My rating: 4 of 5 stars
White Noise is a post-modern novel. At least that’s what I was told, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to rebel against the label. What’s post-modernism? A reaction to modernism, which was a reaction to realism, which was a reaction to… I don’t know, God, I guess. And we only invented God as a way to explain death, to be less afraid of it. White Noise is about death, and how scary it is.
Don DeLillo’s post-modern novel “deconstructs” otherwise familiar institutions, such as the traditional family, for example. The main character is on his fifth marriage (although two of the previous marriages were to the same woman). He lives with some, but not all, of his children from those previous marriages, and some, but not all, of his current wife’s children from her previous marriage. But this is not a “dysfunctional” family, nor does DeLillo bother to show us how they’re oh-so functional. White Noise portrays things exterior to the labels slapped on them after the fact.
People argue with the main character about the meanings of words, the absurdity of accepting concepts merely as their given or shared by society. Folks are fascinated by trivia, ephemera, the detritus of desiderata. Subjects are taken out of their institutional contexts, stripped of judgement, and then reinserted to perform on their own merits. Or something. Look, I wrote a brilliant review just a few minutes ago, then accidentally deleted it without saving. I am not at all happy about this.
I don’t want to write some kind of critical analysis of the book, I just want to tell you whether you should read it or not, why I gave it four stars. I mean, Don DeLillo, right? He should get five stars, yes? Maybe I’m just not smart enough to get sucked into a book like this, maybe I need more plot, more character development. Usually in these reviews I rant and rave about how bad or good a writer’s prose style comes across. Don DeLillo’s writing is matter-of-fact, which is a good thing in this context. He doesn’t try to impress us with verbal brilliance. Or replace “impress” with “distract.” Or replace “distract” with “fool.” I don’t know if he set out to write a post-modern nove, or if that’s just how he thinks.
But it doesn’t matter what he thinks, but matters is what I think, and what I think is that nothing really matters. I can tell you this, after reading White Noise, I don’t know if I’m eager to read more so-called Post-Modern novels, but I do really want to go watch a few gorgeous sunsets. Not because they’re a symbol of anything. Just to see how beautiful they can be.