Rating: 
Summary: Mediocre Copy of Magic Mountain
Review: While there is nary a hint of commercialism in Mann's magnum opus, Delillo here seems merely to restate Mann's themes, weakening them all the while. Instead of the Sanatorium Berghof on the Mountain, there is the college on the Hill; instead of depicting the decay of bourgeois society through argument and example, White Noise shows a similar decay in the commercial culture of mass media. Moreover, the final theme of the novels are the same--the need to affirm life in the face of nihilism. Numerous other motifs recur in the two novels. Yet the subtle nuances of the Magic Mountain incorporating myth, philosophy, and an archetypal hero journey (Hans's) for a metaphorical 'grail,' are nowhere to be found. Nor does Delillo significantly add to or improve upon Mann's form (arguably the weakest aspect of the Magic Mountain) or art. Even White Noise's form, satire, although clearly distinct from the German bildungsroman tradition, alludes to the Magic Mountain, which Mann originally intended as a satire of the bildungsroman before turning it into an actual apprenticeship novel. I wonder if Delillo knew to what extent he was copying T.Mann. While the Magic Mountain is significantly longer than Delillo's book, its return as food for thought is so much greater that reading the delillo would be time wasted--with Mann not only do you get the themes (better explicated), but richer ideas, a brief history Medievalism and Humanism, and art of a far higher caliber. And for those of you who seek a satire of American Culture, I would heartily recommend any number of works by Thomas Pynchon in lieu of White Noise.
Rating: 
Summary: Seldom is such an entertaining novel so important
Review: DeLillo's grasp on American culture is impressive. In what begins as a light, entertaining novel about a modern American family attracted to television, disaster, and shopping, materializes a dark theme that isn't often addressed- the fear of death. This is the white noise that everyone hears, but wishes to disregard. This bold work could be considered a postmodern masterpiece.
Rating: 
Summary: Insomniac's cure
Review: I found Delillo's incredible amounts of cynicism,pessimism,self doubt,and wholesale use of argumentative encounters to be at best boring and at worst annoying. If I ran into the main character in the street I wouldn't like him and if this is truly a microcosm of life in the states [which its not] then I'd move.
Rating:
Summary: I don't care what Tom Shaw says...
Review: I have to say, I absolutely loved this book. Delillo's style, the way he writes dialogue using only the important parts of a conversation between characters, and his insight are superb. I gave the book to my boss and he absolutely hated it so I know it is possible not to like the book, but personally I don't understand it. The depiction of White Noise in America being so deafening that only the loudest of intrusions can really get through to people. A truly terrific book.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Comments on American Culture Ever Written
Review: I read this book over 10 years ago and it is so brilliant I have never forgotten it. In addition, I never laughed so hard in my life! I was living in Mexico at the time, and it was exactly what I needed - Delillo is brilliant in his send-up of those things that are so American! From the main character of the book, the "Hitler-specialist" professor who has to hide the fact that he knows no German, to the "cultural populist" professors who spend all night reminiscing/arguing about where they were the night James Dean died - this book captures American culture (particularly American "academic culture") like nothing else I have ever read! An absolute classic is the scene where the main character's teenage son is posing argument after argument (as if he were in the middle of a college class in Logic) with his father about why it may not be raining outside (it was pouring!) If you love satire, you will adore this book!
Rating:
Summary: On My God! That is so me and my family in this book!
Review: As far I know, and read, "White Noise" is the only novel to have parallel "Candide" in wit and humor. This novel satirizes and mocks everythings, leaving no aspect of modern life to small to get away. I see myself this novel, I see myself smart mouth kids, but with more fear of my parents. I see my family living like them....my dad going to the mall and let my sister and I loss with wallet. I must admit, see some aspect of myself I do not like at all, and "White Noise" shows it. Oh yeah, I am in college and I can see some of the professors being like J. A. K. and dorm people just as described by DeLillo.
Rating:
Summary: True, funny and bleak as yesterday and tomorrow
Review: Of all the books I've read written since the 1960s or so, I think this one will stand the test of time. It's a dazzler.Like watching a sleight of hand artist on a high wire who never makes a slip. I don't like a lot of so-called "post-modern" convoluted books (I have real trouble with Pynchon, for instance), but this one transcends the genre. I recently started DeLillo's Libra and already it's taken my breath away. Can't wait to read more of it. In my opinion, DeLillo is one of the finest writers of the last 25 years. Oh, hell,why be stingy? He's one of the dozen or so greatest American writers, period.
Rating:
Summary: bombdiggity
Review: The book was an excellent satire on many of society's stereotypes and conceptions. The way the author handles death in a nonchalant and almost satirical way is brilliant. The issues and wordplay are tremendous as a book about basically nothing is transformed into a great work.
Rating: 
Summary: Occasionally brilliant, ultimately unsatisfying
Review: I'm not sure what to think of Don DeLillo. White Noise, like Mao II, like Underworld, like End Zone, is a book bursting with ideas and observations about people, the world and modern life. And some of these observations will make you see things in a new way, or at least crystallize your thoughts so perfectly that you nod your head and say, "Yes, that's exactly what I think. Now why didn't I say it like that?" Well, because you're not Don DeLillo. So give the man credit, because that's something few people can do. At the same time White Noise shows up one of DeLillo's bigger flaws: he doesn't really create characters you care about, even a little bit. Indeed, in White Noise I'm sure he didn't want to. They're not real characters at all, only a group of signifiers and commenators who all speak with the same voice and even use the same expressions, whether they are ex-sportswriters, housewives, sulking teens, or nine-year-old girls. By page 300 this gets tiresome. Intellectual insights are more memorable when they are hung on interesting and engaging characters. So while I enjoyed White Noise and am impressed with the mind behind it, I found it ultimately unsatisfying.
Rating:
Summary: Best novel of the eighties?
Review: White Noise was the first DeLillo I ever tried to read, a few years ago, and I was disappointed; I thought it was thin and heartless and clever-clever. Then I got older, visited America for the first time and read it again, and suddenly it seemed true, oh so true. The book is full of dark pleasures: the family's hilariously misinformed conversations about everything under the sun; the now-classic episode of The Most Photographed Barn in America (it's not especially beautiful or old, it's just been photographed over and over again); the description of a cloud of poisonous gas as an Airborne Toxic Event; the narrator's manically argumentative son Heinrich; his daughter's mysterious utterance in her sleep of the magical words "Toyota Celica". And much, much more. The crisp beauty of DeLillo's writing can seem cold on first reading, but this is a function of the eerie ambiguity of the book's tone; it's neither satirical nor celebratory, it's just looking hard at these lives and the world around them. White Noise is, for my money, DeLillo's funniest book and his most death-haunted; that he balances the ever-present fear of death with a (for him) new compassion for his characters is maybe the most amazing thing about it. It gets better every time it's read, which is the mark of a classic.
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