White Noise [Paperback]

Jack Gladney is the chairman of Hitler Studies at a quaint liberal arts college somewhere in leafy-green, suburban America. His wife teaches posture classes, his son--an astonishingly precocious young man at the tender age of fourteen--ponders such cerebral questions as the validity of our consciousness--do we really want the things that we want, or are our neurons indiscriminately swimming about in our skulls and haphazardly giving us a false sense of yearning?

Then a chemical spill brings about The Airborne Toxic Event, in which an amorphous black cloud hovers over Gladney's complacent little town, ominously darkening the splashy colors and phosphorescent whites of the super market which gives solace to so many of the local denizens, not excluding Gladney's family. The spill may also serve as a metaphor for what DeLillo calls the "white noise" in America, that insidious current in the air resulting from too many radio signals (t.v, radio, e.g.), the infatuation we as Americans have with consumerism--(note: this was written during the Reagan era). The novel also boldly deals with fear, particularly fear of death, another beast within the machine that many must eventaully face. One of the best parts of the novel occurs toward the end, when Jack Gladney has an edifying Q and A over death and the afterlife with a German nun at a hospital, a stark and unflinching illumination which I found great and daring, if not a little sad.

This is a Don DeLillo book, and those not familiar with Don DeLillo and his sometimes abstruse connotations on American living might be chary upon entering his world. This one in particular requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief; it is a satire and although at times very earnest and serious, the comedy and absurdity are always there to remind the reader of the tongue-in-cheek nature, which is expertly employed. The complaints that most people have with this novel are fairly obvious to anyone who has read DeLillo before. Though a master word craftsman, stringing along beautiful sentences on every page, DeLillo seems to struggle with creating believable dialogue, and this struggle to me is plainly obvious--the man is just too smart to understand how the majority of average people talk. But.

Unquestionably a classic read. Brilliantly plotted, with its portentous admonitions and grave illustrations of a picture-perfect community on the precipice of total disaster, DeLillo has tapped into the throbbing heart of the system, exposing it for all that it really is: waves and radiations.

Jack Gladney teaches at the College-on-the-Hill. He and his wife Babette live, with four of their children from previous marriage (Heinrich, Steffie, Denise, and Wilder) in the quiet college town of Blacksmith. Jack and Babette are both afraid of death and it is this fear that is central to the novel. Whose fear is the greater? "Sounds like a boring life." "I hope it lasts forever," she said.

Jack and Babette's fear of death, the world in which they live and participate is conveyed satirically through a series of events (some of more direct consequence than others) which are peppered with laugh out loud moments. There's a subtlety in the observation and the writing that makes this novel work.

`The family is the cradle of the world's misinformation.'

Jack serves as the department chair of Hitler studies, a discipline that he invented in 1968, despite the fact that he does not understand German. Hitler's importance as an historical figure gives Jack a degree of importance by association: `Some people are larger than life. Hitler is larger than death. You thought he would protect you.' His colleague, Murray Jay Siskind, has come to Blacksmith to immerse himself in what he calls `American magic and dread.' Murray is a lecturer in living icons who is trying to establish a discipline in Elvis studies. Murray finds deep significance in things that are ordinary - especially the supermarket: `This place recharges us spiritually, it prepares us, it's a gateway or pathway. Look how bright. It's full of psychic data.'

The major events in the novel concern an airborne toxic event and its consequences, and Jack Gladney's search for a mysterious psychopharmaceutical drug called Dylar once he discovers that Babette is participating in an experimental study (of sorts). All this fear of death becomes an inability to really live, especially in a world full of white noise, rampant consumerism and simulations, or does it?

`In a crisis the true facts are what other people say they are.'

This novel was published in the mid-1980s, and while I read it then, I enjoyed it a whole lot more this time around. Disturbingly, it made more sense.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

This was a strange book. I was impressed with both the beginning and the end, but tired of the endless theme of mindless consumerism and personal despair. At first I was impressed by DeLillo's sardonic wit and ability to form a plausible tale about a professor of Hitler studies afraid of death. The ending effectively wrapped up the themes and the story and left me with a satisfying read. Maybe he intended this, but I found myself frequently questioning when it would end and feeling tired and frustrated with the world that composed the bulk of the novel. It was interesting that the main character did demonstrate human concerns and emotions, barely visible through the rubble of material and cultural garbage.