White Noise (1985)

A well-crafted book that enthralled me from the opening image. White Noise, as the title implies, is a meditation on the information overload of modern life that drowns out any attempt to find meaning. The small, rural, college-town setting is a faint background in which are placed rambling, chaotic, meaningless chattering conversation between Jack, his friend and fellow professor Murray, and his wife and children, that happen amongst exaggerated tabloid-esque events, such as toxic chemical spills and secret drug trials. Most impressively, this theme of constant background noise is manifested as both a theme and a technique which is demonstrated by its unerringly accurate circular dialogue of misremembered facts and rambling free association as well as the accumulating strings of nouns, adverbs, and adjectives. In a way, I think the book falls a victim to it's success -- I feel overloaded, overwhelmed and am not sure what the the point is. A fascinating, if not fun, read. ( )

Re-read for the nth time. Still the Great American Novel. ( )

one of my most favorite books. My favorite parts include the part where he argues with his child about rain and when his wife wants hime to read her a book but without any "entering" involved. ( )

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!) ( )

This book is an acquired taste. It's more philosophical and thematic, rather than, driven by characters and plots. The structure of the book is not complicated and consists of three parts. First there is life before the toxic disaster, then the actual disaster happens, and finally life after the disaster. More importantly there are several themes and symbols in the book; television, commercialism, consumerism, plots, disasters, identity, and death. Death is actually the main theme and considering the main character is a professor of Hitler studies, this idea is hard to miss.

One idea I connected with was anticipation and fear before an event. People tend to freak out before several events throughout the book. Something as simple as a snow storm sends people into a panic. I can relate to this. When I'm told I have to work extra hours on a certain day, I dread each minute leading up to it. However, when the actual day comes it’s not so bad. It's like the anticipation is worse than the event itself. This idea really comes into play with the theme of death. Most of us don't fear death, but rather, fear the processes leading up to it.

I was also amused by the humor in the book. The humor is not shallow and contains depth such as this quote, "the family is the cradle of the world's misinformation". Considering my family, I can identify with this statement. My mother recently said she was a proud Democrat (progressive) and totally supported the Tea Party movement (conservative). So perhaps this is why I connected with the book. Like the Gladney family my family is absurd; and I even like to read about World War II and Hitler. ( )