I'm really not sure how to rate this book. I'm processing my thoughts, and may be for some time to come.

This book feels like something that I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe it feels like 1985. Is that it? Could it be so simple?

( )

If you are new to postmodernism, White Noise will be a novel and elucidative experience, capturing the absurdism in our current world with piercing accuracy. These ideas will, however, become repetitive, especially due to the lack of plot. ( )

I have a love/hate relationship with post-modern literature. Largely because I'm never entirely certain if I like it or not. White Noise manages to almost transcend that for me. It's funny. It's witty. The characters are quirky, but not entirely unbelievable. And it's an almost easy to see commentary on modern life, with mentions of our dependency on television and radio. As well as the human need to out run or defeat death, no matter how inevitable it really is. Definitely a book whose popularity makes sense. It speaks to something still incredibly relevant for all of us. ( )

I actually finished this about a week ago and I'm still not quite sure if I liked it or not. Yes, the book was funny as hell in a lot of places. DeLillo's nothing if not a master of very dark humor. But still, at the end, all I found myself wondering was "What was the point?"

White Noise doesn't seem to even have a plot until the last of three sections. Surprisingly, it was the plotless sections I enjoyed the most. They were funnier and had some fantastic one liners. The third section, honestly, I'm not quite sure about. It had a plot, but it was kind of a stupid, over the top one that didn't make sense (to me) when taking the first two sections into consideration. The end of the book I read quickly just because I wanted to be done with it, and that's the worst reason to finish a book.

I'm giving the book a three for now. It's a neutral rating. In a couple years I plan to reread this book and hopefully, I'll have a better take on the book then. ( )

I have recently finished White Noise by Don Delillo. I was enthralled by this book; living it word by exact word. And yet, it flowed nicely. It was a comparatively easy read (as opposed to V.) that never bored me.

In spite of this book being written before the World Wide Web, which has only added to the swarm, the book's main focus is the topic of the information that we are bombarded with as we live our modern lives. From the narrator to his current wife and the children (his own and those brought in by marriage), we see the constant absorption of needless information; information that is derived from other people's panic, fears, superstition that when received is processed as matter-of-fact, almost apathetically. As it is shared it is passed along like gossip only to be argued against, mutated, and disenfranchised. This happens day-to-day within the narrator's family.

And then the Airborne Toxic Event (a very specific name for a very specific disasters whose cause and effects are very unspecific) occurs and the molestation and noise of information (founded and unfounded, though it is nearly impossible to decipher which is which) grows considerably as evacuation procedures are made. It is not exactly chaotic. Much more this is a group of people who live in a small college town who are addicted to the events seen and heard through television and radios: they have seen all the disasters of the world, thus the only new thing is that it is happening to them.

After the Airborne Toxic Event, the exploration of death takes place and is pondered on immensely by the lead character. In the end, a singular philosophy takes place: Are you the dier or the killer? (And yes, that is how "dier" is spelled in the novel.) And in spite of this singularity of thought, this "theory" of how we live as humans in this society, the narrator defeats it. He is neither dier nor killer: he just is.

I think the one aspect that I can draw from reading this is how prone we are to misinformation; and how we create our own tabloid within all that we witness and hear. ( )