Book Review : Don DeLillo - White Noise (1985)
White Noise is the best novel about death I have ever read. Not about murder/suicide/disease, etc. but about death itself. Don DeLillo has managed to write a book about the approach of death without including old people, sick people or hospitals. Pretty impressive for a writer I almost chalked off my interest list after reading the mild and uninspiring Running Dog.
Jack Gladney is a teacher (and a world renowned expert) in Hitler Studies. Funny thing he doesn't even speak German. He lives with his wife Babette in Blacksmith, along with the four children they had from previous weddings: Denise, Steffie, Heinrich and Wilder. None of them have been conceived by Jack and Babette together. Both of them are animated by a strong fear of death that seems petty until the day a cloud of deadly toxins leaks into the world, killing people. It's the AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT * thunder roars *, Exposed to the fumes while filling the gas tank of his car, Jack will have to face the fact that he is slowly dying. His doctor affirms that death is within him and that it's a question of time. Jack will try then by any means to ready up and silence this terrible fear.
The four parts of the book are smartly working together, the last two make sense of of the firsts. The first part, Waves & Radiations exposes Jack and his family as the sum of their consumerist habits. They watch t.v, they go to the supermarket, they hold nonsensical conversations, unable to relate to each other. The scenes are short and funny, but the characters themselves are scared and lonely. Then, the long chapter of the Airborne Toxic Event happens and confronts Jack with what he tried to avoid with these useless preoccupation, this "white noise".
Death.
What White Noise does better than the others is discuss death and face the question of the futility of existence. It's a ballsy novel (if there was ever such a thing) that attacks from an intellectual point of view, a lot of the big problems of occidental society such as consumerism, family and violence. DeLillo raises the problem more than he offers solution, but he also challenges the reader by asking: "What do you do that still counts once you're dead?" It's a bleak report, but it's something you need to hear before trying to numb the loneliness and the fear in shopping and television. Another all-time great. It's worth many readings.
