White Noise

by Don DeLillo

He is known as Old Man Treadwell, as if he were a landmark, a rock formation or brooding swamp.

“Maybe there is no death as we know it. Just documents changing hands.”

People trust a certain amount of bulk in others.

The smoke alarm went off in the hallway upstairs, either to let us know the battery had just died or because the house was on fire.

Together they look like teamster officials assembled to identify the body of a mutilated colleague.

had the feeling that since the age of eleven in his crowded plot of concrete he’d associated this sturdy fabric with higher learning in some impossibly distant and tree-shaded place.

I like simple men and complicated women.”

“Flavorless packaging. It appeals to me. I feel I’m not only saving money but contributing to some kind of spiritual consensus. It’s like World War III. Everything is white. They’ll take our bright colors away and use them in the war effort.”

It seemed to me that Babette and I, in the mass and variety of our purchases, in the sheer plenitude those crowded bags suggested, the weight and size and number, the familiar package designs and vivid lettering, the giant sizes, the family bargain packs with Day-Glo sale stickers, in the sense of replenishment we felt, the sense of well-being, the security and contentment these products brought to some snug home in our souls—it seemed we had achieved a fullness of being that is not known to people who need less, expect less, who plan their lives around lonely walks in the evening.

He is trying to develop a vulnerability that women will find attractive. He works at it consciously, like a man in a gym with weights and a mirror. But his efforts so far have produced only this half sneaky look, sheepish and wheedling.

We seem to believe it is possible to ward off death by following rules of good grooming.