I’m not here, on Goodreads, with the intention of promoting my writing and harbouring the hope that someone will suddenly realise how “special and smart” I am and then decides to publish a novel that I’m not even in the process of writing. No, I’m not that naive. Or pretentious, for that matter.

The reason I’m here is actually quite simple: Love. Yes, love; for books and words, for life and people. That’s what I firmly believe and what truly matters to me: literature as a form of art and art as a reflection of the human experience.

I don’t think Don DeLillo, with all his passion and dedication seemingly focused on American propaganda, shares any of my beliefs. All he appears to care about is status and money. He longs for the praise and the fame that comes with it. He believes he is the last specimen of a superior kind of human being and he couldn’t care less about anything happening outside his private American bubble.

He is who he is, doesn’t want to be any different and he’s actually proud of it. Well, good for him.

I’ll choose to stay outside his bubble, content in my own beliefs and love for the true essence of literature and life.

In life, sometimes a question arises: are there topics that are prohibited from being joked about? Perhaps death? DeLillo tells us: there are no such topics, and it is possible to joke about death.

Serious philosophical questions and wonderful humor are combined in one cover.

This is an absolutely wonderful book. However, I wouldn't even risk recommending it to anyone.

It's a book that challenges our traditional观念 and makes us think deeply about the meaning of life and death.

The author's unique writing style and profound insights make this book a must-read for those who are interested in philosophy and literature.

But at the same time, it may also be a bit too avant-garde and controversial for some people.

Therefore, I think it's better to let everyone decide for themselves whether to read this book or not.

The story ends there. A person spends his life saying goodbye to others. The problem is how can someone say goodbye to himself.

To be honest, the last time I dealt with DeLillo's books, I noticed that my feelings had a specific sequence: initially, I don't understand where it's going and I'm confused. Then I'm convinced that he's just writing whatever comes to his mind and I'm disappointed. Finally, I discover that the man is simply a genius and I get excited.

This is exactly what happened with this little masterpiece. And to a hyperbolic degree. For me, "White Noise" was a book that spoke to me. It closed my eye.

So what is the white noise? It's the noise that is always there. In all of our lives. We live normally and it's there. We do all those things that society dictates to us and it's there. However, there are moments when it's not just there but it drowns out all other sounds and all activities and comes forward and threatens to drown us too. It's the fear of death. Which for some is easier to face at the edge, while for others it's simply overwhelming and they think about it every moment. In any case, for everyone it's the noise that accompanies them throughout their lives. And while some think that this gives more value to life and makes us appreciate it more, what would you say if there was a... pill that cured this fear and made us live our lives with the same destination but with a (very significant) slightly lesser awareness? Wonderful? But what happens with the side effects that every pill has? How would a life without fear be? All these and many other things are dealt with by DeLillo in this little masterpiece of his that, as I said before, spoke to me. Through the prism of surrealism and the extremely humorous situations and the satire of contemporary society, it touches on the most serious themes, asking us to hold on to what is important to us. A book that is thrillingly relevant despite its age and that, like all of the author's books, left me thinking for a long time after the end.

4.5 stars!

Book that... huh!
There are books that I love and that keep me glued to the pages, books that I end up abandoning, and "books that huh"! This one by Don DeLillo is a book that huh... some spectacular ideas: a university faculty of Hitlerism, whose teachers play at being post-modern dandies, hidden behind dark glasses and a toga. Attracted by the desire to have a Socratic dialogue when instead the result appears only as a ridiculous extravagance. A toxic cloud that forces a small town to a demented evacuation, which at times reminded me a lot of "Blindness" by Saramago, a ramshackle family full of children older than the parents. And the fear of death dominating everything. Yet some flashes of freshness and poetry prevent me from treating it badly. Here it is: one of my best "books that huh..."

This book seems to be a strange concoction of various elements. The concept of a Hitlerism faculty is both disturbing and oddly fascinating. The teachers' behavior adds a touch of absurdity to the whole scenario. The toxic cloud and the evacuation bring a sense of chaos and uncertainty, similar to what we find in Saramago's work. The family dynamics are also quite unique, with the children being more adult than the parents. It's a book that makes you think and question, and yet, it has its own charm and beauty. Despite its flaws, it manages to capture your attention and keep you engaged until the very end.

This is likely the most approachable of Delillo's works. It's the one I could simply take off my shelf, remove the dust from its weathered cover, and hand it to you, saying, "This is what the master excels at." Or perhaps something a bit less overly dramatic, but you understand my point.

It also features a single line that might encapsulate his entire literary career: "All plots move deathward."

Wikipedia describes the book as an "absurdist family drama combined with academic satire." That's a good beginning. Truly, it's about a man who has fabricated his way through much of his life. He's been married five times and finds humor in the world by becoming a professor of Hitler studies, yet he's afraid of death. And he's afraid in the same way we all are. The postmodern, statistical way we live, constantly waiting for the end, when the simulacra ceases. In all of his books, incorporated into the plot is the way we embrace media saturation, consumerism, novelty intellectualism, and a penchant for conspiracies as a significant part of our lives. The way we pass the time, so to speak.

My advice: Read it. Especially if you haven't already. If you have, that's great. Read it again. Read it to your family or someone lying beside you in bed. Read it to a puppy or an autistic child on Christmas morning, then point to the turned-off television and mime changing the channels, and read it to them again.

My earlier encounters with DeLillo's works had been rather lackluster. (Exhibits: A; B). However, this particular one managed to capture my interest. DeLillo's ironic wit was on full and focused display. He skillfully blended observational humour with incisive social commentary, and added in quite an insightful exploration of the human condition. The prose was truly fantastic. I found myself smiling on several occasions due to his clever phraseology.

Nevertheless, I was not entirely satisfied. The irony seemed heavy-handed and pervasive, almost bending the narrative to its own focus. At times, it created absurd moments that felt overly contrived. The novel didn't so much feel like a coherent story as it did a conversation the author was having with himself. While it was a conversation I enjoyed listening to, it did leave me with a bit of a confused and bamboozled feeling.

Overall, it was a mixed experience. There were aspects that I truly appreciated, such as the sharp wit and the thought-provoking social commentary. But the heavy-handed irony and the somewhat disjointed narrative structure did detract from the overall enjoyment to some extent. I'm still not sure if I would recommend this book wholeheartedly, but it does have its merits and is worth considering for those who are interested in DeLillo's work or in exploring unique literary styles.

I am currently in a very challenging situation as I am attempting to determine whether White Noise is truly an intelligent piece of work that I have completely failed to comprehend. Or perhaps it is simply one of those novels that strive to seem extremely intelligent, deep, and profound, yet in reality, do not make much sense at all.

The characters within the novel are all rather strange, and the dialogue and prose are quite weird. It may not be uncommon for authors to create characters who are unemotional and entirely incapable of having a normal conversation. However, I find it difficult to appreciate such a use of artistic freedom if it serves no purpose and makes no meaningful point.

In addition to being obscure, the prose lacks fluidity. There are sudden scene changes and unnecessary interruptions of scenes. In several instances, DeLillo interrupts a dialogue to insert a series of brand names that are unrelated to the scene, and then continues with the dialogue once again.

I believe that one of the aspects that greatly disappointed me was that DeLillo did not convincingly explain the transformation of an ordinary man (at least, ordinary within DeLillo's fictional universe) into a murderer. This is especially disappointing for a novel that purports to revolve around human psychology to a significant extent.

I awarded it three stars because for the first 100 pages or so, Don DeLillo managed to make me believe that he was building up to something truly remarkable. However, by the time I reached the end of the book, I had become so desensitized by the absurd dialogue that I had already forgotten what it was that I had initially liked.

Here are a few examples of the meaninglessness within the text:

"He looks like a man who finds dead bodies erotic." (This one truly takes the cake.)

"The point of rooms is that they are inside. No one should go into a room unless he understands this. People behave one way in rooms, another way in streets, parks, and airports. To enter a room is to agree on a certain kind of behavior that takes place in rooms. This is the standard, as opposed to parking lots and beaches. It is the point of the rooms. No one should enter a room not knowing the point......" (What would I ever do without these words of wisdom!)

This book is an absolute jumble, yet it manages to be both complex and entertaining, confusing and humorous, despairing and brilliant all at once.

It delves into layer upon layer of themes, exploring all the things that are wrong with the world. We have toxic chemicals, radiation, death, isolation, leakages, fallouts, and fake news. But it also balances these with the things that are right, like sleeping children, fried chicken, people who can fix things, the tiny constants in an ever-changing environment, and the remarkable resilience of humans in the face of the inevitable chaos and upheaval of life.

The personalities, conversations, and decisions that make up this blended family living through an Airborne Toxic Event in a small college town in Anywhere, USA, create a literary feast that lifts the reader out of the mire of the novel's many death-obsessed moments.

There are reviewers far more erudite than I who have dissected the satirical, paradoxical, postmodernist aspects of this 1985 National Book Award winner. But all I can say is that it was one wild ride, filled with nuggets of truth and wisdom that took my thinking to an entirely new plane. And that's precisely one of the reasons I love to read. I liken this experience to my first ride on the Carolina Cyclone at Carowinds amusement park - I'm glad the ride is over, but I wouldn't trade a single second of it.

"Facts pose a threat to our happiness and security. The deeper we probe into the nature of things, the more tenuous our structure may appear to become. The family unit functions to shield itself from the world."

Mi tercer DeLillo. He aquí un autor interesante, sin duda imprescindible para conocer la literatura posmoderna del siglo XX. Pero, sinceramente, creo que no es para mí. Así es como me ha resultado:

1. "El silencio": 2 estrellas - ¿qué es esto?

2. "Punto Omega": 4 estrellas - quizá sí valga la pena...

3. "Ruido de fondo": No sé, Rick... 3 estrellas?

A su favor, debo decir que he llegado al final de las 350 páginas, aunque mayoritariamente con la ceja levantada, desaprobando pero leyendo. DeLillo fluye, se enrolla y pone cosas interesantes aquí y allá. Supongo que por algo la mayoría de las reseñas son entusiastas.

El libro versa sobre el miedo a la muerte y lo trata a veces como una comedia (Woody Allen de los primeros tiempos) y a veces como filosofía tosca. El problema es que la parte de comedia no me resulta divertida (salvo unas pocas excepciones, como las clases de alemán) y la parte ensayística suena manida.

Un profesor universitario - que ha creado una cátedra sobre Hitler - junto con su familia disfuncional se enfrentan a un apocalipsis químico mientras luchan con sus obsesiones abstractas. Creo que la mayoría de los planteamientos acaban en anticlímax. Se podría resumir diciendo que, en la mayoría de los casos, después de mucha preparación, al final no pasa nada, y cuando al final pasa algo, con el episodio de Mr Gray, es todo tan absurdo y forzado que es aún peor.

DeLillo escribe bien, muy bien. Nos regala montones de párrafos elaborados, como el que habla de la lengua alemana: "La lengua alemana. Carnosa, tergiversadora, escupiente, congestionada y cruel. Más pronto o más tarde uno se veía obligado a enfrentarse a ella." Hay muchas páginas dedicadas a los supermercados, la medicina, la química y otros temas similares, que en general me han parecido bastante tópicos en el modo de tratarlos.

Creo que el mayor problema es que no conecto con el sentido del humor de DeLillo, aunque sí aprecio su gran esfuerzo narrativo e imaginativo en una obra que pretende retratar la sociedad de consumo de nuestra época, con todo el absurdo y la angustia vital que implica. También hay que pensar que se publicó en los años 80 y seguramente entonces aportaba más novedades en fondo y forma que hoy en día.

The madness lies right in the middle of all these half-read books. Like warm food that has already fallen from the mouth and turned cold, some have even gone bad. Suddenly, I start a new book..... But actually, this work is something else.

Many such things have happened. You wait for a book for a long time, and then after a long and tiresome wait... Among a world of half-read books, with a bit of perseverance, it finally reaches you through special delivery. It's a bit of a hassle; a bit of slowness makes reading it take longer. And now my opinion is not very positive. Throughout the initial chapters of the book, I kept asking myself why the life of this ridiculous American family should be attractive to me. It didn't have an amazing rise and fall story... A story full of philosophical thoughts about death, a bit of television, and the fear of death... The book was boring for me until the Dealer chapter... Only then did it become a bit more interesting for me because of the "revelation" and the events after that. Gradually, I became aware of the work.

It didn't matter to me anymore why I should read this boring and depressing story. I had already solved this depression within myself..... Overall, in my opinion, it was a completely predictable story full of sleazy descriptions... Full of strange characters with tiresome descriptions that were absurdly trying to shine with satire..... "We start our lives in every turmoil, and whenever we are thrown into the world, we try to acquire a shape for ourselves, a map. There is dignity and pride in this act....." If you are one of those people whose journey ends at night and whose beliefs have turned your mood upside down, I recommend you give this work a try. And if not... forget it completely. Fully aware of yourself :))

A few years ago, not long after Katrina wreaked havoc on New Orleans, Time magazine published a cover story delving into how Americans prepare for and cope with disasters. The conclusion was rather disheartening - we don't do a very good job. The story highlighted that while Americans are prone to obsessing over all the terrible things that could potentially occur, we are reluctant to take any steps to prevent or minimize their impact. This is because we simply don't want to admit that these disasters are truly possible.

That's precisely why Americans would go into a frenzy if someone proposed spending a few hundred million dollars of tax money on measures like strengthening the levees in New Orleans or implementing stricter building codes for hurricanes in Florida. Despite the fact that such actions would have saved numerous lives and billions of dollars in rebuilding costs before Hurricanes Katrina or Andrew struck. (A recent example that comes to mind is when the Republicans tried to turn a few million dollars earmarked for a volcano eruption early warning program into an example of Obama's wasteful spending. However, when an actual volcano eruption occurred in Sarah Palin's region shortly after that and the early warning system was credited with saving lives, the topic conveniently vanished from the headlines. Oh, those unpredictable right wingers!)

On a more personal level, the average American will worry incessantly about their weight, cholesterol levels, heart disease, cancer, swine flu, bird flu, and so on. But the sad reality is that most of them will continue to lead sedentary lifestyles, consume unhealthy diets, skip regular physical check-ups that could potentially detect life-threatening illnesses early, and refuse to get vaccinated. Or they will stubbornly refuse to evacuate an area when a potentially devastating storm is approaching.

I couldn't help but think about that Time story while reading White Noise. The book truly lives up to its reputation as a post-modern masterpiece, filled with a dark and absurd sense of humor and layer upon layer of profound themes. What I found particularly engaging was DeLillo's masterful portrayal of how people worry themselves sick about death while simultaneously trying to deny its inevitability.

The story centers around Jack Gladney, a professor at a small college who has created a department and academic field dedicated to studying Hitler. Jack and his wife Babette have a typical nuclear family circa 1985, with several divorces and a large brood of children from their previous marriages. Interestingly, their kids often seem more mature than the parents in many ways. Jack spends a significant amount of his time engaging in surreal discussions with his children and colleagues about a plethora of trivial subjects. However, their idyllic suburban tranquility is shattered when a train accident triggers an 'airborne toxic event', forcing the entire community to flee.

After the incident, Jack discovers that he may have been exposed to potentially fatal doses of the toxins, but the onset of the effects remains uncertain. This leads both Jack and Babette to confess to each other their intense fear of death. In Babette's case, she has resorted to extreme measures and been keeping some rather serious secrets to deal with her phobia.

Even though both Jack and Barbette believe they have an above-average fear of death, the lengths they go to in admitting potentially lethal problems are both hilarious and slightly demented. After the train accident, the kids notice the toxic cloud growing larger from their vantage point in the train yard and attempt to alert Jack to the potential danger. However, Jack refuses to accept that middle-class people like themselves could be victims of an industrial accident. Only the poor souls who live near train yards and factories need to worry about such things, Jack assures the children, even as the cloud continues to expand.

So, instead of packing up the car and getting to a safe distance, they sit down to dinner. When emergency vehicles drive down the street and use loudspeakers to instruct everyone to evacuate, and the kids once again urge them to leave, Jack and Babette engage in a debate about whether the person on the loudspeaker said they should leave NOW or if they still have some time. Surely, if there was any real danger, he would have told them to run immediately, wouldn't he?

Later, when Jack is discussing his blood test results with a doctor, he insists on lying about his health habits. He claims to eat well, exercise regularly, and not drink alcohol, even as the doctor is trying to explain what they have found. Despite the fact that the results of the chemical test are sitting right in front of him in an envelope, Jack's irrationality compels him to lie to the doctor, as if pretending to lead a healthy lifestyle will somehow change the outcome. It's a brilliant scene that showcases both bargaining and denial.

White Noise also contains great satire about academic careers, suburban American consumer culture, family life, the media, and countless other aspects of modern society. It's a veritable treasure trove of dark deadpan humor, written with great skill and intelligence.

Rounded up from 2.5 stars, though this is being generous in the extreme.

Don DeLillo presents this rather offbeat piece that takes the reader on an adventure they might wish they had never embarked upon. Told in an oddly lilting manner, a family grapples with the pressures of the outside world in a way that only they can surmise is rational.

Jack Gladney, the Chair of the Hitler Department at a small college in Middle America, thrives on the uniqueness of his work, yet has never learned to speak German, thus missing a crucial aspect of the essential research. At home, life is equally as peculiar. Gladney and his wife, Babette, head a family of children from their past marriages, a conglomeration of offspring mixed together like a multi-tiered cake. They attempt to create some semblance of normalcy in a situation that is far from it.

With all this going on, there is something on the horizon, quite literally. When an accident at a train yard releases a toxic chemical, Gladney and his family gaze upon it with a mix of awe. However, this cloud does not dissipate, and soon the town is forced into an evacuation. Jack Gladney is exposed, albeit briefly, to some of the fallout. He chooses to keep this to himself, but the specter of death now looms large for him. He returns home, contemplative as he banters with the children in the house, only to discover that Babette has been on her own emotional rollercoaster regarding this and many other subjects.

For the remainder of the novel, death lurks, as does the inherent fear of its arrival, leading the reader on a mind-bending (and numbing) discussion of preparation for the end and the allure of the afterlife. While there are surely some high points in this novel, much of it is mired in valleys that I wish I had avoided. I'll remain neutral in any recommendations and let each reader make their own decision.

It is always challenging to delve into the middle of a well-established author's body of work and find fault with the first piece one discovers. Having never read Don DeLillo before (and asked to do so for a book challenge), I couldn't help but wonder what sort of experience awaited me. The dust jacket blurb for this piece seemed somewhat intriguing, giving me hope that I would find something to hold my attention. However, as the story progressed, I was inundated with silly asides that frustrated me more than advanced the plot.

Jack Gladney has the potential to be a captivating character, especially given his job, but that ends up being a distant subplot and seems to serve only as window dressing. Instead, we see how Gladney tries to navigate the patchwork of his home life with children from various marriages over the years, none of which provide the reader with much depth into the protagonist. There is little about the man that is overly exciting, as he meanders along with his quasi-philosophical musings and banal conversations about life, death, and other topics that lull the reader into a state of wakeful sleep.

I wanted so much more, especially considering all that was happening around him (and set during a time when chemical disasters could have had far-reaching implications). The people around Gladney were equally irritating, fueling some strange need to engage him in silly topics without actually making any progress. The premise of the novel had some promise for me, but its impact was lost in the many long-winded and silly conversations that went nowhere.

Kudos, Mr. DeLillo, for the attempt, but I will likely avoid your work for a while.

This novel fulfills the June requirements of Mind the Bookshelf Gap Reading Group. https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

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A Book for All Seasons, a different sort of Book Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...