White Noise by: Don DeLillo
review by: Rachel Mykkanen '04
Welcome to the society of the spectacle. Don DeLillo's White Noise centers on the America of today: voyeuristic, consumeristic, and numb. The book itself retains a viewer's distance; detailed scenes abruptly shift into others, and myriad topics are touched on without being deeply explored. DeLillo's characters shop in order to feel a sense of power, of agency, and later discard their belongings to cleanse themselves of the past. Everything is a product, even the intangible. Rather than actual substance, America is filled with background noise; the hum of machinery, the buzz of millions of televisions, the dull roar of large crowds of people. DeLillo's depiction of modern life in America is a stark portrait that twines together our convenient technology and our fear of death. His rare gift for description perfectly captures small details that feel authentic, while combining them into a larger whole that is obviously satirical. The narrator is Jack Gladney, professor of itler Studies at the College-on-the-Hill (situated, like Olaf, in a small Midwestern town). His voice is perfect for the world around him; he is intelligent, witty, and self-absorbed. The department he works in is full of pop culture junkies. His family consists of his fourth wife Babette, a competent faculty wife, Heinrich, a solipsist at 14, Denise, the familys caretaker, Stephanie, the sensitive soul, and Wilder, the nonverbal toddler whose lack of fear towards death makes him the family's warm center. The dialogue reads as if it was scripted- clever banter that emphasizes the distance between individuals rather than any closeness.The isolation within the home permeates all of society. The largest event in the book is the Airborne Toxic Event, which threatens the entire town, but only isolates them further. Each family is in a separate car, Mylar suits protect the authorities, and anyone who comes in contact with the deadly poison must deal with their mortality all alone. Death is the major theme of this novel, yet the tone is that of a dark comedy. Even danger and death are merely things to be viewed; the book is replete with televised disasters. Gladney takes his family to an overpass to view the sunset, a natural event which has become overwhelmingly beautiful due to air pollution.
This novel is suffused with ideas. Every character in the book has some sort of grandiose theory, most of which are torn down by the events in the novel. Every attempt to assemble meaning out of chaos is thwarted, leaving nothing other than a belief in nothing. Though the novel is satirical, it does not moralize. DeLillo's America is shown in a neutral, detached light; its flashes of insight appearing like scenes on a television screen. Published in 1980, the novel is eerily prescient, presenting a view of America that is perhaps even more striking today. Bleak yet beautiful, White Noise is a postmodern wonder.