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David's Reviews > White Noise
White Noise
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Ooh look! It's a can. Looks like it might have worms inside. Let's open it up again.
Updated (i.e. "final") review: March 30th, 2008
So. I had read three quarters of this and decided to chuck it, but last night my compulsive side won over, and I went ahead and finished it. I still can't wrap my mind around the notion that I should somehow regard it as a "great book of the 20th century", and none of the 19 comments in this thread to date really addresses why I should. So, I am asking for enlightenment.
To sum up my three main difficulties with the book:
(a) dialog that is clunky to the point of unreadability. It's so dreadful that I'm quite willing to believe it's deliberately implausible. But - assuming it's not just laziness and a tin ear - why would an author make such a choice? What's the point? Giving DeLillo the benefit of the doubt, and assuming he could have written believable dialog, what is the point of not using his gifts to the best of his ability, instead irritating the reader with substandard rubbishy 'conversations' that draw attention to their own lack of believability?
(b) "satire" whose effect is similar to assaulting the reader with a blunt instrument. Whether it's the repeated use of such tired and obvious devices as the random scattering of consumer product names throughout the text, or having his protagonist lead the department of "Hitler Studies", there's nothing remotely smart about it. This kind of heavy-handed bludgeoning is the hallmark of a very inferior writer. It insults the intelligence. Authors are generally praised for demonstrating subtlety and wit - why should DeLillo be given a pass?
(c) The lousy dialog is symptomatic of a related problem - the characters are thinly developed, cartoonishly described, to the point of caricature. Not to mention aspects of the plot that don't even bother to approximate reality (did you know that just rolling up your car window will create a hermetic seal, preventing any and all gas exchange with the outside world?). Again, hardly qualities we associate with good writing.
So I'm left with the question - why is DeLillo given a pass? At best, (if one believes he is capable of writing well) in this book he's being incredibly lazy and just phoning it in. Another possibility is that he's genuinely incompetent and actually mistakes his cartoonish efforts here for genuine wit. Either way, why should he be held to a lower critical standard?
Because that's what seems to happen with this book. People acknowledge that it is poorly written, with characters that border on caricature, that it's hard to read, then go ahead and give it 4 or 5 stars anyway. Why?
*************************************************
my original comments start here
OK. I'm 50 pages into this award-winning effort and there's something I just don't get. Why is this book stuffed with such gratingly implausible* dialog throughout? It's so unspeakably bad, I have to think it's deliberate. But why? What would be the point? DeLillo has already made the questionable choice to filter the entire story through the voice of a first-person narrator who was already irritating by page 2 and isn't getting any more likeable. If none of the characters has a believable voice, why should I read on?
*: entered as supporting evidence -
I've bought these peanuts before. They're round, cubical, pockmarked, seamed. Broken peanuts. A lot of dust at the bottom of the jar. But they taste good. Most of all I like the packages themselves. You were right, Jack. This is the last avant-garde. Bold new forms. The power to shock.
"Your wife's hair is a living wonder."
"Yes, it is."
"She has important hair."
"I think I know what you mean".
"Whatever's best for you."
"I want you to choose. It's sexier that way."
"One person chooses, the other reads. Don't we want a balance, a sort of give-and-take? Isn't that what makes it sexy?"
"A tautness, a suspense. First-rate. I will choose."
There's not a human being on the planet who would say the boldfaced stuff. Ever.
Further examples - even more egregious - can be found (famously) in B.R. Myers's "A Reader's Manifesto".
So why does this not bother all you readers who gave 5 stars to this book? Just askin'
Updated (i.e. "final") review: March 30th, 2008
So. I had read three quarters of this and decided to chuck it, but last night my compulsive side won over, and I went ahead and finished it. I still can't wrap my mind around the notion that I should somehow regard it as a "great book of the 20th century", and none of the 19 comments in this thread to date really addresses why I should. So, I am asking for enlightenment.
To sum up my three main difficulties with the book:
(a) dialog that is clunky to the point of unreadability. It's so dreadful that I'm quite willing to believe it's deliberately implausible. But - assuming it's not just laziness and a tin ear - why would an author make such a choice? What's the point? Giving DeLillo the benefit of the doubt, and assuming he could have written believable dialog, what is the point of not using his gifts to the best of his ability, instead irritating the reader with substandard rubbishy 'conversations' that draw attention to their own lack of believability?
(b) "satire" whose effect is similar to assaulting the reader with a blunt instrument. Whether it's the repeated use of such tired and obvious devices as the random scattering of consumer product names throughout the text, or having his protagonist lead the department of "Hitler Studies", there's nothing remotely smart about it. This kind of heavy-handed bludgeoning is the hallmark of a very inferior writer. It insults the intelligence. Authors are generally praised for demonstrating subtlety and wit - why should DeLillo be given a pass?
(c) The lousy dialog is symptomatic of a related problem - the characters are thinly developed, cartoonishly described, to the point of caricature. Not to mention aspects of the plot that don't even bother to approximate reality (did you know that just rolling up your car window will create a hermetic seal, preventing any and all gas exchange with the outside world?). Again, hardly qualities we associate with good writing.
So I'm left with the question - why is DeLillo given a pass? At best, (if one believes he is capable of writing well) in this book he's being incredibly lazy and just phoning it in. Another possibility is that he's genuinely incompetent and actually mistakes his cartoonish efforts here for genuine wit. Either way, why should he be held to a lower critical standard?
Because that's what seems to happen with this book. People acknowledge that it is poorly written, with characters that border on caricature, that it's hard to read, then go ahead and give it 4 or 5 stars anyway. Why?
*************************************************
my original comments start here
OK. I'm 50 pages into this award-winning effort and there's something I just don't get. Why is this book stuffed with such gratingly implausible* dialog throughout? It's so unspeakably bad, I have to think it's deliberate. But why? What would be the point? DeLillo has already made the questionable choice to filter the entire story through the voice of a first-person narrator who was already irritating by page 2 and isn't getting any more likeable. If none of the characters has a believable voice, why should I read on?
*: entered as supporting evidence -
I've bought these peanuts before. They're round, cubical, pockmarked, seamed. Broken peanuts. A lot of dust at the bottom of the jar. But they taste good. Most of all I like the packages themselves. You were right, Jack. This is the last avant-garde. Bold new forms. The power to shock.
"Your wife's hair is a living wonder."
"Yes, it is."
"She has important hair."
"I think I know what you mean".
"Whatever's best for you."
"I want you to choose. It's sexier that way."
"One person chooses, the other reads. Don't we want a balance, a sort of give-and-take? Isn't that what makes it sexy?"
"A tautness, a suspense. First-rate. I will choose."
There's not a human being on the planet who would say the boldfaced stuff. Ever.
Further examples - even more egregious - can be found (famously) in B.R. Myers's "A Reader's Manifesto".
So why does this not bother all you readers who gave 5 stars to this book? Just askin'
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Finished Reading
February 26, 2008
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Conor
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rated it 2 stars
Nov 27, 2017 06:30PM
Dead on! Maybe this is a little while after this review was posted, but I totally agree. Book was an obnoxious read.
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The entire point of the book is that everything is white noise. Literally. Everything. The conversations within the book are white noise, buy as with anything, you can still glean information from this. Delillo hides subliminal, astute, and uncannily concise lessons in the conversations and book. It seems to me the thesis of the book is to suggest that white noise essentially is death. It seems that every conversation in the book has some sort of strange comment suggesting some incongruous logical fallacy; the point is there is no point! Death comes for us all. What does it matter if one of us dies in a natural disaster? From UFO kidnappings? Or peacefully at home? The media (white noise) will broadcast anything just to say something, but in the end, who REALLY cares?
I struggle on to the end, I found it incredibly tedious. Overrated author.
Ah, but you forget that White Noise is a postmodern novel and Don Delillo is what some consider the archetypal postmodernist writer—I believe that should be taken into account when considering one of the many peculiarities of this novel, all his novels, and his particular style of writing. I suggest Underworld where he uses his natural form and his postmodernist leanings to a more fuller extent than what was explored in this novel.
How/when/where did you conclude that a major goal of every novel should be "plausible"? How/when/where did you conclude there is only one style of novel?
Do you really think that every "human being on the planet" talks "plausibly" all of the time? Do you not know people who frequently throw out ridiculous, fashionable jargon that is "plausible" only in a certain geography for a limited time? You, yourself, probably do it.
Of course it is deliberate. He wrote the book. It didn't spring from the efforts of millions of monkees on millions of typewriters.
What would be the point? You completely miss the point of this book & hundreds like it. I'll bet you love documentaries.
you people just need more cubical peanuts
I was going to read this because I've seen multiple headlines about Adam Driver being in the upcoming film adaption, but after reading your review I'll give this a pass
OP, all of your criticisms are the entire point of the book. It is postmodernism. Making fun of capitalism, by making the absurdity of it explicit, is the entire point. Did you make the same complaints about Mulholland Drive?
All of you need to read a book that introduces postmodernism. You're making my brain hurt.
What's Harold Bloom's review on all of his books?
I think that it’s considered a classic because a lot of thing that are discussed and brought up are issues that are very common now for people: commercialization of culture; fear of death; etc. However, it was a fairly new idea to write and think about in 1985, when the novel was written.However, having said all of that, I am not thrilled with it for the very same reasons, but I’m very nearly done, so I will continue. The interesting thing is that I read it many years ago, but I don’t remember it at all, apart from the practice disaster drills. They’ve done a movie, incidentally, that will come on Netflix later this year.
im not sure if plastic culture and fear of death are that original for the 80smaybe zappa wrote about plastic people, and woody allen did neurotic death jokes, waaaaaay ahead of their time!
and what does bloom see in DeLillo
Like the dialogue in Shakespeare or David Mamet, DeLillo’s dialogue is not spoken dialogue. You won’t read his other books but try End Zone or Libra or Underworld. He’s the greatest living American writer and White Noise is his big breakthrough monothematic comic hit, if not his best.
delillo is for peopole who can't handle joyceso we have a choice
unless you, well uh, you stick to a reading list!
I genuinely cannot understand how you bring up both the obviously caricaturist dialogue and characterization, and then pretend they have no purpose, while also calling the satire blunt. Clearly it wasn't blunt enough for you to understand it.
