David's Reviews > White Noise
White Noise
by
by
![166376](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1345482402p2/166376.jpg)
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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Reading Progress
Finished Reading
February 26, 2008
– Shelved
Comments Showing 1-50 of 115 (115 new)
![Jessica](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1289534648p1/419287.jpg)
I did really like Underworld, and since these are the only two DeLillos I've ever tried, I'm not sure what to think of him. I also liked Infinite Jest, which I feel is associated with this unreadable piece of ironical torturous crap, but yeah, White Noise: one of the doozies that contributed greatly to that Several-Years-Beginning-In-The-Late-Nineties-When-I-Stopped-Reading-Fiction-Altogether episode. Honestly, though, it was a long time ago... maybe I should try again?
No. I should not.
Jennifer, you're entitled to be wrong about this and many other things. Neither this nor Dirty Dancing has lowered my esteem for you.
![David](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1345482402p1/166376.jpg)
"The emptiness, the sense of cosmic darkness.
MasterCard, Visa, American Express.
I tell her I want to die first."
Bravo, Don. That's the kind of subtlety that makes for award-winning writing.
Dacron, Orlon, Lycra Spandex.
Obviously, you have a pretty dim view of the intelligence of your readership. Just as I have a dim view of the phrase "the media is".
Tegrin. Denorex, Selsun Blue.
Aw, screw it, Don. Let's not mince words. Your writing sucks donkeyballs, your 'thinking' seems entirely pedestrian, and you have the finesse and subtlety of a neo-Nazi skinhead gang. You got your chance, but life is just too short. After 150 wretched pages, I'm bailing.
Haagen Dazs. Godiva. Nutty Nazgul. Fruusen Gladje.
![Jessica](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1289534648p1/419287.jpg)
Though I do have to wonder if, judging by your failure to appreciate one of the classics of western cinema, I should really care what you think. This lapse in judgment regarding Dirty Dancing does call your previously sterling credibility into question.
To paraphrase: Just put your stars on all the books, pomo-boy, and leave the hard stuff to me....
Jenny, unfortunately, since I must leave myself some time to masturbate and latch hook, I lack the time or energy to review every book I've read. Suffice it to say... Anyone who doesn't like this book is obviously a complete doodoo head who enjoys eating their mother's caca and then regurgitating it into their father's poohole. Delillo is brilliant more often than not, and especially in White Noise, which is one of my favorite books of all time. I am infallible and shall not be questioned on this matter. (But I love you all anyway. I am not a doodoo head bigot.)
![David](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1345482402p1/166376.jpg)
Amen, Darwin! Poopie's not just for breakfast anymore...
![Meri](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1201978350p1/368201.jpg)
I didn't like the book's negativity. It really seemed like a 300+ page bitchfest, and you have to wonder what the point of that was. Nonetheless, I respect it as literature.
![Laura](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1206582132p1/591473.jpg)
Uh, Laura... You're emasculating me. (Your picture is, anyway.)
Yeah, she probably also digs Philip K. Dick. (I swear... That's all you women think about. Reading, I mean.)
![Donald](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1442470186p1/778070.jpg)
![Jessica](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1283427299p1/777369.jpg)
![Donald](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1442470186p1/778070.jpg)
![trivialchemy](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1365975999p1/108138.jpg)
But I do want to say one thing. To inveigh against a novel of any era on the premise that its dialogue is "unbelievable" is totally nonsensical. Who gives a sh-t? Since when is a writer beholden to realism in any capacity? In all the history of language it has never been incumbent upon the author to render narrative which looks, sounds, or feels like the real world. My brother tries this same argument (so does Meyers), and it's incoherent. Writing is representational.
![Manny](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1442491692p1/1713956.jpg)
![Kristian](https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_25x33-8a3530ed95c3dbef8bf215b080559b09.png)
![David](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1345482402p1/166376.jpg)
If you read my review with a little more care, I think you will find that there were a few other points I took issue with besides the lousy dialog, such as the implausibility of certain plot points, the heavy-handed nature of the "satire", the two-dimensional, perfunctory characterization, the general treatment of the reader as if he were some kind of moron.
You wrote:
"In fact, when the author intends it to be, realistic dialogue is nothing at all."
which is as meaningless a sentence as I've read in at least the last month. Authorial intent and three bucks might buy you a latte at Starbucks if you're lucky. You can be sure that every wannabe Flaubert out there "intends" their work to be pure genius, but wishing doesn't make it so, and in the meantime, there are vexing details such as plot, characterization, and - yes - dialog that need to be addressed in an adequate, non-imbecilic fashion. In this particular book, DeLillo seemed to me to be just phoning it in. I cannot comment on his other work because I haven't tried it (other than some hideous tale about a vile plutocrat stuck in a limousine in Manhattan). So, he may not be a bad writer, in general. In this particular instance, I happened to think he was.
But, really, I'm tired of this book, and this particular discussion. So, if you´ll excuse me, what I NEED right now is to go to bed. I hope you won't mind if I treat your tedious, slightly condescending, rhetorical questions as just that.
![Kristian](https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_25x33-8a3530ed95c3dbef8bf215b080559b09.png)
As for your review addressing 'the implausibility of certain plot points', I'm afraid you actually didn't. Notice the plural.
You wrote:
"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?)"
Care to go on? Not that it'll add any weight to your argument. Oh no! A work of fiction which 'doesn't even bother to approximate reality'?! Gregor Samsa turned into WHAT?!
Your other points (I use the term loosely) are harder to address. You thought the satire was heavy handed, I didn't. You thought the characters were thin, I didn't. You thought he 'treated the reader like some kind of moron', I laughed at the irony.
![David](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1345482402p1/166376.jpg)
Sorry. Upon re-reading my previous message, I was definitely cranky when I wrote it. You are right to call me on 'misunderstanding' your first point, which is a perfectly valid one.
It does seem to me that we have a legitimate difference of opinion. What worked for you just didn't work for me, in the case of this particular book. You are correct that, in other contexts, in other books, I would be happy to overlook any one of the particular points I raised in my review.
I don't know. I really disliked "White Noise", still don't understand why people raved about it. In the review I was trying to tease out why I disliked it as much as I did. (The intonation of consumer product names drove me up the walls for instance). Maybe we should agree to differ. I haven't written off DeLillo, so would be interested in hearing what else of his you would recommend.
Thanks for your input, and again - my apologies for the somewhat rude tone of my previous post - it was late, and I was tired when I wrote it.
Cheers
David
![Joshua Nomen-Mutatio](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1363779897p1/1447864.jpg)
But I haven't really thought all too hard about what I like about this book so much, other than the strangely pleasurable combination of agitating and soothing my own death-anxiety through out.
![David](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1345482402p1/166376.jpg)
Well, I'll certainly cop to obviously not having been in the right frame of mind when I read it. I found the other book by Delillo that I tried to be no better, unfortunately.
So what would you recommend for someone willing to give him another chance? (As kristian, apparently, just seems to have been happy to leave it at his drive-by snarking)
![Paul Bryant](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1224113172p1/416390.jpg)
![Trevor](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1700711025p1/175635.jpg)
![U.L. Harper](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1492117929p1/3072298.jpg)
![Joshua Nomen-Mutatio](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1363779897p1/1447864.jpg)
Sorry that I took several months to get back to this, David. I've not read even half of DeLillo's books yet so I'm not an expert, but I'd say that purely from my experience, if you didn't like White Noise you probably won't like anything else by him. Though Paul's suggestion of Libra (which I still haven't read) sounds like the logical next step for you DeLillo-wise, if you're interested in giving him one more shot.
![Moonglum](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1206121864p1/1009562.jpg)
![Maddi](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1279664432p1/3707269.jpg)
Somehow, I was still convinced to give Ratner's Star a shot, and I'm glad I did because it was amazing. So one DeLillo non-fan to another, try that one.
![Emma](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1222726606p1/1567603.jpg)
There were however scenes I recall really enjoying. Jack and son Heinrich are arguing in the car about whether or not it's raining. I wanted to see this scene performed. Found it hilarious.
And, come to think of it, I could also picture more than a few people I know uttering the phrase, "She has important hair," in jest most likely but not necessarily. This scene was another of the exchanges I enjoyed. Listening to Murray is like listening to some fashion personality who keeps contradicting himself being interviewed by Bruno on Da Ali G Show. A wincingly painful experience but funny.
To follow up on what Moonglum points out, I'll add this from the commentary in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die:
"But the characters here are not the dupes of the system; they are its professional analysts." (p 730)
White Noise has provoked, in this thread alone, the kind of discussion DeLillo, and other postmoderns for that matter, might want to provoke.
Just too little of the reading experience was pleasurable and I have to go back and forth about whether that's okay with me. However, and for what it's worth, I probably wouldn't even bother to have this debate with myself if I didn't have anybody telling me that this is one of the "great books of the 20th century."
![Emma](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1222726606p1/1567603.jpg)
This book has to be put in context. There may be better sources but I found it helpful to go to this book's Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_No....
Finally, I want to express my appreciation for the original poster's tag "intellectual-con-artist-at-work."
![Keith](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1612308964p1/3295682.jpg)
Would you really want to read a book where people make corny jokes, ask dumb questions, argue about doing housework, shout profanity at bad drivers and repeat the things that they heard on FOX news the night before? because that seems like it would be hyper "realistic," but a lot more tedious than White Noise.
The characters in this book are obvious prototypes for characters that show up everywhere in our culture. Gladney is incredibly similar to George Costanza, Heinrich is like that angsty kid in the movie Little Miss Sunshine to a tee. Babette is the depressed housewife whose husband idealizes her as a chipper pillar of support, represented by Gladney's use of her name in third-person, in passages like "this is not the point of Babette." or "Babette doesn't speak this way." Murray is like Kramer, a half-Zen, half-crackpot guy who seems to drift through his unexplainable life accumulating strange insights.
Noble, virtuous, proud people who work hard, worship God, talk "realistically" and overcome simple conflicts with a charming smile don't seem to exist anymore. Gladney even notices this when he compares his own anxiety towards death to Ghengis Khan's, whom he can't fathom being afraid of anything. And if those types of people do exist, are they really the ones you want to invite to a dinner party?
the 20th century has been defined by self-consciousness, technology, consumerism, subjective experience and information, all of which this book explores thoroughly. If you don't like the book, you might not like the century, which is okay because it does seem like it's been a weird one. but i feel like the book is great because it captures the dread, the anxiety, the bombardment of information, the weirdness of it all...
![David](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1345482402p1/166376.jpg)
It's probably no surprise that the Seinfeld characters get on my last nerve.
Thanks, Keith.
![Paul Bryant](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1224113172p1/416390.jpg)
![Joe Poteracki](https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_25x33-8a3530ed95c3dbef8bf215b080559b09.png)
However, DeLillo's prose is almost unparalleled in fiction. Incredibly lyrical at times. And his power of observation is, in my opinion, fantastic. So many ideas that you knew were deep down in you somewhere, but DeLillo is the one retrieving them for you.
![Lambert](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1262175725p1/3084318.jpg)
Good observations. I can't believe that "unrealistic dialogue" can seriously be argued as an author's failure.
![Paul Bryant](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1224113172p1/416390.jpg)
![Ian "Marvin" Graye](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1702079141p1/5022264.jpg)
People mightn't talk like that, but they message like that.
So pretty soon they might speak like that as well.
DeLillo might be what people will do when they have sufficient technology.
![John Christy](https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_25x33-8a3530ed95c3dbef8bf215b080559b09.png)
![Paul Bryant](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1224113172p1/416390.jpg)
Thing about Don is that after reading half of White Noise and a third of Underworld I would have agreed with John, but in the middle I read all of Libra, which is like something from writers' heaven... so I dunno.
![Ian "Marvin" Graye](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1702079141p1/5022264.jpg)
I think it's a bit like a petard that you wouldn't want to be hoist on.
Standing aside sounds like a good idea.
![John Christy](https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_25x33-8a3530ed95c3dbef8bf215b080559b09.png)
![Paul Bryant](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1224113172p1/416390.jpg)
I'm glad you mentioned BR Meyers in your review...since i first read his book, I've sampled or re-read some of the authors he criticizes, and I've been pleasantly surprised to say that I actually still enjoy David Guterson, Annie Proulx, and especially Cormac McCarthy...but Meyers nails DeLillo perfectly, in my opinion.
However, I know that I have gaps in my literary sensibilities, since the most well-read friend I have outside of Goodreads is a huge fan of David Foster Wallace and Infinte Jest, and I couldn't make it past page 20. So, like you, I would also like to hear what other readers see in this book.