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Read in 2011, 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 think this is a very unusual discussion among partners. The novel is filled with popular culture, real products and real people. The environmental disaster is a black cloud of toxic chemicals that spreads over the area. Jack is exposed because he has to pump gas so that the family can make it to the relocation area. He believes he is dying because of his exposure and he becomes obsessed with death even more than he had been obsessed. He also becomes obsessed with Dylar, a drug that is rumored to be able to make him forget his fear of dying. The family spends much of their time in the grocery store and and looking at sunsets. There is humor throughout the book that deals with such serious matters as environmental disasters and death anxiety. I especially liked how The book starts with descriptions of the family purchasing goods and ends with Jack furiously decluttering the home of various products and discarded objects of consumerism.

Rating: 3 stars


I have never been a fan of Delillo's writing. Subequently, many of his books still sit unread on my TBR pile. This one is one of the better ones, so far. I think he is probably brilliant for the right audience, which isn't me.

The book focuses on two major plot-lines (with a few detours along the way) - an airborne toxic event and his wife's participation in a pharmaceutical study. The airborne toxic event did have a lot of relevance to what is happening in the world today. The fear of death was a major theme in the book, as well. Something I can relate to these days, unfortunately.

I appreciated Delillo's Falling Man but found this book and its story of an "Airborne Toxic Event" to be too smooth and glib for the subject matter. A massive chemical leak overwhelms a college town and a middle aged professor finds himself facing death in a much more specific way instead of the all too human fear of the ultimate unknown. There are many themes throughout the story beyond the disaster including how modern man is bringing disaster and death to us ahead of time, the desire to be beyond fear to the extend that our MC's wife goes to get lengths to get an experimental pharmaceutical drug that will lessen that particular anxiety. Another theme is the fact that we no longer have any valuable survival skills for the end times: "Name one thing that you could make. Could you make a simple wooden match that you could strike on a rock to make a flame?"
And the inherent hope embodied in children that dissipates as they grown up.
The book is ambitious, with a fast paced writing style and some crisp humor but it was not my cup of tea.

A very entertaining novel, even though death and anxiety over death is a primary theme. I enjoyed the irony and parody of modern consumer culture and life's meaning vs meaningless. I will probably read more of DeLillo's work.
I rated it four stars, so I'm the biggest admirer of it in our group so far.

I don’t have much to add compared to what people already did. I recently finished “the Names�� by Delillo as well, so I’ve been a little overloaded by his dense, busy, irreverent, philosophical style. I did like all the pieces about consumerist culture and the decay of the American ideal life. I also thought the fact that he teaches “Hitler studies�� was really funny, because it seems like every time you turn on the history channel it’s something about Hitler. I gave it 3 stars.

I was much more enthusiastic about this book than everyone else, I gather. I had earlier read Mao II and didn't like it at all, so when I finally got around to reading White Noise I was not expecting much. I thought it was vastly entertaining, though it would have been that much more if I'd read it in the 80s, when television was still the monolithic structure that it was then. Still, I don't know if the problem with the consumption of mass culture has changed much since DeLillo wrote WN.

Bryan--Pumpkin Connoisseur wrote: "I was much more enthusiastic about this book than everyone else, I gather. I had earlier read Mao II and didn't like it at all, so when I finally got around to reading White Noise I was not expecti..."

This one has stuck with me and probably deserved a higher rating than I originally gave it. It is one of the better Delillo books though I liked Libra too.

Jack Gladney is chairman of the department of Hitler Studies at a small-town college, a department he invented solely in order to establish himself and the college on the national stage, at which it has been entirely successful, and not in a bad way. (He’s not a Nazi, just studies them.) His wife appears to be a comfortable, happy homemaker but is secretly taking some kind of drug. They both have multiple previous marriages, most of which have produced at least one child. Then an “airborne toxic event�� (a cloud of poisonous gas) is accidentally released near their town, and their low-level anxiety escalates into something that threatens to derail them completely.

White Noise is absurd in a way that made me laugh out loud. I can see why readers might not like this book, but for me it was a joy to read a "weighty" novel that can't be taken seriously.

I enjoyed the 80s setting and the poignant innocence of Jack's worries about the effects of TV on his children, not suspecting the menace of the internet that was coming for whatever grandchildren he might have.

This is my favourite DeLillo so far.

I found this perceptive and amusing, an interesting postmodern take on consumerism, modern family relationships and most of all the fear of death. Both professor Jack Gladney (professor of Hitler Studies) and his wife Babette (who is becoming increasingly forgetful and seems to be on some kind of medication) fear death, but throughout the novel death is always being forced into their consciousness - from a drowned colleague to a teenager who wants to sit in a cage of deadly snakes - and an “airborne toxic event�� brings it all even closer to home.

I enjoyed the amusing way DeLillo tackled issues like the impact of television and the importance of the supermarket, and the various children in Jack and Babette’s blended family were great characters. There were plenty of smart one liners and little plot early in the book, as we got nearer to the end the plot took over to move to a strange climax and the amusing observations tailed off.

Overall I liked this in a kind of puzzled way, it was a smart piece of writing for sure.