White Noise discussion

Post modern marriage and Americana captured to a T.It makes an attempt to understand the creepy malaise that sets in on middle age folks in the suburbs....a good kind of ouch !

but don't you think it might be over the top? i mean, every other paragraph seems to allude to "white noise" somehow: the dull, brainless, souless, glazeover. totally not subtle. but, i'm not saying that's bad. very funny though, eh?

I agree, Laurie; it is over the top, especially that bizarre ending. I've read a fair amount of DeLillo (End Zone, Libra, Mao II, Underworld) and this one just left me shaking my head. Interesting, funny at times, but over-rated.

Tom: yeah, totally streaming ending. I didn't expect it, but the more I think about it the more it seems a proper finish. I did like the book, but I didn't pick it for fun. Having never taken English in college, I feel I'm missing the experience of reading various literary styles. Can you recommend another book by DeLillo?

Underworld is good, if long and unwieldy and spread out with tangents that don't immediately seem connected, and the first chapter of the Body Artist is perhaps DeLillo's finest prose. I've also read Americana and Great Jones Street but neither of those really hit the same level of focus and craftsmanship as his later work.

Though Underworld is his magnum opus, Libra is my personal favorite among DeLillo's novels, Laurie. He really gets into Oswald's skin. And he captures the paranoia of the time with much more nuance that Oliver Stone in JFK (though comparing media may not be fair). And it's got one of my favorite lines in any book: "A fact is innocent until someone wants it. Then it become intelligence."

Thanks, Tom. I'll take a look at Libra. You sold me on that one.

Oohh. Libra sounds good.

Did anyone read the critical edition of White Noise? Is it worth purchasing this edition or the regular edition of White Noise?
Thanks.

I'm not sure I can handle a critical edition -- I'm not sure I've ever read a book that cries out "read me to write an essay about me" more than this one does! I agree with Laurie's comment about it being "over the top", what with the motifs of overlap and density and misapprehension and confusion and all the impinging observations pregnant with meaning...or meaninglessness. Whew!

I very much enjoyed "The Names." I had just come off of a string of eastern Mediterranean novels, (The Alexandrian Quartet, The Magus, Exodus) and thought one more, why not? It has a haunting, ungraspable quality that might leave some readers missing the wrapped-up quality of more common novels, but I like that I left that world unsure. Generally I am not a fan of study-books, but this — along with The Body Artist — seems the least like.

boi, i sur didn't get this one ..

This was my first Delillo book, and I have to agree with the comments regarding it being overrated. I enjoyed it, but it was a very obvious book, smacking you in the face with how important it is. I gave the author another shot though, and I'm glad I did. Libra is the most readable and enjoyable, but Underworld is just gorgeous and left me in awe.

i always regretting not reading Underworld - now i doan think i'll get around to it (still looking for more WILD, chaotic, name-calling SATIRE!!..

I think Delillo, better than any other writer, captures the absurd nature of our society--and White Noise exemplifies this ability of his. From "toxic events" to anomie in the supermarket aisles, White Noise groks us perfectly. With that said, I find Underworld to be a more satisfying work--with perhaps the finest first chapter in all of 20th century literature.

I am hooked on DeLillo after reading this book. I can't wait to read Libra next!

I thought White Noise was a good mixture of the satirical and genuinely insightful. The aspects of the book that were a bit over the top, I assume, were deliberately written that way.

Just a note for everyone who enjoyed DeLillo's Libra, Norman Mailer's 'Oswald's Tale', is also a brilliant look at the JFK assassination.

Laurie wrote: "Tom: yeah, totally streaming ending. I didn't expect it, but the more I think about it the more it seems a proper finish. I did like the book, but I didn't pick it for fun. Having never taken Engli..."

Cosmopolis is brilliant, even the film didn't screw it up too much.

Mao II is good as well

Troy wrote: "I think Delillo, better than any other writer, captures the absurd nature of our society--and White Noise exemplifies this ability of his. From "toxic events" to anomie in the supermarket aisles, ..."

This is true, but AM Holmes is doing similar in a slightly quieter but no less subversive way in her novels.

I think Libra is now the only Dellilo book I haven't yet read. I even read that one about the supposed Hitler home movie reel which wasn't great! Can't even remember what it was called now

Tom wrote: "I agree, Laurie; it is over the top, especially that bizarre ending. I've read a fair amount of DeLillo (End Zone, Libra, Mao II, Underworld) and this one just left me shaking my head. Interestin..."

***SPOILERS****
I thought the ending was odd, it didn't quite match the book, but I thought it was also quite profound. He does not want the gun, 'we're not gun people', but then when he begins to carry the gun, he describes the fear of everyone carrying and him being shot. As an Australian, I can't help feel this is symptomatic of the American gun culture.

On that note, I enjoyed Libra a lot more.

u know what i ALSO doan get?; hp lovecraft - & hav tried too! -course i love, & GET Poe; but not Dis GUY! :)

'Nobody knows why the seabirds return to the islands of Monte Giama'...I'm paraphrasing, but that schizophrenic monologue by the antagonist towards the end of the book really brought it all home for me, as a reader. I, thankfully (at least to my own understanding) don't suffer from the same psychological problems as the couple in this book do. That being said; I understood them. So, perhaps I do. Perhaps, we ALL do.

((sinc then i read a LOT of lovecraft. idk what i was thinking or sayn - feel like an 11 year old. maybe i was drunk .. ))