White Noise by Don DeLillo, a review

At the time Don DeLillo wrote White Noise (1985) computers were still a discrete object and something that you engaged with on an occasional basis. We had PCs but they were chained to desks and their applications limited.  Today we’ve got a device 100x more powerful with a bottomless scroll and an insatiable appetite for our attention. ChatGPT and other AI applications spit out answers that flatter you and may or may not be correct, with the only certainty that you haven’t learned a damned thing. And here comes a new bright shiny and it's time to stare at the next thing!

We have WAY too much information at our disposal and most of it is noise, not signal. 

This is the low hum of DeLillo’s novel.

You don’t need a plot summary; as with a book like Stoner the plot is entirely secondary and almost irrelevant. Remarried suburban well-to-do husband and wife raising a family are outwardly OK but inwardly unhappy, living a life of mindless consumption. The husband is a college professor who has built his entire career teaching an undergraduate seminar on Hitler. Weird, but he’s the king of his odd fiefdom of hyper-specialized knowledge.

The family is awoken from its torpor by a chemical spill which briefly threatens to tip the novel into postapocalyptic territory. It does not, but exposure to the chemical lends an apocalyptic air to the rest of the book. The husband is poisoned, likely fatally. His wife is caught taking experimental pills to remove her fear of death. This leads to some late novel drama that I won’t spoil here.

Is it worth your time?

Qualified yes. You need to read outside your genre; White Noise won a National Book Award and DeLillo is a wonderful stylist.

We are drowning in white noise more than never. Even though the technology of the book is dated the underlying message is even more relevant today than 1985.

I recognize myself in the novel’s protagonist. My head is stuffed with useless information; I have become an “expert” on things like sword-and-sorcery and heavy metal, but I could not fix a car engine or build a house. I suspect many of you will identify.

Now the qualifications.

It’s a postmodern novel and rather enervating. I’m much more aware of what I consume (even if I still eat too much junk food and drink too much beer); I know that you are impacted by that with which you choose to spend your time. And this book doesn’t have a particularly uplifting message ... though neither does A Song of Ice and Fire and people seem to like that well enough.

I would not recommend reading too many postmodern novels without a strong foundation of other works. Balance this stuff with heroics or fantasy or the spiritual because there is none of that here. It offers no answers to life, just an (admittedly beautiful) depiction of our powerlessness, and helplessness in the face of death.

It’s the usual stuff: God doesn’t exist, we’re just chemical reactions, even a gorgeous evening sunset is just natural phenomena—and quite likely the result of toxic fumes from the spill. 

None of this is presented as a Good Thing by DeLillo; the protagonist goes from complacency to ennui, to unnerved, and finally disappointed by the state of the world. He refuses to engage with it, the hard cold data of it, and remains in a state of denial. And when he does attempt action the book steers into something of the pathetic and comic.

But if you want to learn how to incorporate theme into your work, or what heroic fantasy/S&S pushes back against, or how to create believable characters, I’d recommend White Noise.