| White Noise | |
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| Author | Don DeLillo |
| 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 | 0-670-80373-1 |
| OCLC Number | 11067880 |
| Dewey Decimal | 813/.54 19 |
| LC Classification | PS3554.E4425 W48 1985 |
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]
Contents |
Plot summary
Set at a bucolic midwestern college known only as The-College-on-the-Hill, 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. An organization called SIMUVAC (short for "simulated evacuation") is also introduced in Part Two, an indication of simulations replacing reality (Jack memorably says to a SIMUVAC employee, "Are you saying you saw a chance to use the real [airborne toxic] event in order to rehearse the simulation?"[2]).
In part three of the book, "Dylarama," Gladney realizes that Babette has been cheating on him in order to gain access to a fictional 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.
However, Dylar does not work for Babette, and it has many possible side effects, including losing the ability to "distinguish words from things, so that if someone said 'speeding bullet,' I would fall to the floor to take cover."[3]
Subjects
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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" may be a metaphor pointing to the confluence of all of those aforementioned symptoms.
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
- ^ http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html
- ^ p. 139, original Penguin paperback edition
- ^ p. 193, original Penguin paperback edition
External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: White Noise (novel) |
- 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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