Rating: 
Summary: Prophetic
Review: I found "White Noise" to be extremely enjoyable. DeLillo goes from silly to serious with amazing speed. Half the book is so ridiculous that it is hilarious (and purposely so), the other half is so somber and, I believe, prophetic that it left me awestruck. I don't know where I'd rank DeLillo amongst the postmodernists. Nothing I've read by him has blown me away the way that some of Pynchon, Gaddis, or Barth has (bear in mind I have not yet read "Underworld"). Yet I've enjoyed each book of his immensely. As a result, he is probably one of my favorite authors, though he has not written any of my favorite books. "White Noise," however, is probably my favorite of his. I found it immensely enjoyable and eminently worth reading, deserving of the NBA it won. It probably does a better job of tackling the subject that it does than any other book I've ever read.
Rating: 
Summary: I don't know about this one.
Review: I have no idea how everybody's receiving this one so well. I mean, Hitler Studies? I'm supposed to take this seriously? If I wasn't supposed to take it seriously on some level maybe I'd like it, but everybody wants me to take this book real seriously and I can't do it. The repetition of product names (like Velamints) is silly and adds nothing. And DeLillo doesn't bother to throw in a plot until two-thirds of the way through. I like the bantering between Heinrich and Babette and their kids but aside from that I'm not seeing the High Importance of this book. This book is like a still-life of watching television passively, so if that's what you're looking for, this is it.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Depiction of our Noisy Era
Review: DeLillo's greatest acheivement in this book is addressing aspects of life in the late twentieth century (which certainly apply to us just a decade or two after the book was written). The commercials, news, and information that we are constantly bombarded with are major themes of this book. Other themes include coping with seeming meaninglessness, and American obsessions with death and the desire to be happy ALL THE TIME. It's not a book you pick up for an easy read. It was assigned to me in an English class. Pick it up when you're in the mood fro something different and experiemental. The only problem I had with the book was that I didn't particularly like any of the characters.
Rating:
Summary: Not what I hoped
Review: I was so excited to read my first DeLillo; everyone raves about what a great writer he is. I began the book with relish and excitement--perhaps I will have a new author to adore and explore! But the dialogue was so unnatural it completely distracted me from the book. No one speaks the way he writes! I was not engaged by the characters, although clearly I was meant to be. I tried very hard to finish the book, but it was such a chore to plow through the stilted dialogue I just couldn't finish it. Maybe someday I'll have time to try another DeLillo. But I never recommend this book to anyone. I wish I could have liked it.
Rating:
Summary: Good Book/Happy Reader
Review: When I first read the title I thought it was a controversial book on race issues, but it turned out be a satire on a society influenced by pressing technology and mass media. The protagonist is a college professor with a neurotic family. The author doesn't really do much in the character development on a personal level, but does an outstanding job in developing them through what they encounter on a day to day basis. This in my mind keeps to what I think the books tries to speak about; how the agents of technology shapes us, and this book does a superb job on a level of inanity that's enjoyable to read.
Rating:
Summary: Delillo's Masterpiece
Review: White Noise is a book that will stay with you forever after you read it. It is Delillo's most engaging novel and it also happens to be incredibly funny in that in that "hey, the world is ending and there is no reason to live" kind of way. This is a brilliant novel and should be Delillo's key to the Nobel prize, personally, I think he's overdue, but the Nobel committee likes to give the award to writers on the verge of death.
Rating:
Summary: Delillo`s Best Work
Review: The two biggest swipes on White Noise seem to be: (1) there is no plot and; (2) the characters (esp. the children) don`t ring true. The first challenge is simply outlandish. If we define plot in the simpilist way, then its easy to say what this book is about. Its about death, first and foremost. But on a more superficial, back cover blurb basis, its about a chemical spill and how the average disfunctional american family deals with it. Yes, along the way, Delillo turns the focus towards pop culture. Yes, he writes about things in an interesting manner. But this is literature. Just because a book is deeply symbolic and attempts to approach a reading of the zeitgeist doesn`t make it plotless. Second, the characters. Yes, the children are the wisecracking, insight driven creatures who seem to outsmart their parents half the time. Some reviewers have claimed that this is cliched. I would argue that it is no more cliched than presenting children as mindless drones whose worries and aspirations must be filtered through adult experiences. Moreover, the children react in entirely childlike ways to the main events of the book. Denise gets sick and Stephie follows suit. Heinrich, like many young boys, is seduced by the chaos. While I understand more acutely the roots of this line of criticism, I have to argue it too is misplaced. Delillo portrays with remarkable precision the cognomen of the adolescent in a hyper consumer, hyper wise society. Perhaps I spend a lot of time reading plotless books, but White Noise has the momentum of an airport bookstore thriller. And for my money, Don Delillo is the most interesting writer in America right now. His descriptive prowess is unprecedented and his language is perfect. And White Noise is his best book.
Rating:
Summary: Classic
Review: With Murray Siskind, DeLillo has created a character as lovable as he is obnoxious. Murray is the very quintessence of the overblown campus blather we hear too often every day. He talks loud and says nothing. But the passion with which he throws himself into these subjects is touching. His love affair with the small town of Blacksmith, after escaping brutal New York, is touching. We laugh at him first, and with him second. We can't write him off as a bunch of hot air'for all of his pontificating, he does provide some of the novel's better insights.
Among my favorite moments are the gatherings of the New York emigres, who are supposedly the cream of the culturally refined crop, yet trade macho stories about where they've had sex. They are sadistic and fascinating, admitting the self-indulgent nature of self-pity and the ego gratification of envisioning one's own funeral. Sudden disasters like the Nyodene spill'and the Bhopal incident in India which coincided eerily with White Noise's publication'wake people up from their complacent reveries and force them to re-examine aspects of their lifestyle they formerly took for granted. The problem, DeLillo seems to feel, is that they too quickly slip right back into that complacent forgetfulness. This idea is especially poignant since the events of September 11, 2001. The comparison between White Noise and Slaughterhouse Five is an obvious one, and I'm sure I'm not the first to make it. DeLillo's dark humor is what propels this book forward. In treating such an ominous subject as death and our absolute inability to avoid it, DeLillo knows that the best way to avoid slipping into an existential regress is to be funny, to make jokes about death and emphasize the absurdity and lightness of life in the face of something as inevitable and incomprehensible as mortality. This glib attitude towards potential danger continues throughout the book, both in Jack's interior monologues and his often absurd exchanges with other characters, recalls the optimistic absurdity of an experimental novel like Trout Fishing In America as it juxtaposes banality against catastrophe. Characters often seem oblivious to death, or are at least trying to get death to bend to their rules; SIMUVAC gets irritated when real-life emergencies are less convenient than the simulated ones. Double homicides and burning buildings become spectator events. In an unfavorable review of White Noise, Jonathan Yardley wrote: 'DeLillo constructs a powerful case against a great many things it's extremely easy to be against: the numbing and corrupting influences of technology, the dehumanization of modern society, nuclear war, all the usual suspects.' I agree with Yardley, but not for the same reasons. These problems are omnipresent, and because they are omnipresent, a lot of mediocre fiction (and non-fiction) is written about them, causing everyone to lose their appetite for discussing them at any level. DeLillo, in contrast, has written about them from a fresher perspective, removing the generic humanist self-righteousness that often accompanies such discussions, and looking at all these problems from a lighter'yet still more poignant'perspective.
Rating:
Summary: Pass the Oil of Olay
Review: The obsession by these characters with pop culture and bad news rang true, so I can only assume that the characterization of middle age as a time of failing third marriages (think Woody Allen without the "humor") is also accurate. A chilling tale of (post-)modern emptiness.
Rating:
Summary: Will change the way you think
Review: This book, who was recommended to me by my brother, had a very profound effect on me. It seems to open a door in your mind that you didn't realize was there. You seem more aware... as if you can 'see' (emotionally and mentally) those people around you. Plus, it's an intriguing story. It always helps if you can enjoy what you are reading...and be enlightened at the same time. Enjoy.
|
