked to read for two years. Perhaps this is what happens when one owns a book as opposed to borrowing it from the library. It's a trend of mine I've noticed.

DeLillo's a funny guy. Coming up as a big Coupland fan, it's like he's a more aphoristic-autistic big brother to Doug. Nuclear war, death, pop-culture, brand names, really the artific...more Video Review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-PVlw...

In some ways I'm really ashamed it's taken me this long to read this book. Honestly it's probably been marked to read for two years. Perhaps this is what happens when one owns a book as opposed to borrowing it from the library. It's a trend of mine I've noticed.

DeLillo's a funny guy. Coming up as a big Coupland fan, it's like he's a more aphoristic-autistic big brother to Doug. Nuclear war, death, pop-culture, brand names, really the artifice of postmodern reality as a whole is on display in both author's work.

For me DeLillo's always been strangely more alien. Very few if any of his character's are driven by love. Fear and anxiety dominate them. Especially in White Noise. White Noise is kind of the pinnacle of everything DeLillo. This being roughly by eighth book of his there's plenty here to critique even for a five star review. The characters all sound the same, though you could probably say the same for Cormac McCarthy's rural vernacular. It's just that one feels heavily contrived and the latter feels boldly authentic. But DeLillo's obsessed with the artifice. There's a whole collegiate department revolving around the study of Hitler. Murray Jay Siskind wants to do the same thing with Elvis. The next semester he's teaching a class on car crashes. If it weren't so anxiety and fear ridden this would be a slapstick comedy.

And then the kids, oh god the kids. Denise is an eleven-year old obsessed with the Physician's Desk Reference. Heinrich's a balding (read: receding hairline) 14-year old who's bent on taking the contrary position to everything his father says. Wilder's six years old and doesn't talk, but is somehow extremely soothing to both Babbete and Jack. And then Steffie is the 7-yo daughter who experiences her most intense feelings from embarrasing, cringe-inducing moments on TV.

And then of course Jack Gladney, our narrator and protagonist is obsessed with his death. Just petrified. And he has these little passive-aggresive battles with the wife over who will die first in the way that young couples end phone conversation with "no you hang up first."

It's not a perfect novel, but it's a really good one. Even (and perhaps especially) if you've never heard of the word "postmodern" before you should read it. Read it and let it wash over you, the radiation of the ink penetrating your body and becoming a part of you as you and the plot of the book move slowly deathward. (less)

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Sep 20, 2011 Ikra Amesta rated it 4 of 5 stars · 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 on the radio doesn’t mean we have to suspend belief in the evidence of ou...more

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Dec 03, 2012 Nenia Campbell rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: x-1980s, 1001-books, did-not-finish-or-skimmed

Random words linked together, happenstance. Non-sequiturs. Seems like they'll publish anything these days. Oh, look! I'm a post-modernistic classic.

Who talks like that? Seriously? And no, hipsters don't count, because there is nothing serious about a hipster. In fact, I'm 99.9% sure that hipsters don't know what they're going on about most of the time, and that .1% of error is mostly due to how distracting those heinously-colored pants are. Red? Blue? Yellow? Those belong on snow-cones, not on y...more

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Sep 03, 2009 Joshua Nomen-Mutatio rated it 5 of 5 stars · 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 we all hide from ea...more 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 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)

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Sep 21, 2007 Shannon rated it 2 of 5 stars · 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 &...more 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 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)

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Apr 04, 2007 Elliot rated it 5 of 5 stars · 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 odd...more

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Jul 23, 2012 Natalia rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: grad-school, comps

I have little sympathy for these small, petty characters and their narcissistic obsession with their own deaths. I like the criticism of consumerism and the modern synthetic existence, but it does feel a bit dated now. I think this book was much more relevant when it was published than it is now. I'm not sure if we're supposed to feel sympathy for the characters or not. If so, this is a major failing of the book, but if DeLillo was trying to deliver empty husks of characters that gleam with art...more

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