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DISCUSSION OPEN!--2016 GROUP READ 1 - WHITE NOISE (BOWIE MEMORIAL GROUP READ) - 26 FEB 16
message 51:
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Jennifer
(new)
Feb 27, 2016 07:23PM
I loved it when Jack saw "death" in the back yard and when he went out to greet it, he was in his jammies and had his copy of Mein Kampf in his hands.
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CD wrote: "- What is Hitler's significance to this novel?A. Hitler's manifesto, and really only known major work, is title Mein Kampf. That is of course German for My Struggle.
Isn't this book at least par..."
Marc and CD: I was struck by this early passage concerning the significance of Hitler here:
"You've established a wonderful thing here with Hitler. You created it, you nurtured it, you made it your own. Nobody on the faculty of any college or university in this part of the country can so much as utter the word Hitler without a nod in your direction, literally or metaphorically. This is the center, the unquestioned source. He is now your Hitler, Gladney's Hitler. It must be deeply satisfying for you. The college is internationally known as a result of Hitler studies. It has an identity, a sense of achievement. You've evolved an entire system around this figure, a structure with countless substructures and interrelated fields of study, a history within history. I marvel at the effort. It was masterful, shrewd and stunningly preemptive. It's what I want to do with Elvis."
From this, I get the idea that Hitler was some sort of lost Warhol icon--like Marilyn, Elvis, Campbell's soup...Is it not interesting that The Hitler Studies department is housed in the same building as the "Popular Culture" department? Is there still such a thing in 21st Century universities? I suppose you could get a job at the Smithsonian.
Mod
Mod
Mod
That whole scene was so wonderfully done. Your earlier comment about the current environmental disaster event reminded me of this passage from the book:
"The flow is constant," Alfonse said. "Words, pictures, numbers, facts, graphics, statistics, specks, waves, particles, motes. Only a catastrophe gets our attention. We want them, we need them, we depend on them. As long as they happen somewhere else. This is where California comes in. Mud slides, brush fires, coastal erosion, earthquakes, mass killings, et cetera. We can relax and enjoy these disasters because in our hearts we feel that California deserves whatever it gets. Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom."
(A belated thanks to Tracy for sharing the Hitler passage above!)
Isn't it ironic that the current event is happening in California.....or prophetic even.
Mod
Both!
I was having a hard time getting into the story until I reached the second part of the book (the airborne toxic event) because the first chapters were so short and choppy...seemingly void of emotion and meaning. This was exactly the point, as I see it, so I say well done! I really enjoyed Heinrich's character. He was intelligent and mature enough to see things as they really were, but, unlike Jack, he still had that youthful passion that made him stand up and say, "Hey, something is wrong here. Why isn't anyone doing anything about this?"
Jack had the intelligence to fully grasp the subtle horror of what was happening to the town, to the world and to his family, but he didn't seem to be able to pull himself out of his mode of complacency long enough to even have an emotional reaction at all. Not until he was faced with his own death as reality did he make any kind of stand.
Here is what I wonder...
If Babette's father had not given Jack that handgun...if Murray had not planted that seed in his head about how some men were killers but most were diers, would he have done anything like that on his own? Would he ever have reacted to his own life or death at all?
Also, I found myself writing down tons of quotes from this book! Here are a few of my favorites:"Maybe there is no death as we know it. Just documents changing hands."
"The family is the cradle of the world's misinformation."
"Perhaps the world of people and things had such an impact on her, struck her with the force of some rough and naked body -made her blush in fact- that she found it easier to avoid frequent contact."
"May the days be aimless. Let the seasons drift. Do not advance the action according to plan."
Hey-- I want to ask about this...one of the things I see frequently discussed about this book, given its modernity--is the flatness of its delivery in the flotsam and jetsam, so to speak, of modern banality--of advertising, the white noise of perpetual media, now worsened by social media. It almost seems like it would have been nice to have just one chapter that burst into technicolor, sans station wagons and tans and cheetoz and children running the family on guilt.
I felt a little bogged down by all this in my first read. I kept imagining there was some black and white TV on in the background of this novel, between stations in a small town, unable to find a clear signal. All static and buzz. Squiggly gray, grey, and black and white lines with regular pops of atmospheric interference. So horrible to see how close to the bone this could be. I say again, COULD be. If you choose.
I kept imagining there was some black and white TV on in the background of this novel, between stations in a small town, unable to find a clear signal. All static and buzz. Squiggly gray, grey, and black and white lines with regular pops of atmospheric interference. I think that is very powerful and the point. What is going on in the background. How do we react to it, or not. It is always there. Even now, my television is on, (Alien is on tv). I am not really watching, but there it is. I am surrounded by it.
As I was reading this, I kept finding direct correlation with what I was reading and my life, past and present. The irony. The prophecy. At one point I came home from the grocery store. Proud of my purchases, I had '"saved" some money, purchased the brightly packaged Private Selection Generics. I came home and read the chapter about Jack and Babette driving home, the station wagon packed with their spoils....
Jennifer wrote: "I kept imagining there was some black and white TV on in the background of this novel, between stations in a small town, unable to find a clear signal. All static and buzz. Squiggly gray, grey, and..."I don't remember where I read this, but someone wrote a book (about music, I think?) that palyed on the idea that life was much, much quieter in the the past --like before the 1800's perhaps, because there were no train whistles, airplanes,car engines, air conditioners and heaters perpetually running: probably sound traveled for miles like it did out in the country when a dog would howl.
I have been in a hurricane where the electric was cut, and there was so much storm damage cars couldn't get around easily--remember how eerie the quiet was. Also, does anyone remember those few days after 9/11 when planes were all grounded--how different the sound was outside?
I thought I'd add this in for fun--Public Image Limited's generically named CASSETTE (or ALBUM, depending which format you got--later reissues on CD, I think were still called ALBUM). It's a great one full of John Lydon's (aka Rotten) snarky sarcasm..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-fNd...
How about this sentence for modern life's buzz invading your imagination?"I drove him to school on his first day back after a sore throat and fever. A woman in a yellowslicker held up traffic to let some children cross. I pictured her in a soup commercial taking off her oilskin hat as she entered the cheerful kitchen where her husband stood over a pot of smoky lobster bisque, a smallish man with six weeks to live"
The small bits of this story really are brilliant. It's much easier to read bits than go through it wholesale. I'm beginning to wonder if maybe it isn't the Great 20th Century American Novel.
Tracy wrote: "How about this sentence for modern life's buzz invading your imagination?"I drove him to school on his first day back after a sore throat and fever. A woman in a yellowslicker held up traffic to ..."
I read this in bits. Chapter by chapter. That I could digest all the yummy bits.
Black Star, White Noise.I'm still only on page 165. I've read some of the comments here, but am being a bit careful, as I want to avoid spoilers, so please forgive me if someone has already mentioned this and I haven't seen it. Basically, I couldn't help noticing this on page 165:
"I think I felt as I would if a doctor had held an X-ray to the light showing a star-shaped hole at the center of one of my vital organs. Death has entered. It is inside you. You are said to be dying and yet are separate from the dying, can ponder it at your leisure, literally see on the X-ray photograph or computer screen the horrible alien logic of it all. It is when death is rendered graphically, is televised so to speak, that you sense an eerie separation between your condition and yourself. A network of symbols has been introduced, an entire awesome technology wrested from the gods. It makes you feel like a stranger in your own dying."
I found that quite effective and poignant and also eerie in its appropriateness.
On the whole, I'm finding the book well written and funny, with few false notes, if any.
Quentin wrote: "Black Star, White Noise.I'm still only on page 165. I've read some of the comments here, but am being a bit careful, as I want to avoid spoilers, so please forgive me if someone has already menti..."
Woah--that's a a great catch on the Bowie connection. Definitely eerie.
Mod
There's a sort of passivity... a resigned helplessness to this book. It's like the banality of everyday life is this huge weight slowly pulling you toward death unless technology/disease/random violence-or-accidents gets you first. Tracy's comment about the white noise and quieter times in the past made me think of how even more distracting today's world is (it's like every device creates a distraction or a means of being entertained, which creates a kind of endless cycle; imagine if the children in this story had the internet or iPods... would they even interact with their parents?).
I could see Steffie, living with her Iphone, earbuds firmly embedded. Heinrich would troll the internet for hours.....I am not so sure about Denise.
Mod
Heinrich's mother lived in a commune. Steffie's mother was a spy. Denise's mother was the woman who came to visit for the day. Wilder was Babette's son from a different marriage. Her ex came to visit once as well. Jack was the link for the three older kids.
Tracy wrote: "From this, I get the idea that Hitler was some sort of lost Warhol icon--like Marilyn, Elvis, Campbell's soup...Is it not interesting that The Hitler Studies department is housed in the same building as the "Popular Culture" department? Is there still such a thing in 21st Century universities? I suppose you could get a job at the Smithsonian. .."
For Jack Gladney this goes beyond an icon. Hitler is a physical manifestation of Gladney's fear. Hitler is the archetype of the primal itching in Jack that he cannot reconcile. In other things he is mostly capable of dealing with in one way or the other.
The Elvis things sort of baffles me in culture. I know and have known people that are immense, huge, dare I say 'ginormous' Elvis freaks, sorry fans:). He could be the model of all later rock stars/sex symbols for some. He could certainly sing and was omnipresent in American Culture for a couple of decades. In the book, Murrary comes off as a poser. He wants everyone to see him as a stable, respected authority figure, but for his own ends.
At the time of the books writing while a Department of Popular Culture might not have existed by that name, many schools were having new departments and course of Academic study emerging. From 'additions' to the traditional such as including Science Fiction or Fantasy as a major in Literature to Ethnic Literature, Women's Literature, Native People's lit etc., there were basic changes. Then there were whole new realms that were starting to become more prevalent related to Popular Culture such as Broadcast Journalism. Film Studies began to overtake other art/expression forms such as Photography and Graphic Design.
There is also a academic/cultural reference lost on most English speakers regarding a huge controversy in German and European academia about how to interpret and write about WWII that was very intense during the 1980's.
Marc wrote: "CD, I do think DeLillo pokes major fun at "postmodern" cultural studies and deconstructionist notions, but a lot of what he deals with falls into the type of writing/issues embraced by books like The Society of the Spectacle and Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Of course, this could just be my spin on postmodernism (the commodification of everything under the sun, media saturation and manipulation to the point of inducing a kind of hyper-reality, a kind of wasteland where our faith in religion/science/technology has created a kind of spiritual chasm, etc.). ..."[see post 54 for Marc's link]
I agree that DeLillo includes themes that are often claimed by proponents of postmodern-ism. The writing style however doesn't fall in to that realm for me at all.
DeLillo's central character Jack Gladney is finding his way in the confused world of modern marketing and the overall zeitgeist. His struggle is against a universal and timeless problem, fear of death. Though the world he inhabits has some non-traditional structure, such as his family, he's pretty much a late 20th century guy.
The story does quickly dive into the realm of absurdism when it comes to Gladney's angst. This is where from my perspective DeLillo goes the route of Satire in the nihilist questioning of the 'meaning of life' as opposed to the vague amorphous realms of what is referred to as postmodern.
I was going to leave a lot of my post modern dissension in a previous post, but I will finish for now with both the comment that I'm not sure post modern anything is valid and a starting point for justification of that with this from Noam Chomsky:
http://www.mrbauld.com/chomsky1.html
Mod
I am in complete agreement with you about the writing style. I think it would be better if we rephrased the question (dropping the notion of "postmodernism" entirely): Does the world DeLillo provides us represent any sort of fundamental shift or break with the past or is it simply a continuation of human history with a few more whistles and bells thrown in? Is it the same universal fear of death humans have always faced or does the late 20th century present us with something different (a reliance on authority or state that renders us helpless on our own, a basic ignorance of what we consume/produce/ingest, the spectre of global destruction via nuclear war, etc.)?
I always love how straightforward Chomsky is and I've never understood the whole Elvis phenomenon either.
Mod
-http://www.shmoop.com/white-noise/
- http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/whitenoise/
Marc wrote: "A couple interesting CliffsNotes-type links I keep meaning to pass along...-http://www.shmoop.com/white-noise/
- http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/whiteno...
"
See, the grocery store is so freakishly relevant.
Mod
"But in the end it doesn't matter what they see or think they see. The terminals are equipped with holographic scanners, which decode the binary secret of every item, infallibly. This is the language of waves and radiation, or how the dead speak to the living. And this is where we wait together, regardless of age, our carts stocked with brightly colored goods. A slowly moving line, satisfying, giving us time to glance at the tabloids in the racks. Everything we need that is not food or love is here in the tabloid racks. The tales of the supernatural and the extraterrestrial. The miracle vitamins, the cures for cancer, the remedies for obesity. The cults of the famous and the dead."
Marc wrote: "Fitting that it should end in the supermarket. As long as everything is stocked, all will be well..."But in the end it doesn't matter what they see or think they see. The terminals are equipped wi..."
I can't help thinking of TS Eliot's "Hollowmen" with this passage --it has the line about we hollowmen waiting together, on the tumid river, etc.
Tracy wrote: "I can't help thinking of TS Eliot's "Hollowmen" with this passage --it has the line about we hollowmen waiting together, on the tumid river, etc...""...This is the way the world ends
not with a bang but with a whimper."
One of my favorites even though I could never diagram it well.
I'm also reminded in several of the later stages in White Noise of Fitzgerald's cadence.
Did you guys notice how much time was spent in the car throughout the story ? How much time do you spend in yours? I became acutely aware of this when I was in my own car, interior light on so I could read, waiting for my son.
Tracy wrote: don't remember where I read this, but someone wrote a book (about music, I think?) that palyed on the idea that life was much, much quieter in the the past --like before the 1800's perhaps, because there were no train whistles, airplanes,car engines, That's seems to sum up the novel, (or at least the title) ; all the background crapola that you have to sift through to determine what input you need to be concerned about or not, and yes, most of it is just "white noise" that you are peripherally aware of , but don't necessarily need to act on. Our modern (post-modern?) at any rate, contemporary challenge: weeding irrelevant data. Still very relevant, even more so than in the mid-80's.
Nice discussion, all, I haven't done a reread of this but have been following with interest. Cheers.
Andrea wrote: "Tracy wrote: don't remember where I read this, but someone wrote a book (about music, I think?) that palyed on the idea that life was much, much quieter in the the past --like before the 1800's per..."I think having read existential philosophy helps enormously with this one. Not so much the "eyes are watching you" kinda stuff that's in DFWallace and NAUSEA, but more the core ideas of the source of angst as the disease of modern man, caused by too much information, too much sensory input..it's brilliant at making you feel that.
About the car--certainly a problem of modernity. For the last 15 years or so I've been fortunate enough to live close enough to walk to work, and i know few have that luxury. What it's done for me is make me extremely restless and stressed when i do have to be in the car for long stretches.
I don't know how people survive living in LA.
Mod
Given the focus on the car and suburbia, does this change how you think about Wilder making his way across the highway in terms of symbolism?
My hand was on my face during that part. (the other holding the book) . I actually read that bit 3 times. The first time the parent part of me was unable to comprehend anything. I was in a state of panic. And mortified that the author might do away with Wilder. Do we go through life life that? Dodging 'traffic" ? Was Wilder trying to escape ? I am not sure. I was just happy he made it to the other side. And perhaps that is the point, no matter what and no matter the journey, it is all ok as long as we make it to the other side?
Mod
I went back and read it again (the final chapter, #40). I think that's exactly what it's like, Jennifer--that we're like naive children sort of toddling through dangers we don't understand or necessarily even see. I don't think he was trying to escape.
Marc wrote: "Yeah, in my head, I kept muttering, "Don't do it. Don't do it." hoping DeLillo wasn't going to off the little one.I went back and read it again (the final chapter, #40). I think that's exactly wh..."
Funny, I think of the car trip/car seat weird world that our kids grew up in is so endemic in some of their passivity, docility, and sedentary behavior. They've been trained since birth to sit still in formfitting seats-strapped in, for long periods of time focusing on one point--first a bauble toy, later a video or game then headphones and music...it's no wonder.
In contrast I grew up in 60s' world of big old boat-like open cars --flat seats you could jump over (and we did), fold down, push around--no seat belts--car was like a big moving jungle gym, and I'm sure my mom got hit in the head with a flying foot more than once while driving. I guess it's lucky we lived in low-traffic country suburbs. Pretty sure I couldn't handle the stress my mom did driving then. But again she was 25 with 4 kids...jesus.
I just watched a movie called Wit. (I was a blubbering mess by the end) but at one point Emma Thompson's character states that she was "nothing but black marks on a white page" and I immediately thought of Jack. More specifically when they are in the Red Cross shelter and he is being interviewed by the 'safety officer", and Jack is presented with the "fact" that he is the sum of all his data. Now I am thinking about it. Death. The sum of my data. Maybe I will keep a copy of Mein Kampf on my bedside table. Just in case.
Marc wrote: "Yeah, in my head, I kept muttering, "Don't do it. Don't do it." hoping DeLillo wasn't going to off the little one.I went back and read it again (the final chapter, #40). I think that's exactly wh..."
what chapter is the car scene in?
Oh it is near the end. One of the last Chapters.
Mod
A few other topics/passages that caught me:
The overall dynamic between Jack and Babette was fascinating. He seems to value her because she's a sort of throwback to the stay-at-home-mom. I believe he describes her as uncomplicated (especially in relation to his previous wives who were more educated and career-oriented). He says things like "This is the point of Babette" (in reference to her "revealing" and "confiding")--it's like she's more symbol than person at times. And yet she's the one who chooses to act on her fear of death--to try and do something about it. Thoughts?
The children's reactions to the media/authority: 1) The girls symptoms changing as new symptoms are mentioned on the radio for the airborne toxic event. 2) Bee's reaction to there being no media on the ground to cover the near crash landing of the plane (chapter 18, last 2 to 3 pages): "They went through all that for nothing." (as if experience was meaningless without public affirmation or acknowledgement). 3) Heinrich's coming to life in the midst of crisis and serving as a kind of expert resource (is this a kind of boredom/indifference where we only feel alive or moved by emergency or crisis?).
How we verify reality (first 2 pages of chapter 6)... The discussion between Jack and Heinrich about whether it's really raining or not touches on the limits of our senses and the a kind of ridiculous blind faith in technology/science (if I'm reaching here, don't be shy):
"It's going to rain tonight."
"It's raining now," I said.
"The radio said tonight."...
"Look at the windshield," I said. "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 our senses."
"Our senses? Our senses are wrong a lot more often than they're right. This has been proved in the laboratory. Don't you know about all those theorems that say nothing is what it seems? There's no past, present or future outside our own mind. The so-called laws of motion are a big hoax. Even sound can trick the mind... "
In reference to the relationship between Jack and Babette, I have to say that my heart totally broke for her when Jack would say things like "This is not the point of Babette." Referring to her in the third person seemed to completely strip her of all dignity and it made clear that Jack did not care to see her for who she truly was. Maybe he could not, or maybe he just would not.
Either way, Babette's desperation seemed less about the actual reality of death and more about the despair and regret of a life wasted, pretending to be someone you are not.
I felt that she was happy in her life. Like many women of maybe say the 50's, the children were her life. Jack's and hers. Jack tells someone a story about one of the girls Steffie...hurting herself, and how upset Babette was. But she did things, she had her classes, her volunteer work....I think trying to have it all, career, family etc can be over rated. Babette chose a different path.
That entire conversation between Henrich and Jack about the rain is one of my favorite parts of the book. Both had valid points.
Marc wrote: "It's fascinating to me to think of how much more we've become our data since this book was published. Jack seems simultaneously awed by his data and afraid of it. Now, we're more data than real (or..."Funny that you highlight this conversation. When i read it again, I went on an impulse, copied and pasted it to my son, and said--"this is us." He, of course didn't respond in a way I could feel that he felt my intent==pretty funny, really. I meant we always argue for it's sake for some reason, s some sort of exercising of our brain muscles.
Melissa wrote: "In reference to the relationship between Jack and Babette, I have to say that my heart totally broke for her when Jack would say things like "This is not the point of Babette." Referring to her i..."
IDK--I think Babette is more rounded than your generic stepford wife. She has heft and weight, like Jack says--I like their scenes together--she's like what Holden Caulfield refers to as "the homey babe" in Hollywood movies that is the protagonist's true love.
Mod
"
Curious what made you read Babette this way? At first I thought her infidelity was out of unhappiness, but the more we learn about it, the more it seems solely a means to an end (Dylar). I can't recall specifics of her expressing unhappiness or wishes for a different life (this could simply be a failure of my own memory/reading).
Despite speaking of her the way he does, Jack does seem to love her... I don't know if "love" is the right word. It's twisted--it's like he expects Babette to be happy or well-adjusted, and the fact that even she isn't frays his worldview even more.
There's that humorous scene in the beginning where they're talking about possible having sex and there's the back-and-forth of asking each other what they'd like ("I get the feeling a burden is being shifted back and forth. The burden of being the one who is pleased.")
Perhaps Wilder is the only truly happy/free character because he has no knowledge of death (I think that's how Murray phrases it). Or maybe childhood is also the only time being pleased is never a burden...
Mod
"The others who spend their lives believing that we still believe. It is our task in the world to believe things no one else takes seriously. To abandon such beliefs completely, the human race would die. This is why we are here. A tiny minority. To embody old things, old beliefs. The devil, the angels, heaven, hell. If we did not pretend to believe these things, the world would collapse. ... As belief shrinks from the world, people find it more necessary that ever that someone believe"
I was thinking about the media thing and how it reflects to now, with all the social media. And yes..GR is social media. dammit. My brother was like the girls, whatever medical ailment he saw on tv her had it. He would fight with my mother because she refused to take him to the doctor. And I think we are all disaster junkies to a degree. Scary. I agreed with Bee, I mean, that terrible experience on the plane an no one to report it to the world!! What are we coming to.
Which, as I said earlier, or maybe in my review. Nothing has changed in the 20 plus years since this book was published. In some ways things are worse. Very scary folks.
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