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| White Noise | |
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| Author | Don DeLillo |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Viking Adult |
| Publication date | 21 Jan 1985 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 326 pp (hardback first edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-670-80373-1 |
White Noise is the eighth novel by Don DeLillo, and is an example of postmodern literature. Widely considered his "breakout" work, the book won the National Book Award in 1985 and brought him to the attention of a much larger audience. Time Magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.1
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Plot summary
Set at a bucolic midwestern college, White Noise follows a year in the life of Jack Gladney, a professor who has made his name by pioneering the field of Hitler Studies (though he doesn't speak German). He has been married five times to four women and has a brood of children and stepchildren (Heinrich, Denise, Steffie, Wilder) with his current wife, Babette. Jack and Babette are both extremely afraid of death; they frequently wonder "who will die first". The first part of White Noise, called "Waves and Radiation," is a chronicle of absurdist family life combined with academic satire. There is little plot in this section, and it mainly sets the scene for the rest of the book. Another important character introduced here is Murray, who frequently discusses his theories, which relate to the rest of the book.
In the book's second part, The Airborne Toxic Event, a chemical spill from a rail car releases an "airborne toxic event" over Jack's home region, prompting an evacuation. Frightened by his exposure to the toxin, Gladney is forced to confront his mortality. Simuvac is also introduced in Part Two, an indication of simulations replacing reality. It also calls into question the nature of the airborne toxic event.
Ironically, in part three of the book, Gladney realizes that his wife has been cheating on him in order to gain access to a drug called Dylar, an experimental treatment for the fear of death. Soon the novel becomes a meditation on modern society's fear of death and its obsession with chemical cures as Gladney seeks to obtain his own black market supply of Dylar.
The drug is produced through an experimental, highly secretive process and comes in the form of a small white pill. During digestion water enters through a tiny laser drilled hole in the polymer coating and the active ingredients begin to dissolve, but can only leave through the hole, creating a highly controlled release of the chemical. When empty, the coating collapses in on itself and passes harmlessly out through the digestive tract. Dylar does not work properly, though, and extended use sometimes results in insanity. Extended users interpret spoken words and metaphor as actual actions and events.
Subjects
White Noise explores several themes that emerged during the mid-to-late twentieth century, e.g., rampant consumerism, media saturation, novelty intellectualism, underground conspiracies, the disintegration and re-integration of the family, and the potentially positive virtues of human violence. The title "white noise" is a metaphor pointing to the confluence of all of those aforementioned symptoms of postmodern culture that in their coming-together make it very difficult for an individual to actualize his or her ideas and personality and a play on the idea that many of these symptoms are created by and for the disproportionally "loud" demographic of "white" middle class consumers.
Title
DeLillo wanted to call the book Panasonic, from the Greek word "pan" meaning "all" and the Latin word "sonus", meaning "sound". Panasonic is a registered trademark of the Matsushita corporation, and it appears that Matsushita opposed titling the work Panasonic and that DeLillo's publisher denied his request on that basis. [1] (The word still appears at the end of Chapter 32.)
Film adaptation
Barry Sonnenfeld was preparing a film version of White Noise for 2006. However, pre-production appears to have ceased as of the fall of 2006 and the Internet Movie Database has removed all references to this movie.
References
External links
- New York Times review of White Noise by Jayne Anne Phillips
- An Annotation of the First Page of White Noise, With Help From Don DeLillo
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