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The first third of this book I really, really liked. It felt like it had just the slightest touch of an alternative history or speculative fiction novel. The Hitler studies, calling the New York professors emigrés, just that slight sense that things were not quite realistic.
And I loved the airborne toxic event. Combined with the drugs and memory loss of the mom, it seemed like it was shaping up to be really fascinating. And it was really funny in parts and really very insightful.
But then it we ...more
And I loved the airborne toxic event. Combined with the drugs and memory loss of the mom, it seemed like it was shaping up to be really fascinating. And it was really funny in parts and really very insightful.
But then it we ...more
What a novel this would be to discuss in a class. The academic satire, the consumerism, the need for/expectation of a drug to fix things, the airborne toxic event. News, TV, weather reports. It's all very funny but also so frustratingly true. And so much of this is still true, though somehow this book feels innocent (naive might be a better word). Maybe because Jack Gladney is so convinced the airborne toxic event won't affect his town/neighborhood/family because they are the kind of people that
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This is the most comic of DeLillo's books. I think. Or it is the DeLillo book that made me realize how comic he can be. Jack Gladney, his family, his colleagues, the characters of Murray and Mink -- they could all occupy non-contingent spaces within one person. Their voices are similar, but their perceptions are not. They represent a multitude within. Even Wilder has his important place. The dialogues in this book are riffs on how we cope with the knowledge (fleeting, occasional) that life as we
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I would rate this book between 3 and 4 stars. It was mildly entertaining. It is a good example of postmodernism literature. In this work, the author, DonDeLillo, explores the threat of environmental disaster, rampant consumerism and the uncertainty of death. Postmodern also is a word to describe truth as shifting and relevant. White Noise is set in a college town, the protagonist, Jack, is a professor of Hitler. He and his wife debate and compete with each other on who gets to die first. I don't
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Feb 18, 2019
Pippin
marked it as to-read
Apr 20, 2020
Teresa Young
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Aug 25, 2020
Mary
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Nov 26, 2022
Jen
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Jan 01, 2023
Janet
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