White Noise by Don DeLillo

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book has a slow start. Don’t read it if you’re not interested in reading long, long conversations about death.

But if you’re like me, read it. If you’re interested in existentialism, particularly Heidegger, then read it. There’s some beautifully-written prose as well. Ooh, and the baby in the main character’s family is an actual character, like real babies.

Think of what it is that makes a joke a joke, rather than some other utterance. Now imagine a joke that has so much of that thing that it’s not funny anymore. It causes a different sensation, like laughter in slow, slow motion, as the various dominoes that he’s placed throughout the text fall, the booby-traps spring, and it all comes together. There are a bunch of those.

I wasn’t into the American 1980s obsession with environmental toxins. This is the one serious flaw in the book, to me: if I was afraid of chemical spills, it would have worked much better, but, even if I should be, I’m not, so it doesn’t.



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