Don DeLillo

A Prescient Novel We've Learned Nothing From

The novel is listed on "The Greatest Books.org", and won the National Book Award. My copy had
a long and thoughtful forward, and about 100 pages of afterword analysis and interviews with the author. I acknowledge that the author wrote an insightful satire of late 20th century life...specifically consumerism, mass media and academia. The FEAR of DEATH is more than a a theme in the story. It is a character. The fear of death inspires adultery and attempted murder, among other poor life choices we allegedly make in order to suppress it.
Although it is thought provoking, I found it depressing and anxiety producing. Glad to be finished with it.… (mais)

Representation: Black characters
Trigger warnings: Drug use
Score: Five out of ten.
Find this review on The StoryGraph.

Well that was a unique reading experience. I wanted to read Great Jones Street when they got it last year but I put it off for months before finally picking it up. I glanced at the blurb, making it seem intriguing, but I lowered my expectations after seeing the ratings, and when I closed the final page, I thought it was average.

It starts with Bucky Wunderlick leaving New York in the 1970s after forgoing fame and fortune when he left his rock and roll band to pursue peace by travelling across the world in the opening pages. I enjoyed the beginning but Great Jones Street got stale from there as its slow pacing didn't do wonders for it as it disengaged me from the narrative. For a piece of literary fiction, Great Jones Street's plot is surprisingly simple even though it tries focuses on the theme of escaping from fame and riches. Tries. Still, it's superficial since the story is mostly about Bucky going to places and talking to so many characters I couldn't keep track of, and they were hard to connect or relate with. At least I interpreted a message saying being a celebrity has unintended consequences (which is true,) but making the narrative more engaging would've cleared everything up. The conclusion has slightly more action as Bucky arrives at a place called Happy Valley, where he takes a drug that makes him forget to speak until the last pages. What a finish.… (mais)

White Noise - 1: a constant background noise especially one that drowns out other sounds. 2: meaningless or distracting commotion, hubbub, or chatter.

Both definitions are themes played out in Don DeLillo’s novel: the constant background noise in this instance, the excessive and obsessive fear of death felt by the protagonist Jack Gladney and his wife; the meaningless or disturbing commotion, America in the late 80s/ early 90s coming to terms with modern society’s newest influences: supermarkets, television, educational expertise, scientific and medical advancements and the such like.

Despite themes of mortality and death, White Noise is surprisingly a comic novel (albeit a dark one). We are flies on the wall of a typical, atypical American family unit. Jack and Babette and their various children from a series of previously failed marriages bungle through life together. As the story progresses, the spectres of death and modernity begin to flavour domestic life and husband and wife become more and more unhinged.

There is a very Vonnegutian feel to the novel: despite the dramatic events they face, their responses are deadpan and passive - as the novel progresses we gather more and more evidence that DeLillo's characters are not the good parents, responsible citizens or self-aware individuals we assume they are. Numerous failed marriages (twice to the same person) professorships in Hitler studies, couples copies of Mein Kampf, obsessive concerns with who will die first and trips/ harassment of doctors for crying babies and psychosomatic symptoms could perhaps be considered disturbing, but are in fact humorous in their ridiculousness - especially complemented in the way they are quite normal and serious concerns to the characters. The fears, idiosyncrasies and psychosis’s continue to surface and Jack and Babette slowly unravel.

The book works because mortality is an element of the human condition, one which we all have perhaps pondered at points in our lives and hence it is easy to empathise with the Gladneys. They are mirrors for us to take a self-depreciatory laugh at ourselves and meditate and experience our transience vicariously. White Noise is an entertaining and interesting novel rich with potential interpretation and discussion - one I would've liked to buddy read due to the amount of 'stuff' to chew on. I'm happy with my first DeLillo read and look forward to his others which I have on the shelves, namely Underworld, The Names and Libra.… (mais)