On Paths Unknown discussion

Thread for discussion on chapters 11-20 of White Noise.

I'm at about chap. 12. I lost my library ebook version and have to go pick up the book book at the library. Then I'll keep going. I'm really enjoying it but would LOVE more Trav pomo commentary.

Did you guys see on the news about the Airborne toxic event in Texas yesterday?

No, but here's an interesting article about DeLillo : http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016...

I want to read his new book.

Yeah, I think I've become a fan. :)

I love the dance of the two profs comparing Hitler's and Elvis' relationships with their mothers.

I guess they did have a lot in common.

Traveller wrote: "No, but here's an interesting article about DeLillo : http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016..."

LOL, I was just about to post that link. ;)

Michele wrote: "I love the dance of the two profs comparing Hitler's and Elvis' relationships with their mothers.

I guess they did have a lot in common."

Yeah I loved that too. The interweaving of the professors at least as much as their arguments.

message 188: by Bonni6 hours, 16 min ago
Bonni JOHNSONHi Traveller - came back to this plaform after years away - just to stumble on your discussion around Post modernism and DON DELILLO"S White Noise in particular. Wow - you have taught me more in 5 minutes of reading than hours on the Coursera course!
Needless to say - I have picked up my copy and will get back to you with comments once I'm done!
Thank you Muchas!!

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Bonni wrote: "message 188: by Bonni6 hours, 16 min ago
Bonni JOHNSONHi Traveller - came back to this plaform after years away - just to stumble on your discussion around Post modernism and DON DILLILO"S White No..."

Ah, ok, so it is here. Welcome to the group, Bonni! I'm not even sure we entirely completed this discussion, so it would be nice to continue with it and add to it! :)

excellent news! Thanks for your "forbearance" (lovely, antiquated word that!)
So look forward to your comments and ongoing input!
best
Boni

Just a few loose comments on this section:

It’s interesting how DeLillo uses Heinrich as a springboard to discuss ideas from.
Isn’t Murray just silly – with his strange elaborate little theories about empty fluff?

I like how DeLillo juxtaposes Babette’s remark about wishing her life would last forever, with the signs of Fall and the falling leaves, and the wind baring the trees. Falling leaves blown away by the wind during Fall (Autumn is actually such a much nicer word), to me signals impermanence and endings.

I wonder if Heinrich was named after Heinrich Himmler….

Somewhere in the notes of the edition I'm reading, someone mentioned that they feel that DeLillo is looking at the modern world through "religious" eyes, and that jogs my memory of pop songs being sung about a "new religion"; I'm also sure that somewhere amongst the critics of the postmodern condition, there were things said about consumerism being "The New Religion", and that's kinda true, isn't it? Somewhere in the first half of the book Jack's family goes on a shopping spree and he's like a drug addict, drunk on all the dopamine and endorphins that all his shopping acquisitions are triggering.

Chapter 18:
Oh boy, I literally laughed out loud again at the part where people come in at the airport after 3 engines had lost power, because what was supposedly said over the intercom will only ever happen in a fantasy novel, never in real life, and I do happen to know that pilots ARE trained to handle the most extreme possibility that could possibly happen when they do simulator training. They also have to keep up to date with training and undergo a test in the simulator at least once a year.

So once again, the novel is just being silly. It’s so silly that I feel as if I’m reading a magical realism piece of literature. It is entertaining, at least...

Yes, a plane descending at a steep angle like that would of course be harrowing in itself to passengers and crew, but cockpit crew would NEVER say things like that over the public intercom.

I read chapters 14 to 18 away from my PC and therefore had to resort to hand-written notes which I've been lazy to transcribe into text.

Anyhow, there is a rather important discussion going on when the Gladney family realize their attraction to calamities. The next day at work, at lunch, when Jack joins the table occupied by the New York émigrés, he raises this talking point. Now, I've read some commentary on this by critics that I'm not going to repeat here, because I think they are missing the point by agreeing with Alfonse's point that "consumer culture" is to blame.

Alfonse certainly has a good point there, but there are other, more fundamental reasons why people gape at disasters and calamities, and it's to do with our survival instinct, as well as the complex hormones that are released in the human body when the person realizes that he/she missed or survived great danger.

I'd like to link to an interesting article on this, let's see if GR allows me to: https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health...

So, what we mustn't lose sight of, is that humans have always wanted to glean more information about calamities, this isn't a new thing, and people have always purposely courted danger for the adrenaline rush, and it's not limited to just America. What has changed in the information age, is the way that we are able to consume calamities on a mass scale, and yes, that aspect of it certainly fit in with what Jack and co. are talking about.

At the same discussion at the lunch table, the discussion quickly sinks to a really banal level, and one has to wonder if these "academics" didn't have some alcohol with their lunch. Being a female, for all I know, this is how all men talk once there are no females around....

In any case, it is also in this discussion that I felt the datedness of the novel - I was completely out of my depth with all of the "where were you when's" that was flying around. I don't even know who Joan Crawford was or some of the other people mentioned were, but I guess that's neither here nor there - deLillo - let's see- was born in 1936, and he is 84 now, so that kinda makes sense to me - my mother was an Elvis fan. XD
*Does some quick math* Also, deLillo took a while writing this novel, and he finished it in 1984, so he was around 47, 48 when he was finishing up with it, so that also makes sense in the context of the lunch conversation - I suppose Jack must be a similar-ish age to DeLillo at the time of writing?

Hmm, I've been thinking about the where-where-you-when-so-and-so died conversation among the teaching staff at College-on-the-Hill. Not being from that era, and therefore not recognizing all of the names, I think I failed to realize that they are referring to mainly movie stars, or so an essay that included comments about White Noise tells me.

The point then, I think, of including all these people's names, is that they were a part of mass culture - popular celebrities, and therefore fitting to mention along with another icon of mass culture J.F.K. who although the man was actually ...let me be polite and say "not a very nice person", was intensely popular, which seems to have had something to do with his charisma and the fact that he was very photogenic. We all know how that works, don't we?
Once again an example of as long as it's shiny on the outside, we love it and will want to consume it.