Rating: 
Summary: Witty commentaries about America and modern society
Review: The author makes some incisive, humorous, and sometimes poignant remarks about the phenomenon and idiosyncrasies of modern America. Through the main character, Jack Gladney, he comments about materialism, consumerism, the institution of marriage, mortality, and the inundation of the media on individuals.
I chuckled throughout the book. But are we really "fragile creatures surrounded by hostile facts?"
Rating:
Summary: DeLillo's sarcastic cut up of America still poignant
Review: When I first heard of "White Noise" it was described to me as "A grown-up's Kurt Vonnegut." Well, the comparison is readily made, and to DeLillo's credit he hits the nail on the head so hard that it is still an excellent definer of our society a cool decade later. But what neither he nor Vonnegut (at least lately) seem to be able to do is stay cohesive. The book seems to flow from one slightly-related incident to another, but never really figures out a way to tie them all togeother without seeming contrived. Another problem is the characters themselves. For the first hundred pages or so, their multi-dimensional neurosis and obsessions (the bit about the central character teaching Hitler Studies is classic) are poignant and hilarious. But after awhile they seem one dimensional; you keep waiting for some new development that isn't simply an overblown reaction to one of their paranoias. Still, all this criticism is mild: "White Noise" seems destined to last as one of the great parodies
Rating: 
Summary: Supermarket religions and an overwhelming fear of death
Review: Meet Jack Gladney. He is a professor of Hitler Studies at the University. He's afraid to die. Then meet his children, including Heinrich, the boy who idolizes his friend that wants to sit in a tank of venomous snakes, and Wilder, the innocent baby, who seems to be the only character with access to a mind free of fear. Move along and meet Babette, Jack's fourth wife. She commits all sorts of immoral acts to obtain Dylar, a mythical drug that she feels will abate her all-consuming fear of death.
Then meet Murray. Murray is the devil's advocate. Murray intices Jack to look in the most unusual places to find answers. They often meet in the supermarket, a place of revitilization, and spiritual recharging according to Murray, a strange character with no past that we are invited to see, and a present consisting only of his job at the University at which Jack also teaches. But while Jack teaches about Hitler, Murray teaches about Elvis.
Jack Gladney carries on life in the most shallow sense, fearing death at every turn, and looking for religion in the tabloids, sunsets, and the money machine. Murray lives a simple, almost monastic life, and mysteriously has questions for Jack's questions, which Jack always seems to interpret as answers. Meet Nyodene D., a mythical toxin that Jack comes into contact with. Meet White Noise, the static and pure chaos that infiltrates all of our lives, technologically invading us, entertaining us, and killing us slowly. Meet Jack Gladney. He is afraid to die. So am I. But at least now I know I'm not alone. Jacques Derrida would have a field day with this novel, and it's constant redefining and reshaping of what the gift of death actually amounts to.
Rating:
Summary: An amazing mix of information theory and self-help trash.
Review: An easy to read and hilarious novel that shows both the decay of and hope in American culture and human civilization. More complex that it seems, ripe with juxtapositions within juxtapositions and contrasts of the starkest and the most subtle nature to help provide a commentary on human understanding
Rating:
Summary: Clever but overrated postmodern fantasia.
Review: I came to White Noise with great expectations, and so I was disappointed. DeLillo's book is full of good ideas, but marred by obviousness and overwriting. The New York Times blurb quoted on the cover promises that White Noise "poses inescapable questions with consummate skill," but I found DeLillo's constant use of rhetorical questions within the narrative voice enormously tiring. Equally irritating was DeLillo's portayal of the children in the novel, who do not resemble actual children at all, but seem modeled after the tiny-adult wisecracking sitcom children that I, for one, find loathesome. This may have been intentional on DeLillo's part, but, as satire, it seems less biting than lazy. Worst of all is DeLillo's tendency to gratuitously and charmlessly overstate all of his points, killing the humour and overbaking the insight. Example: Jack, the main character, is at an evacuation center following the announcement of the "airborne toxic event" that occupies the middle section of the book, and he's talking to an administrator with an armband that says "SIMUVAC." It turns out that "SIMUVAC" is short for "simulated evacuation," and that the adminstrator is a participant in a state program that simulates evacuations so as to prepare people for the main event. "But this evacuation isn't simulated. It's real," says Jack. "We know that," replies the guy behind the desk, "But we thought we could use it as a model." So far so good, right? Pomo, clever. But DeLillo can't let the joke rest without explaining it: "A form of practice? Are you saying you saw a chance to use the real event in order to rehearse the simulation?" Ugh.
The result? White Noise is a much less challenging book than it pruports to be, because it spends half of its time offering footnotes for itself. It doesn't have time to mean anything, because it is too busy signifying.
Rating:
Summary: The glorious buzz of Dellilo's "White Noise"
Review: You have reached the peak of postmodern writing. DeLillo mixes the common with the
extraordinary, leaving the reader somewhere inbetween. The characters interact with each other
without understanding. Silence becomes the loudest form of expression. Every confusion and clarity
fades together in a background glow that becomes an overwhelming "White Noise." Where do we
go from here? DeLillo himself would probably admit the evasiveness of this question, and would be
proud his book elegantly does not answer it.
Rating:
Summary: The glorious buzz of Dellilo's "White Noise"
Review: You have reached the peak of postmodern writing. DeLillo mixes the common with the extraordinary, leaving the reader somewhere inbetween. The characters interact with each other without understanding. Silence becomes the loudest form of expression. Every confusion and clarity fades together in a background glow that becomes an overwhelming "White Noise." Where do we go from here? DeLillo himself would probably admit the evasiveness of this question, and would be proud his book elegantly does not answer it.
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent in scope
Review: Jack Gladney is the chairman of Hitler Studies at a quaint liberal arts college somewhere in leafy-green, suburban America. His wife teaches posture classes, his son--an astonishingly precocious young man at the tender age of fourteen--ponders such cerebral questions as the validity of our consciousness--do we really want the things that we want, or are our neurons indiscriminately swimming about in our skulls and haphazardly giving us a false sense of yearning? Then a chemical spill brings about The Airborne Toxic Event, in which an amorphous black cloud hovers over Gladney's complacent little town, ominously darkening the splashy colors and phosphorescent whites of the super market which gives solace to so many of the local denizens, not excluding Gladney's family. The spill may also serve as a metaphor for what DeLillo calls the "white noise" in America, that insidious current in the air resulting from too many radio signals (t.v, radio, e.g.), the infatuation we as Americans have with consumerism--(note: this was written during the Reagan era). The novel also boldly deals with fear, particularly fear of death, another beast within the machine that many must eventaully face. One of the best parts of the novel occurs toward the end, when Jack Gladney has an edifying Q and A over death and the afterlife with a German nun at a hospital, a stark and unflinching illumination which I found great and daring, if not a little sad. This is a Don DeLillo book, and those not familiar with Don DeLillo and his sometimes abstruse connotations on American living might be chary upon entering his world. This one in particular requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief; it is a satire and although at times very earnest and serious, the comedy and absurdity are always there to remind the reader of the tongue-in-cheek nature, which is expertly employed. The complaints that most people have with this novel are fairly obvious to anyone who has read DeLillo before. Though a master word craftsman, stringing along beautiful sentences on every page, DeLillo seems to struggle with creating believable dialogue, and this struggle to me is plainly obvious--the man is just too smart to understand how the majority of average people talk. But. Unquestionably a classic read. Brilliantly plotted, with its portentous admonitions and grave illustrations of a picture-perfect community on the precipice of total disaster, DeLillo has tapped into the throbbing heart of the system, exposing it for all that it really is: waves and radiations.
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Summary: Startling Piece of Contemporary Literature
Review: With "White Noise," Don DeLillo has crafted the ultimate suburban nightmare. He collects the Gladney family - a highly intellectualized, somewhat socially awkward, ultra-modern nuclear family - and forces them to confront humankind's ultimate fear: death. Throughout this novel, DeLillo has his characters attempt to fight death (with pills), confront it (by sitting in a cage with a poisonous snake), and deeply consider it (via classroom lectures about dead celebrities such as Hitler and Elvis). A common complaint about this novel is the disenfranchized, almost inhuman voice given the characters. In an interview with the author, he stated that his book was more like an essay on modern culture and fears rather than a character-driven novel. With that in mind, "White Noise" is far easier to digest. DeLillo's observations and cynical examinations of our human condition are hilarious, just, and jaw-droppingly intense. My version of this book is marred and disfigured with underscores and highlighted passages - indeed, there are too many of them to accurately contain. Needless to say, "White Noise" is one of those books that truly opens your mind, your heart, and your sense of humor. I recommend this novel for anyone who wants to learn a thing or two, discover an excellent writer (who often falls below the radar), and have an insightfully good time.
Rating:
Summary: Clever title.
Review: White Noise makes for an amazing read if you don't need a strongly linked plot or thrive on coherence. I think the problem a lot of readers would have with this book is the complete lack of any real conflict other than the fear of death. However, the gripping aspect of this book -- the part that really lasts -- is the underlying theme that all events in our lives easily transform into nothing but white noise, as the title suggests.
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