Character consumed by White Noise
White Noise by Don DeLillo
White noise is a term that refers to a sound signal that contains every possible frequency. It's basically the combination of multiple sounds across a spectrum in the same way that white light is a combination of multiple frequencies of light brought together. White Noise by Don DeLillo is about a professor in a small American city called Blacksmith and the events he goes through during a school year. And the connection between these two is . . . ummmmmmmmm.
Okay seriously, you probably haven't heard of Don Dellilo unless you read a lot or you just happen to be big into the postmodernism literary movement. At least, that's how it was for me when I read this book the first time after my 12-grade English teacher recommended this book to me. This isn't to say that he's an obscure writer — if every writer that I hadn't heard of at the age of 17 was “obscure” than there wouldn't be anyone worth studying — he's just one that happens to be underappreciated (in my eyes, anyway).
White Noise is a satirical portrayal of modern American culture (so that pretty much includes us) and how ridiculous it can be. Jack Gladney is a professor obsessed with his career. He pioneered a Hitler Studies course at his university, has been married five times, has a collection of children and stepchildren and has a crippling fear of death.
Jack is, it would seem, your average white-collar nobody. He bends to the will of his boss and colleagues (being advised to gain a lot of weight to look more like a professor), he has almost no relationship with his children (his eldest son is the pen-pal of a much older convicted criminal) and he's infatuated with ignoring his mortality.
The “white noise” that DeLillo attempts to address is the noise from TV, from work, from school, from radio, from consumerism and from everything else that screams for our attention while our lives silently pass by. The novel uses sound as a vehicle to carry the message of how we listen so closely to what's happening inside ourselves that we ignore everything around us.
A big theme in the novel is death, specifically the fear of it. There's a particular part in the book where Jack and his wife are talking about how much they don't want to die but, if given the choice, they would prefer to die before the other for fear of living alone.
Jack is forced to listen to his surroundings more when an industrial accident creates an “airborne toxic event,” and he comes in contact with the chemicals in the air. He listens-up to find that he's not as great of a scholar as he perhaps imagined, and may not ever get the chance to achieve his goals. He learns that he's only broken several homes, and patched the pieces he salvaged together to create a new one. He also realizes that he will one day die.
As with most satires, there are a few layers of effective dark humour that coat the many pieces in this novel. So while there are some ominous and eerie subjects covered in the novel, there are a number of times where you're probably going to laugh (LOL for those of us that spend too much time on MSN).
The book acts as a commentary for how we've decided to live. It's funny, intelligent and quite immersive. I've never read anything else by DeLillo, but his reputation for accurately speaking about the modern North American is abundantly present in White Noise. It's a little unfortunate that a number of his books share titles with other pieces (White Noise and Underworld come to mind) that have nothing to do with his work. To do this novel justice: it's a very good book by a very good author.
White noise is a term that refers to a sound signal that contains every possible frequency. It's basically the combination of multiple sounds across a spectrum in the same way that white light is a combination of multiple frequencies of light brought together. White Noise by Don DeLillo is about a professor in a small American city called Blacksmith and the events he goes through during a school year. And the connection between these two is . . . ummmmmmmmm.
Okay seriously, you probably haven't heard of Don Dellilo unless you read a lot or you just happen to be big into the postmodernism literary movement. At least, that's how it was for me when I read this book the first time after my 12-grade English teacher recommended this book to me. This isn't to say that he's an obscure writer — if every writer that I hadn't heard of at the age of 17 was “obscure” than there wouldn't be anyone worth studying — he's just one that happens to be underappreciated (in my eyes, anyway).
White Noise is a satirical portrayal of modern American culture (so that pretty much includes us) and how ridiculous it can be. Jack Gladney is a professor obsessed with his career. He pioneered a Hitler Studies course at his university, has been married five times, has a collection of children and stepchildren and has a crippling fear of death.
Jack is, it would seem, your average white-collar nobody. He bends to the will of his boss and colleagues (being advised to gain a lot of weight to look more like a professor), he has almost no relationship with his children (his eldest son is the pen-pal of a much older convicted criminal) and he's infatuated with ignoring his mortality.
The “white noise” that DeLillo attempts to address is the noise from TV, from work, from school, from radio, from consumerism and from everything else that screams for our attention while our lives silently pass by. The novel uses sound as a vehicle to carry the message of how we listen so closely to what's happening inside ourselves that we ignore everything around us.
A big theme in the novel is death, specifically the fear of it. There's a particular part in the book where Jack and his wife are talking about how much they don't want to die but, if given the choice, they would prefer to die before the other for fear of living alone.
Jack is forced to listen to his surroundings more when an industrial accident creates an “airborne toxic event,” and he comes in contact with the chemicals in the air. He listens-up to find that he's not as great of a scholar as he perhaps imagined, and may not ever get the chance to achieve his goals. He learns that he's only broken several homes, and patched the pieces he salvaged together to create a new one. He also realizes that he will one day die.
As with most satires, there are a few layers of effective dark humour that coat the many pieces in this novel. So while there are some ominous and eerie subjects covered in the novel, there are a number of times where you're probably going to laugh (LOL for those of us that spend too much time on MSN).
The book acts as a commentary for how we've decided to live. It's funny, intelligent and quite immersive. I've never read anything else by DeLillo, but his reputation for accurately speaking about the modern North American is abundantly present in White Noise. It's a little unfortunate that a number of his books share titles with other pieces (White Noise and Underworld come to mind) that have nothing to do with his work. To do this novel justice: it's a very good book by a very good author.
