White Noise is this kick-ass book by Don DeLillo. It won the National Book Award in 1985 and focuses on Jack Gladney, founder of the Hitler Studies Program at a small liberal arts college, a toxic waste spill, death and super markets. It's funny as hell, the reason for many of my neuroses and hated by sophomore level junior college students the world over. Hey, if you ever teach this novel and are told by your pupils that the book sucks because, "Nothing happens," don't respond by telling them that they're young and naive and haven't yet realized that nothing ever happens--that life is one big penalty kill. Bad pedagogy. Bad bad pedagogy.
Rating: 90%
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14 comments:
Teachable moment, Andrew. Like how when the stoned kid forgets his term paper you can turn it into a class discussion on "Legalizing it." It's the dream of every creative writing grad to be the Cool Teacher (tm), after all.
Isn't he the bass player for the Stone Temple Pilots?
Who? DeLillo, or the cool stoner kid? Because actually, Lil' Wayne went to UH and took Freshman Comp online from a person in the grad program before his shit blew up (figurative; urban slang).
Sorry guitarist.
You should tell Oprah and Dr. Phil. They love telling people they are young and naive.
hey yall i saw the movie that was basd on this and it was actually p scarey b/c it was basd on a true storey did yall now that ghosts and zombees live in tv and radios well they do! and that dude who played batman is th eonly one who can stop them i giv it 4/5 stars (it loses one for the cussin)
I got nothin.
Oh, Andrew.
I read this book for the first time in Modern Thought (which you skipped out of!), and I felt like I was the only one in the class who 1) hadn't already read it, and 2) wasn't tickled and delighted. I said so in my annotation, & our teacher seemed really effected by that... she said I should reread it later, she'd be interested to hear if my opinion changed. And I'm really curious to hear you say you loved this book, because you're around my age, and the answer we came up with as to why I wasn't interested in this book was that time had robbed it of all its irony and wit.
Airborne toxic event? Pills to change your mood? Dude, we got it. That's not an absurdist vision, it's what we have in front of us. History has outdone White Noise, so I'm not a bit surprised that your students found it dull. They, more than us, really don't know a world where all that chaos was never really present. Now, it all just seems like a weak parody.
I guess the reason I liked it was because I felt the satire was more apt now than in the mid-80s, what with the internet and pop-up ads and, well, Citi Field...stadiums now carrying commercials in their names.
You're right that the book is probably not an absurdist vision anymore, and its parody weakened.
I suppose I like it for the scenes where white noise had or does alter the psychology of the characters; I think he does a great job, for instance, in the air disaster scene, where the plane almost crashes but doesn't, and the passengers get off the plane and are upset that there aren't any television cameras around, no one from the media to interview them and ask what happened and how they felt. I think one of the passengers even says something to the extent of, "It's like it never even happened [if they aren't here to interview us]."
Side note: During my thesis defense I told my committee I wanted to write a novel, something like White Noise or Mao II, to which one of my committee members said, "Those books are idea-driven. You're not that kind of writer."
HUH! Crazy. I'd like to hear who said that. I hope it doesn't offend you if i agree with them. Because even if you hang something on an idea, if the story has no structure or depth to stand on, well... you have The DaVinci Code. Which, you know, might not be the worst thing to have. But still.
There WERE a lot of funny moments. I mean, I could definitely identify with the people and the location. It's well-done, but I can understand your studens' reaction. I will reread it someday, but not anytime soon. And I won't read his Nine Eleven novel, either. Idea-driven, indeed.
I know why David Foster Wallace hung himself.
Hanged. Pictures get hung.
Sorry, I was thinking about Wesley Snipes.
Also, if you make your way over to dictionary.com, you might notice that the regularized past participle "hanged" is optional, i.e. for twats.
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