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Summary: Waves and radiation...
Review: DeLillo treats us to a surrealistic suburban fable, a love story, an existentialist discourse and a chillingly plausible science-fiction yarn--all in the same book. "White Noise" is the quintessential postmodern novel, with a likeable hero that makes the subject matter (death, the "waves and radiation" of the popular media, ubiquitous electronic devices) involving and immediate. DeLillo writes with a high-resolution eye for detail and a firm grasp of character (Jack Gladney's heady discussions with his Elvis-teaching fellow professor are particularly interesting). The novel's climax is disconcerting...but so is the garish, out-of-kilter world DeLillo portrays. This is a rare, moving novel as topical as it is bizarre. Don't miss it.
Rating:
Summary: Great book, but not normal DeLillo
Review: I have now read Libra, Americana, and Mao II as well as White Noise, and can say that White Noise is NOT like his other books. I reccomend it as a great book but if you're looking to get into DeLillo, I'd say read Mao II. OK, enough with the disclaimer. As well as poking fun at consumerism, this book also talks about such things including the placebo effect, Hitler, Elvis Prestly, physics, and pretty much whatever else the main character and his family / friends get into. I read this book in one day, so it is definitly one you can sit down with and stay with for awhile without getting bored and skipping ahead to see how many pages until the next chapter. It may seem a little too cutesy at first; too 'smart' as teachers scolding students would put it, but it really isn't. Read and enjoy.
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Summary: not everything is steven king. . .
Review: To everyone who has given this book one star:No, nothing "happens," there is no "plot." Thats the point. No, the book is not "subtle". Thats the point. And the point is, it's brilliant.
Rating: 
Summary: A Real Disappointment
Review: I read this for a fiction course, and was excited because I'd never read DeLillo before, but had heard great things of his Libra and Underworld. There are parts of this book that are very cleverly written. But entire pages go by and nothing really happens. I kept turning pages, waiting for the payoff, waiting for something that would make it all worthwhile, and it never really happened for me. It was a real frustration. I may one day still read Libra and Underworld, but I'll either borrow them or get them from a used book store. DeLillo has gotten the last of my money!
Rating:
Summary: of mind altering substance
Review: extremely funny and subersive. I went to the college described in the book, lived in the america described in the book, saw the barn described in the book, and my realtionship to them all was changed. Delillo may be a pathetic former hippie, but he sharpens his disappointment to a fine point here. his best book.
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Summary: Proud to be an American?
Review: Don Delillo's White Noise is full of the pleasures and pitfalls of Americana. Quirky characters refer to each other in the third person. Hitler Studies in en vogue. Toxic chemicals fill the air. Television mottos fill the air and family conversations involve deluding each other on a continual basis. I would have to say that this is one of the most gleefully written novels in literary history. I can almost picture Mr. Delillo hunched over his manuscript, patting himself on the back for a book full of slick commentary. My favorite character in this novel, the underutilised Heinrich is argumentative in the extreme. His conversations with his father, Jack Gladney are the highlight of White Noise. Underlying all of this postmodernist farce is a serious topic. The obsession with death, with delaying the inevitable. The world of White Noise is a place where fear of death can be relieved with a little white pill - or possibly through murder. This novel never loses its spark, it is always pulling out new gems and I must say that I had a difficult time putting it down. Cheers to Don Delillo and a novel from the 80s that was well ahead of its time.
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Summary: The era of skinny ties and neon brought this????
Review: This is a great book. .... The book is essentially about a middle-aged father of three that cannot come to terms with death. Cosumerism figures in there somewhere, but it takes a back seat to the unmistakable presence of Death. He hides behind a great many things to avoid it, butu its inevitable as he learns in the final scene of the novel, when his symbol of youth, his youngest son Wilder is nearly ran over by traffic. I would suggest the book to anyone who is looking for Thomas Pynchon lite. It touches on some of the same issues, while not bogging it down with dense language.
Rating: 
Summary: starts strong
Review: ...and then it just kind of drops out. It has not prevented me from starting on Underworld, which starts strong...
Rating:
Summary: A funny and frightening examination of our fear of death
Review: "White Noise" is both a funny and frightening examination of our fear of death. The writing is brilliant, and every word in this novel seems exquisitely chosen. The language pushes hilariously over-the-top: fourteen year old boys speak about chemistry and philosophy in a way that challenges the reader; patterns of speech that are archaically sculpted pop up repeatedly in the words of various characters, forcing us to recognize their connection.
There is a strange disease that causes people to confuse words with actual objects. This seems laughable, but the whole novel is a confusion of words and objects: the most-photographed barn, which is a landmark purely because it is the most-photographed; the daughters who psychosomatically catch symptoms that don't even exist. What is a novel if not where words and objects merge?
One man searches throughout to find escape from his fears of death. His worldly accomplishments are only false relief, a contradictory attempt both to hide and to be noticed. The pages are lined with increasingly beautiful sunsets that only serve to draw him closer. Has the boy/athlete who plans to sit with venomous snakes for months found the answer somehow? I waited anxiously for the protagonist to find his solace... Perhaps somewhere in this novel is the true answer to all our fears of death.
While this novel may not teach you how to overcome your fears, it should be read by anyone who wants to understand them better. It is clever and funny in a way that will make you stop and reconsider every joke for its deeper meaning - we are laughing constantly at ourselves. It turns families and aging and dying and itself inside out. And it seems the only true peace comes in the temporary beauty of sleeping children.
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Summary: an anti-novel for anti-readers
Review: To say that Don DeLillo is pretentious is like saying that Mike Tyson is prone to anger: it's true but it doesn't really give you the full picture. Self-importance is DeLillo's defining quality and, in this sense, "White Noise" is his masterpiece. Every sentence seems unjustifiably pleased with itself; every page is dense with humorless profundity. The "Toxic Event" at the novel's heart has such an artificial, manufactured quality that it seems to arrive with the words VERY IMPORTANT SYMBOL emblazoned across it. Gore Vidal once described Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow" as the perfect teacher's novel, in the sense that it was plainly written to be taught rather than read. With all due respect to Vidal, and to Pynchon's unreadable concoction, "White Noise" is a strong contender for the throne: the symbols are plentiful enough to keep any grad student busy, and, more importantly, it's impossible to imagine anyone reading this novel except under duress.
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