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White Noise

Don DeLillo

3.86 · Rating details · 78,497 ratings · 4,437 reviews

Part of the Penguin Orange Collection, a limited-run series of twelve influential and beloved American classics in a bold series design offering a modern take on the iconic Penguin paperback

For the seventieth anniversary of Penguin Classics, the Penguin Orange Collection celebrates the heritage of Penguin’s iconic book design with twelve influential American literary class ...more

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Paperback, Penguin Orange Collection, 320 pages

Published September 6th 2016 by Penguin Classics (first published 1984)

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Oct 08, 2007 amber rated it it was amazing · 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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Apr 13, 2012 Jeffrey Keeten rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: post-apocalyptic

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. 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 w ...more

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May 01, 2017 Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

So......I finally read this.....enjoyed it. I found myself comparing this book to a new family TV series with Eugene Levy called 'Schitt's Creek'. The most entertaining-FUNNY show, I've seen in years.
The dialogue is hilarious in both 'White Noise' and 'Schitt's Creek' between the parents and kids.
Jack Gladney's friend, Murray cracked me up! He reminded me of one of the characters on 'Schitt's Creek'.
Most of this book was comical to me.
From the beginning--I was shaking my head....
"What? REAL ...more

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Feb 26, 2008 David rated it did not like 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 addresses why I should. So, I am asking for enlighte ...more

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Dec 20, 2014 Justin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

It's like how my mom still calls me if there is bad weather nearby, or if I'm out driving on a holiday where the roads could be filled with people who had too much to drink.

It's like when the grocery store parking lots stay full when snow is on the way because people think they may be stuck inside their house forever.

It's like how the news can report on how Coke can kill you so you start drinking Diet Coke, but then the artificial sweetener can give you cancer so you try to just drink water, bu ...more

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May 03, 2008 Dorothea rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Recommends it for: hipster nihilists

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 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! ...more

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Apr 30, 2012 Jenn(ifer) rated it it was amazing · 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, national-book-award-winners

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)

************

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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Nov 17, 2017 °°°·.°·..·°¯°·._.· ʜᴇʟᴇɴ Ροζουλί Εωσφόρος ·._.·°¯°·.·° .·°°° ★·.·´¯`·.·★ Ⓥⓔⓡⓝⓤⓢ Ⓟⓞⓡⓣⓘⓣⓞⓡ Ⓐⓡⓒⓐⓝⓤⓢ Ταμετούρο Αμ rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Ο «Λευκός θόρυβος» είναι ένας θρήνος για την συντριπτική προοπτική του θανάτου, την καταρρέουσα σύγχρονη κοινωνία και τον παραλογισμό του σύμπαντος του συγγραφέα.

Ξεκίνησα θετικά, με ζωηρό ενδιαφέρον για την εξέλιξη και συναισθηματικά μουδιασμένη, παρόλο που η φλυαρία, η επανάληψη και η τάση για διδαχή με κατέβαλαν αρνητικά.
Στην πορεία αντιλήφθηκα πως το επαναλαμβανόμενο θέμα που θα έπρεπε να με αγγίξει και να με προβληματίσει, ίσως και να με εντυπωσιάσει, ήταν πως ο κάθε άνθρωπος ζει τη ζωή το ...more

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Dec 31, 2015 Kevin Kelsey rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: _library, read-2016, 1001-books, award-national-book-award, favorites, read-2018, read-it-again

March, 2018:
On a second read, I think I got another 2-3% of it than last time. I adore this book.

January, 2016:
I really enjoyed this, but I don't completely understand it yet. I've got about 95% of it, but that last 5% I think may only come after some rereading, and maybe 20 additional years of life experience. It feels like a book you could read several times over a life and always find a different meaning. Heavily metaphorical, very philosophical, clever. Death, consumerism, fear, modern life, ...more

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Feb 18, 2014 Violet wells rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: faves, contemporary-american-fiction

“The world is full of abandoned meanings.”
White Noise takes place in a realm one small step removed from an easily recognisable reality – or “just outside the range of human apprehension”, as DeLillo puts it. On face value none of its characters or events are quite credible – the characters are too eloquent, the scenes too stage managed. Why, for example, would people choose to go out in the open on foot to escape from a toxic cloud? Why not get in their cars or simply stay barricaded in their “The world is full of abandoned meanings.”
White Noise takes place in a realm one small step removed from an easily recognisable reality – or “just outside the range of human apprehension”, as DeLillo puts it. On face value none of its characters or events are quite credible – the characters are too eloquent, the scenes too stage managed. Why, for example, would people choose to go out in the open on foot to escape from a toxic cloud? Why not get in their cars or simply stay barricaded in their homes? So DeLillo can give us an image of a nomad biblical exodus because Delillo wants to strip down humanity to its rudiments in this novel – the fear of death and subsequent gullibility it induces to submit to all kinds of generalised information that will keep us safe. He wants to show us how information is used to cower us into a herd mentality. The Hitler warning always stalking the outer corridors of the novel. “Put on a uniform and feel bigger, stronger, safer''.

White Noise, on the surface, is DeLillo’s most orthodox novel. First person narrative. Straightforward chronology. Mainly domestic setting. Lots of humour. The novel’s white noise is the endless stream of (mis)information we are subjected to in our lives. Data has a viral role in this novel. Data that rarely translates into wisdom. The narrator Jack Gladney’s oldest son articulates this theme brilliantly: “What can we do to make life easier for the Stone Agers? Can we make a refrigerator? Can we even explain how it works? What is electricity? What is light? We experience these things every day of our lives but what good does it do if we find ourselves hurled back in time and we can’t even tell people the basic principles much less actually make something that would improve conditions. Name one thing you could make. Could you make a simple wooden match that you could strike on a rock to make a flame? We think we’re so great and modern. Moon landings, artificial hearts. But what if you were hurled into a time warp. If a Stone Ager asked you what a nucleotide is, could you tell him? How do we make carbon paper? What is glass? If you came awake tomorrow in the Middle Ages and there was an epidemic raging, what could you do to stop it, knowing what you know about the progress of medicines and diseases? Here it is practically the twenty-first century and you’ve read hundreds of books and magazines and seen a hundred TV shows about science and medicine. Could you tell those people one little crucial thing that might save a million and a half lives?”

Children, still unencumbered by fear of death, are better (and more mysterious) filters of information in the novel than the fear-stricken adults. The adults are both blinded and deafened by the wall of white noise of ubiquitous multimedia information because “the deeper we delve into the nature of things, the looser our structure may seem to become.” The children therefore often have to resist what passes as wisdom in the parents. “The family is the cradle of the world's misinformation.”

As he becomes much more intimate with the advent of his own death Gladney begins finally to glean wisdom from information. “The air was rich with extrasensory material. Nearer to death, nearer to second sight. I continued to advance in consciousness. Things glowed, a secret life rising out of them.”
White Noise, not quite the masterpiece that is Underworld, is a brilliant achievement, his second best novel. ...more

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Aug 22, 2011 Ian "Marvin" Graye rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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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Jan 06, 2012 B0nnie rated it really liked it · 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 "condi ...more

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Jul 03, 2016 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century, fiction, classic, novel, literature, post-modern

White Noise, (1985), Don DeLillo
White Noise is the eighth novel by Don DeLillo, published by Viking Press in 1985. It won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. White Noise is an example of postmodern literature. White Noise follows a year in the life of Jack Gladney, a professor who has made his name by pioneering the field of Hitler studies (though he hasn't taken German lessons until this year). He has been married five times to four women and rears a brood of children and stepchildren (H White Noise, (1985), Don DeLillo
White Noise is the eighth novel by Don DeLillo, published by Viking Press in 1985. It won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. White Noise is an example of postmodern literature. White Noise follows a year in the life of Jack Gladney, a professor who has made his name by pioneering the field of Hitler studies (though he hasn't taken German lessons until this year). He has been married five times to four women and rears a brood of children and stepchildren (Heinrich, Denise, Steffie, Wilder) with his current wife, Babette. Jack and Babette are both extremely afraid of death; they frequently wonder which of them will be the first to die. The first part of White Noise, called "Waves and Radiation", is a chronicle of contemporary family life combined with academic satire.
عنوانها: برفک؛ سر و صدای سفید؛ نویز سفید؛ نویسنده: دان دلیلو؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز سوم ماه جولای سال 2016 میلادی
عنوان: نویز سفید؛ نویسنده: دان دلیلو؛ مترجم: نوشین ریشهری؛ تهران، نغمه زندگی، 1390؛ چاپ دیگر: 1393؛ در 447 ص؛ شابک: 9789642882946؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان امریکایی سده 20 م؛
عنوان: سر و صدای سفید؛ نویسنده: دان دلیلو؛ مترجم: محمدصادق رئیسی؛ تهران، روزگار، 1392؛ در 368 ص؛ شابک: 9789643744779؛
عنوان: برفک؛ نویسنده: دان دلیلو؛ مترجم: پیمان خاکسار؛ تهران، نشر چشمه، 1394؛ در 337 ص؛ شابک: 9786002295538؛
سبک سیاه و طنز، در کتابیکه جایزه ی بهترین کتاب ملی سال 1985 میلادی، در ایالات متحده را از آن خود کرده است. «برفک» کتابی ست که مجله‌ ی تایم آن را در فهرست صد رمان برتر انگلیسی‌ زبان منتشر شده بین سال‌های 1923 میلادی تا سال 2005 میلادی آورده است. «برفک» در لیست یکهزارویک کتابیکه پیش از درگذشت باید آنها را خواند «گاردین» نیز حضور دارد. در سال انتشارش جایزه‌ ی ملی کتاب آمریکا را دریافت کرد. در سال 2006 میلادی، نیویورک‌ تایمز طی یک نظرسنجی از صدها نویسنده، و منتقد، و ویراستار، درخواست کرد تا بهترین آثار بیست و پنج سال بگذشته‌ در آمریکا را برگزینند. کتاب «برفک، اثر: دان دلیلو» یکی از آنها بود. داستان زندگی مردی ست که پنج بار ازدواج ناموفق داشته است. دو زن او در کار جاسوسی بودند، با یک نفر دو بار ازدواج میکند. از هر کدام فرزندانی دارد، که چند تن از آنها با مادرانشان، و مابقی با «جَک» زندگی میکنند. عنوان «برفک»، برای حضور مردیست، که «جک»، در پایان ماجرای این داستان، از حضورش با خبر میشود، اما چون از چهره اش یادی و خبری ندارد، عنوان «برفک» را، برای او میگزیند. داستان شاید شبیه زندگی یک استاد دانشگاه همچو ... یا دیگران شاید باشد. ا. شربیانی ...more

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Jan 13, 2010 Kemper rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 100, famous-books

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 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. ...more

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Jul 05, 2011 Stephen M rated it it was amazing · 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 12, 2007 Paul Bryant rated it did not like 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.

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Mar 21, 2010 Megha rated it it was ok · 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 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!) ...more

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Apr 10, 2013 Vit Babenco rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

It is nice to live in the land of plenty – food is merchandise, technology is merchandise, health is merchandise, education is merchandise, culture is merchandise… And everything is mass-produced and second-rate… And you can’t consume it all.

Heinrich’s hairline is beginning to recede. I wonder about this. Did his mother consume some kind of gene-piercing substance when she was pregnant? Am I at fault somehow? Have I raised him, unwittingly, in the vicinity of a chemical dump site, in the path of

...more

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Oct 07, 2014 Jonathan Ashleigh rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book should be read by everyone who is planning on dying. The teenage boy is the best character and he isn't given enough attention, but still, this book is well worth anyone's time. Don DeLillo helped inspire the likes of Bret Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk. For that, I am thankful he and this book exist.

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Feb 18, 2009 Matt rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: classic-novels

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 his fourth marriage to ...more

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Feb 23, 2008 Christy rated it did not like 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 painfully contrived. I've decided t 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. ...more

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Mar 19, 2014 Rakhi Dalal rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: compelling

Every man discriminates between the voluntary acts of his mind, and his involuntary perceptions, and knows that to his involuntary perceptions a perfect faith is due. He may err in the expression of them, but he knows that these things are so, like day and night, not to be disputed.

-----------R.W.Emerson, Nature

White noise compellingly carries with it an inexorable clamour which seems to characterize the kind of lives that are lived today: a fear, panic or anxiety; of death, things terrible or ...more

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Oct 12, 2013 B the BookAddict rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to B the BookAddict by: This Day in Literary History thread in AAB group

Shelves: bingo-challenge

White Noise is Don DeLillo’s eighth novel and was written in 1985. Set at a Midwestern college, it follows a year in the life of Jack Gladney, a professor who has made his name by pioneering the field of Hitler studies. He is currently married to his fifth wife and is bringing up a brood of children and stepchildren with said wife, Babette. The couple share a morbid fear of death and frequently lay in bed discussing which one of them wants to die first. A chemical spill, an Airborne Toxic Event, ...more

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Jul 24, 2018 Roberto rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nord-america

La vita "durante" la vita

Non posso negare di avere faticato un po' nella comprensione (sempre che li abbia compresi...) di ogni libro di Delillo che ho letto.

Questo Rumore bianco, del 1985, è un romanzo relativamente semplice e piacevole da leggere a un primo livello, anche se ci si accorge quasi subito che le situazioni descritte sono semplicemente assurde e quasi comiche.

Genitori meno assennati dei loro figlioletti, esimii studiosi di Hitler che non conoscono il tedesco (e che non studiano ma
La vita "durante" la vita

Non posso negare di avere faticato un po' nella comprensione (sempre che li abbia compresi...) di ogni libro di Delillo che ho letto.

Questo Rumore bianco, del 1985, è un romanzo relativamente semplice e piacevole da leggere a un primo livello, anche se ci si accorge quasi subito che le situazioni descritte sono semplicemente assurde e quasi comiche.

Genitori meno assennati dei loro figlioletti, esimii studiosi di Hitler che non conoscono il tedesco (e che non studiano mai), coniugi relativamente giovani che parlano e si comportano come ottantenni (la frase più sensuale è: "Chi morirà prima?"), suore che non credono, mariti che quando la moglie confessa il tradimento chiedono "vuoi una cioccolata?" etc.

Ma tutto questo, curiosamente, passa in secondo piano. O meglio, questo contesto quasi irreale semplicemente amplifica la riflessione su quelli che possono essere i veri significati del libro. La paura della morte, soprattutto, che tendiamo a combattere in molti modi: con la tecnologia (che ci distoglie dal pensiero della fine), con la medicina (cercando di posticipare l'evento), con gli psicofarmaci (che ci rimbambiscono riducendo la nostra lucidità), con la religione (facendoci sperare in un ipotetico aldilà e trasformando la fine in un semplice passaggio), con la violenza sugli altri (una sorta di recupero mentale, morendo tu non muoio io), con il consumismo compulsivo (lo shopping ci inibisce temporaneamente il pensiero a lungo termine), con i figli (che ci rassicurano con l'idea del proseguimento della specie).

"Siamo tutti coscienti che non c'è scampo alla morte. Che fare, con una consapevolezza tanto schiacciante? Rimuoviamo, camuffiamo, seppelliamo, escludiamo"

In fondo, quello che Delillo sembra dire, è che spendiamo la nostra vita a pensare alla fine della vita stessa. Come se, dopo che ci hanno regalato un cioccolatino dall'aspetto ultra invitante, passassimo il tempo a considerare che se lo mangiamo non ce lo abbiamo più.

Ultimamente mi son detto che uno dei parametri per giudicare un buon libro è farmi la domanda, a fine lettura: "lo rileggerei"? Ecco, per questo di Delillo a risposta è assolutamente si. ...more

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May 12, 2009 Fabian rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Two waves of strangeness collide in this wacky, Edward Albeeesque yarn of radiation via ultraconsumerism. There is the Gladney clan: a bunch of misfits straight out of Wes Anderson. Then there is the undertow of dread carried like a fog through wires and the air itself... something that interests the likes of filmmaker Cronenberg.

There is an obvious wit in the minutiae over-explained by the Gladneys. These Americans are as eccentric as they get, which is why the plot doesn't get old. The father ...more

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Sep 02, 2012 Sandra rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, usa

E’ molto difficile commentare questo libro. Parlare della trama banalizzerebbe il romanzo, ricchissimo di riflessioni sociologiche e anche filosofiche che si esprimono soprattutto nei dialoghi tra i protagonisti, sempre profondi pur nella quotidianità in cui si svolgono, quella di una famiglia americana. Ogni parola è precisa e incisiva come se avesse una sua propria ragion d’essere: per questo la lettura richiede cura ed attenzione particolari, ed è sempre per questo motivo che non è possibile E’ molto difficile commentare questo libro. Parlare della trama banalizzerebbe il romanzo, ricchissimo di riflessioni sociologiche e anche filosofiche che si esprimono soprattutto nei dialoghi tra i protagonisti, sempre profondi pur nella quotidianità in cui si svolgono, quella di una famiglia americana. Ogni parola è precisa e incisiva come se avesse una sua propria ragion d’essere: per questo la lettura richiede cura ed attenzione particolari, ed è sempre per questo motivo che non è possibile riassumerne il contenuto senza perderne la forza. Nella sinestesia che dà il titolo al libro è concentrata la tematica: siamo immersi, nella nostra vita di tutti i giorni, in un ininterrotto brusio di sottofondo, che, così come il colore bianco contiene tutti i colori, racchiude in sé le inquietudini e le paure che incombono sulla nostra esistenza, a partire dalle catastrofi che possiamo incontrare ogni giorno nel compimento di gesti quotidiani – le radiazioni dei televisori, delle radio, dei forni a microonde, dei cellulari-, fino a quelle, amplificate dai media, di natura ambientale, di fronte alle quali l’angoscia va esorcizzata trascorrendo lunghe ore in fila fra gli opulenti scaffali dei supermercati alla ricerca di prodotti che tengano luogo dell’infelicità in cui naufraghiamo, su suggerimento di slogan pubblicitari ingannevoli:” storie di fatti sovrannaturali ed extraterrestri. Vitamine miracolose, le cure per il cancro, i rimedi per l’obesità. Il culto delle star e dei morti”. E infine c’è la paura più grande, la paura della morte, quella paura che ci insegue e ci inseguirà sempre, travestita da nevrosi, o anche rivestita da un mantello intellettuale –come accade a Jack Gladney, professore universitario di studi su Hitler, l’uomo che più è stato portatore di morte nella storia-. Di fronte ad essa non c’è surrogato o medicinale che tenga, ogni tentativo di stroncarla è destinato a fallire. L’unica difesa è il camuffamento, la rimozione, il seppellimento per sopravvivere. E’ per questo che “non c’è da meravigliarsi se siamo confusi, sconcertati, distrutti”. Pur essendo stato scritto nel 1984, è impressionante l’ attualità del romanzo, che si può ritenere specchio della civiltà di fine millennio; così come universali e dotate di potenza introspettiva sono le riflessioni che il lettore è condotto a fare insieme con lo scrittore in ogni pagina. ...more

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Oct 09, 2016 Perry rated it really liked it · review of another edition

*2017 "Maawuj, that bwessed awanjement, that dweam wiff-in a dweam" Award* for Most Pecuwer Maawuj in Wittawatur I Wed

Thanatophobia Θ et Il Intimidito Cornuto

"Tanatos" by Mauricio García Vega

At its essence, White Noise is a dark and darkly comic novel about a college professor living in the shadow of death and haunted by erotic humiliation, il intimidito cornuto in the age of consumerism against a background of rhubarb racket (or, white noise).

J.A.K. Gladney is the neurotic Chair of Hitler Stu ...more

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Jul 31, 2018 FotisK rated it liked it · review of another edition

Να ξεκαθαρίσω πως ο "Υπόγειος κόσμος" του DeLillo συγκαταλέγεται στα πιο σημαντικά βιβλία που έχω διαβάσει. Εν συγκρίσει με αυτό, ο "Λευκός θόρυβος" κατά τη γνώμη μου υπολείπεται. Δεν πρόκειται επ' ουδενί για κακό ή μέτριο βιβλίο - αναγνώρισα σημεία δημιουργικής ευρηματικότητας, φιλοσοφικής πληρότητας, συγγραφικής επάρκειας.
Εκείνο που ίσως με ξένισε εδώ -και μου κάνει εντύπωση που δεν το διάβασα σε κάποια κριτική ως τώρα - είναι μια κάποια αίσθηση υπερκάλυψης από πλευράς ύφους. Κάπως σαν ένας ά Να ξεκαθαρίσω πως ο "Υπόγειος κόσμος" του DeLillo συγκαταλέγεται στα πιο σημαντικά βιβλία που έχω διαβάσει. Εν συγκρίσει με αυτό, ο "Λευκός θόρυβος" κατά τη γνώμη μου υπολείπεται. Δεν πρόκειται επ' ουδενί για κακό ή μέτριο βιβλίο - αναγνώρισα σημεία δημιουργικής ευρηματικότητας, φιλοσοφικής πληρότητας, συγγραφικής επάρκειας.
Εκείνο που ίσως με ξένισε εδώ -και μου κάνει εντύπωση που δεν το διάβασα σε κάποια κριτική ως τώρα - είναι μια κάποια αίσθηση υπερκάλυψης από πλευράς ύφους. Κάπως σαν ένας άλλος συγγραφέας να αναλάμβανε κατά διαστήματα το "πηδάλιο", οδηγώντας το "πλοίο" σε κατευθύνσεις που δεν ήταν πάντα της αρεσκείας μου.
Για να γίνω συγκεκριμένος, υπάρχουν σημεία σουρεαλιστικά, διάλογοι καθαρά Pynchon-ικοί (προσκυνώ τη χάρη του!), μια αίσθηση παραλόγου, αποδόμησης και χάους, απόλυτα συντεταγμένου προφανώς και συμμετρικά δοσμένου, πλην όμως ενοχλητικού για τη δική μου οπτική. Το αποτέλεσμα ήταν πως όποτε αφηνόμουν στην απόλαυση του κειμένου του DeLillo, αίφνης εμφανιζόταν ο Pynchon και… βυσσοδομούσε στον ειρμό.
Αυτή ακριβώς η ασυμφωνία ύφους με απέτρεψε συχνά από το να ταυτιστώ νοηματικά, ώστε να απολαύσω τον σχολιασμό του καταναλωτισμού, του παραλογισμού, του θανάτου ως μόνιμης παρουσίας λευκού θορύβου κ.ο.κ.
Προφανώς, αυτό που -τρόπον τινά- ενόχλησε εμένα, για άλλους πιθανώς να αποτελεί το βασικό πλεονέκτημα του βιβλίου. Το αναγνωρίζω και το αποδέχομαι. Εντούτοις, θα επιλέξω να παραμείνω πιστός στο δυσθεώρητο… ύψος του "Υπόγειου κόσμου". ...more

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Apr 07, 2008 Marco rated it it was amazing · 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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Sep 14, 2012 Paul rated it really liked it · 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. 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. ...more

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Letteratura Postm...: Sessantunesimo GdL - Rumore bianco di Don DeLillo	68	60	Feb 27, 2019 01:09AM
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What's the Name o...: SOLVED. Dystopian/post apocalyptic sci fi book-family in a post apocalypse. Family consists of man, woman and their son. Also has a character who buys brand x products at grocery store. [s]	5	262	Apr 07, 2017 05:07PM
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About Don DeLillo

Don DeLillo

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Don DeLillo is an American author best known for his novels, which paint detailed portraits of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He currently lives outside of New York City.

Among the most influential American writers of the past decades, DeLillo has received, among author awards, a National Book Award (White Noise, 1985), a PEN/Faulkner Award (Mao II, 1991), and an American ...more