This book was selected for another group book. White Noise by Don Delillo
I just want to start by saying this is a very difficult book to review. This might seem all over the place and choppy, for that I apologize. This book is wild and dark and as many points I feel the need to mention, essentially a mess but well, here it is.
This novel was a blind read for me as I decided to pick it up for a group book (i have been hopping around to all the groups I am active in, and trying my best to give each group’s monthly selection a try). This Literary fiction was published in 1985 and won the National Book Award in the same year. I have missed reading Literary fiction along with a few other genres this past month and new I was overdue for a quick switch up.
As a word of caution, please understand that this book does make you feel hyper aware of Death and the fact that it may come at any moment. It is a dark themed book written with a comical prose, I assume to take its edge of, a juxtaposition, essentially. It explores the fear of death, human life, everyday stresses as well have you experience an existential crises though the narration of our main character. The ironic tone within the dialogue and writing alternates between dark humor and impactful, emotional statements.
Our Main character, Jack, uses much of his mental space focusing on death and worrying about how it will happen, its meaning and his overall fear of it. Jack, along with his wife Babette, suppress their fears by minimizing death to be nothing more than an eternal hum of white noise, which is broken down with examples sporadically throughout the book.
The topic of Brand Name consumerism is also laced underneath the entirety of this book; many brand names are mentioned as well the realization of what it's doing to his children's subconscious minds. This topic is not explored so obviously but is a sort of "read between the lines" exploration. There is a great example though, pointed out, that shopping blindly is a great comparison to how we treat life.
Jack and his colleague, Murray, are two very distinguished professors. Jack focuses his lectures on Hitler Studies, and Murray lectures his pupils on Elvis. Both are controversial, powerful white males icons and their names being mentioned in the novel dramatize the issues of race and privilege, both produced a fair amount of noise, namely white noise. The comparison, although made sense in context, is an incredibly wrong one out of context. Hitler made his white noise by spreading anti-Semitic views, via incredibly heinous speeches. Elvis made his noise in the history of American rock and roll with his controversial profit from Black music and sex appeal.
On page 248, a character uses a racial slur to stereotype a person based on their behaviour, this was what I was fearing most while reading this book and of course, there it is. We somehow managed to bypass all the conversations regarding Hitler to get to this point in a completely different section of the book with new characters. I am truly stunned. There was a scene in which both characters, Jack and Murray, have a showdown of spitting facts of their two favourite icons to usurp the others. This is just an incredibly uncomfortable thing to read as Jack continues to try to humanize Hitler by comparing him to Elvis in every way he can. It seemed to Mitigate Hitler’s brutality by having the reader see the emotional and vulnerable side of Hitler especially when it mirrored Elvis's mourning his mother as well. I just cannot believe that a book exists where a main character is not only obsessed with Hitler (in a "positive" way) but also obsessed with Germany and all things in relation. He mentioned it to be similar to a hobby one might have. ugh!
There were other plot points introduced to the keep the story on the track that Delillo wanted it to go: towards the inevitable possibility of death. We also witness a growing plume of toxic black smoke that is considered lethal to Humans but on a scale no one can understand, another form of white noise. This also, as I mentioned, was an inciting incident to keep the story moving in a dark yet urgent direction.
Jack's Brother in law gifts him a handgun as a gift "for safety", which I felt was another form of imagery regarding death. I will leave out what happened to the gun, as well as everything at occurred from this point on for anyone curious enough to want to read it. Though I am able to say that it all works with the books themes and ideology. The ending really does drive home all the different plot points in this novel I have mentioned so far as a huge lesson learned. Overall, I'd give this a 3.5 star or 4. Really could have done with better Icons than Hitler and Elvis. This book is not that old, really I mean, come on. 🙆
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