Some time ago, maybe five years now, after I had just finished Underworld, I said to myself, I am going to read every book Don DeLillo has written and will write. And for some reason I hadn't gotten around to reading White Noise until now, arguably his most well known work. So here we are, the 11th book I've read by Mr. DeLillo.
Though DeLillo is very much a part of the "literary establishment" and has garnered all sorts of awards and praise throughout his career, there is a large faction of readers who think his work is "cold", "bullshit", "terrible", "boring", "pseudo intellectual", "pretentious", "unrealistic dialogue", etc. Sure. Why not. I understand all that criticism. That's fine. But I think a lot of the anger toward his work comes from certain expectations some might have of the author and the narrative, expectations that are clearly not being met when reading DeLillo. The reader needs to buy into DeLillo's mindset and be comfortable with him using his character's as a mouth piece, essentially. Because yes, all his characters tend to sound the same. But why is that? Is that because DeLillo isn't a good enough writer to make them sound different? Or is he trying to communicate something to the reader? Trying to display a kind of universal consciousness that we all might share? An ultimate language? I don't know. Maybe. Think whatever you want. I'm not even totally convinced of what I said, I was just throwing it out there.
Ya know, it's been interesting reading an entire author's listed works, because they start to blend together, especially with someone like DeLillo who loves reusing images and ideas, so it gets harder and harder to get psyched about each book. But also, it's interesting to see how his style has developed and evolved.
Concerning White Noise: I won't even waste the space to summarize plot, but the last half of the book was darkly magical, in a way that I'm not sure I could properly explain. Reading DeLillo has always been more of a spiritual experience for me, rather than a traditional narrative experience. Spiritual in the way that maybe I don't quite understand. But now I just sound like a pseudo-intellectual-spiritualist. Also, he mentions "Star Trek needlepoint" (Sten, remember you and your needlepoint!) and that alone will earn him a place on my bookshelf forever. I think I'll read Point Omega very soon, just to kinda do a Then and Now type dealy. I'm sure you all care.
Read these:
"He'd once told me that the art of getting ahead in New York was based on learning how to express dissatisfaction in an interesting way."
pg.65
"The power of the dead is that we think they see us all the time. The dead have a presence." pg.97
"No sense of irony of human existence, that we are the highest form of life on earth and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die." pg.99
"These things happen to poor people who live in exposed areas. Society is set up in such a way that it's the poor and the uneducated who suffer the main impact of natural and man-made disasters...I'm a college professor. Did you ever see a college professor rowing a boat down his own street in one of those TV floods?" pg.112
"In a crisis the true facts are whatever other people say they are. No one's knowledge is less secure than your own." pg.118
"We are your lunatics. We surrender our lives to make your nonbelief possible. You are sure that you are right but you don't want everyone to think as you do. There is no truth without fools. We are your fools, your madwomen, rising at dawn to pray, lighting candles, asking statues for good health, long life." pg.304
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