Hip Hop, Marmalade, Spic and Span..... wait, what?

Book12: "White Noise" by Don Delillo

Disclaimer: The following is a poorly written review with an absolute disregard for research, insight, professionalism, and just plain old good manners. Reading the review is likely to fill readers with the incessant need to bitch and moan like an juvenile snob. I take no responsibility for causing such actions, or any responsibilty for this review in general.

“White Noise” by Don Delillo came as another recommendation for a friend, but only came as that; no expectations of greatness or prestige other than the cover telling me it is one of Penguin Books’ great books of the 20th century. As stated, no research was done prior to reading. I jumped in head first.

The story centers on Jack Gladney, a professor at a Midwestern college who teaches and is the the department head of Hitler studies. Jack is around 50 years of age, has been divorced five times from four different women, and is currently married to Babette, a slightly overweight cheery middle aged house wife who has brought two of her own children from previous marriages to match Jack. Together the couple and their four children/step-children live in the outskirts of a town called Iron City. Jack has a preoccupation with death, and his strong fear of it becomes the focal point of his life after his town has a brush with a potentially lethal chemical cloud.

The book is divided into three “acts”, if you will: Waves and Radiation, The Airborne Toxic Event, and Dylarama. The first act is somewhat disjointed. The chapters arent told as a continuous narrative story, but instead separate events involving the characters, serving as a background of sorts for the characters, introducing who they are. The second act introduces what I consider the “start” of the story; the city is exposed to a black chemical cloud that infects those exposed with a chemical called Nyodene D. The final act, and the meatiest of them all, narrates the aftermath of the exposure, and how it affected the lives of Jack Gladney and his family.

To be honest, I was pretty lost for something like the first two hundred pages of the book. I, more or less, struggled through the first fifty pages of the book, and could not keep myself awake to read THREE pages without falling asleep (after working thirteen hour work days, six days out of the week). It probably had a lot to do with the fact the first part of the book, as I said, did not have a continuously flowing story, but was a series of episodes (in the form of chapters) providing background information on the characters. Call me a juvenile reader, but in order to get hooked to a literary story, I need a story I can immerse myself in; a plot I can attach myself to. Obviously, in the later parts and chapters, a story emerges and I’m able to finish the book, but even then, I am still not one hundred percent there. A couple main themes jumped out to me, but I don’t think I fully grasped those ideas, though I will try to put them into words.

The first of the themes that seemed to jump out was the oddity of the culture. Firstly, Jack is the department head for Hitler studies, which was created because Jack suggested it to the school’s dean. I understand that there might be classes dedicated solely to the study of Hitler, but an entire department? And from the book, it seemed like it wasn’t an outrageous or eccentric thing. The classes were well attended; as a professor, Jack was highly respected by the students and staff. They even hold a conference to be attended by Hitler scholars from around the world. It’s as if the Department of Hitler Studies is legitimized just because Professor Gladney proposed it, and that was more than enough for others around the world to give it credibility. The same thing can be seen in Jack’s colleague, Murray, who was formerly a sports writer from New York City, but came to the school to teach pop culture, particularly the studies of Elvis Presley. The Pop Culture Department had already been established, but Murray achieves respect for himself as a professor and for his subject with the help of Jack, who pops into one of Murray’s classes for a scholarly debate/discussion. And the students/faculty accept it! I realize it’s a fictional story therefore anything can basically happen, but it’s just shocking to see trivial things like pop culture and Elvis held in the same regard as applied mathematics or English literature. Don’t get me wrong; I freaking love pop culture, but I still consider it fluff compared to more intellectual topics. Though, in today’s world, with things like TMZ.com and Twitter and other magazines and websites dedicated to gossip and pop culture and the celebrities who inhabit those worlds, maybe Delillo wasn’t that far off when he wrote the book during the mid-1980s. Perhaps in other ten or twenty years, students WILL be able to get a bachelor’s in pop culture, etc.

Another theme that seems to drift through the book is man’s relationship with technology. Technology is seen here and there through the book, but every time it is, those passages jumped out to me as if Delillo was trying to get his point across to me. There’s a seen where Jack checks his bank account balance at an ATM, and by the way Jack narrates the transaction and the feelings that wave over him as a result, it seems almost like the ATM is a living person. Jack gets some sort of validation or acceptance of himself from the machine. Murray has a similar “relationship” with television. It fits Murray’s character since he is a pop culture professor, but he’s mesmerized by television that makes it seem like he idolizes the thing. It’s like a supreme being, feeding him knowledge and information, and Murray is entranced by this. Between these two characters, I think Delillo was trying to say something about our emotional and psychological relationship with technology.

The final, and probably most important, theme that I pulled from the book was that of death. As I stated, Jack is fearfully obsessed with death, as is his wife, Babette. They have serious conversations about how they prefer to die before the other, because they couldn’t live on. Death comes to a head for Jack after an encounter with the black chemical cloud, and it makes death a greater focus in his mind than before. It’s difficult to write about the ideas without giving too much of the plot away, but in a later chapter, Jack and Murray have a candid discussion about death, and how man deals with it and the results of it. During the talk, Jack basically throws out all the romantic and optimistic notions of death and instead approaches the subject with a cynical and literal point of view.

Overall, the book seemed like a jumble of a number of different themes and ideas that Delillo was trying to push out to the reader, and in the end, it left me a bit fuzzy and muddled. It’s the same way I felt reading dialogue between the characters, who always seemed to conversate in a disjointed, tangential way, as if they weren’t having a conversation with each other, but rather talking with themselves and only speaking in statements rather than responses. And maybe that was the point of the book and it’s title, “White Noise”. All these individual thoughts and fears and actions we have are just white noise that fill our own lives, but ultimately they lead to the same point: that we all are going to die.

Jesus Walks With Them

Lt. j.g. Bradshaw was bug-eyed, staring straight ahead. He wasn't keeping his excellent military bearing; he wasn't utilizing his Thousand Yard stare. Lt. j.g. Bradshaw had spaced out. He had been up for God knows how long, being run here and there. He was dragged just about everywhere on base in a hurry, and then told to wait. And wait. And wait. And hydrate. And wait.

"God, when will this be over?!" Bradshaw thought to himself. He was frustrated inside, but it only lasted a few moments, and he didn't dare let it slip out and manifest. He had to keep his military bearing; as much of it as he could anyway. Be the rock; be strong. Don't be a prissy brat. Don't show you can't take it, especially not in front of the enlisted. Do NOT be that guy.

In all honesty, he just wanted to hurry up and get to the desert. He had been dreading being shipped overseas and being, quite literally, the Tip of the Spear. It wasn't at all what he had signed up for; they signed him up for this. Thank you, all. But after spending four days in this training environment, he was tired. Lt. j.g. Bradshaw just wanted to hurry up and get to the desert and do his job. He hated having to go there in the first place, but he was going to do his job and do it well. Then he was going to go back home and pray he never had to do it again. The training environment was the real annoyance. He'd get over the desert in time, once he settled in and found his battle rhythm. It would be HIS rhythm. HE would dictate it, as much as possible. Here they told him where to go and what to do and what time to be there. And they told him to wait.

He didn't want to wait anymore.

Being Grown Up...

Mr. Holson gripped the wooden handle of his umbrella in his left hand as he stepped around a puddle. The sidewalk was wet. It had briefly rained earlier that morning, and Mr. Holson had waited for the rain to stop before stepping outside. The rain drops were small and light, but Mr. Holson didn’t want to risk getting wet. It would be a bother to him the rest of the day if he came home wet.

In his right hand, gripped snuggly between his arm and his body, Mr. Holson carried a newspaper. He did not want it to get wet. The rain had stopped, but you could never tell when it might start again. Also, the trees dripped tiny droplets of rain water. Mr. Holson felt the quiet patter of the droplets fall from the trees onto his umbrella and pulled his newspaper more closely to his body.

The newspaper had cost Mr. Holson seventy-five cents. He picked it up every morning from the grocery store that was just down the street from his home, at the corner of his block. Mr. Holson’s son once offered to get Mr. Holson a newspaper subscription. His son told him it would be delivered to his front door every morning before Mr. Holson had even woken up, and it’d save him time because he wouldn’t have to walk down the street for his paper anymore. Mr. Holson refused. He had nothing but time, he told his son. Besides, Mr. Holson liked walking to the grocery store at the corner of his block every morning. He liked that he knew it took exactly fifty-seven steps from the bottom of his front steps to get to the corner store. He liked the wooden, green grocery door that had a little bell attached to it that rang every time he slowly opened the door. He liked how Mr. Curry, a young man in his mid-forties who owned the corner grocery store, greeted him every morning from behind the counter with a big wave and a big smile. He liked the smells of donuts and sugars and fresh apples and coffee that mixed together all at once inside the store. He liked picking up his newspaper from the very top of the stack, the first copy Mr. Curry sold every morning. And Mr. Holson liked walking the fifty-seven steps back to his home, gripping the newspaper under his right arm, the same way he had every morning for the last ten years.

As Mr. Holson took his forty-ninth step from the corner, he turned his gaze from the wet sidewalk below him to the tall building in front of him. The building was old. Blue shudders encased every window, but the paint was faded and peeling. Many of the bricks that lined the front of the building were chipped and eroded. The rails that lined the front stoop up to the door were rusty and creaked whenever you grabbed hold of them.

Mr. Holson looked up at the old building as he reached his fifty-seventh step and arrived at the base of his front stoop. He did not think about how old the building was or how he had lived in it for over twenty-five years. He didn’t think about all the hot summers where he had to prop every window open in order to get some air to blow through his home. He didn’t think about his wife or the music that would flow through the walls and the windows every time she put her favorite record on. He didn’t think about how lonely he had been for the past eight years after his wife passed away. Most of all, he didn’t think about the letter he received four months ago from the city, telling him that he would have to move from his home and take residence up somewhere else.

Mr. Holson did not think of any of these things. He only stood at the bottom of his stoop and stared at the old building, still clutching the newspaper snuggly in his right arm. Mr. Holson stared at the building and sighed a heavy breath of air from his mouth. He looked down at the stoop and began climbing the steps towards the front door.

Blue Skies, Broken Hearts...Next 12 Exits

"Did you notice how blue the sky is today?"
Up above, the sky was a bright and vivid blue. There were only a few clouds in the sky, wispy and long, as if someone had stretched them across the sky, trying to cover the endless blue color. It was one of those days where someone would look out their window and decide to go for a slow bike ride with a friend or read a book under the shade of an oak tree or go for a quiet walk in the park; not because they wanted to, but because it would seem like a waste of a beautiful day if they didn’t do something outdoors.
"The temperature is pretty good today too. Not too hot, there's a slight breeze blowing every now then. It's just the right amount of warm."
"Jon, will you take a look at this? I'm having a hard time deciding…what shade of blue the dresses should be…"
Jon didn’t say a word to Kathy and pretended that he didn’t hear her. She wouldn’t notice he had ignored her. She was occupied, looking at pictures of bridesmaid dresses, muttering opinions and thoughts to herself under her breath. Jon knew Kathy was just thinking out loud and she didn’t really want his opinion on bridesmaid dresses. "Wedding details are for the bride anyway," John thought to himself. He refocused his eyes on the sky above him.
"I don’t know why we don’t come out here more often. What's the point of having a patio and a grassy lawn if you don’t come outside and enjoy it as often as you can? I think I want to start coming outside more often."
"Blue and silver? Maybe not a really metallic silver, but something more subdued…almost like a gray…Or maybe white would look nicer? I don’t know. Everything just goes with blue."
"Maybe after the wedding, I'll get a better grill and we can come out here and grill. We can grill steaks, fish, chicken...I heard it's healthier for you anyway; grilling."
"Oh yeah, Jon, did you call your groomsmen? We need to get them fitted this weekend for the tuxes. I know I said they could send their sizes in, but I'd prefer if we just got all of them fitted at one time, order all the tuxes together, and just be done with it."
Jon imagined what his yard might look like a year from now. The patio was a good size, but maybe new patio furniture would be good. If he was going to get a grill, he should get new furniture so everyone could sit outside while he cooked. His wife and their guests would look out at the grass and admire how well he kept his lawn. They'd comment on how perfect the weather was; how it wasn’t too warm and how great the breeze felt, blowing across the yard every now and then. Then they'd all look up and just stare blankly at the few wispy clouds that seemed to be stretched across the blue sky.
"Honey, look at that cloud."
"Hmm?"
Kathy looked up, following Jon's finger to a puff of cloud. She didn’t think it looked like anything. She looked at all the other clouds, using her hand to shield her eyes from the sunlight, trying to see if maybe there was another cloud Jon was pointing to that looked like an animal or a car or a dragon or something. Then Kathy just stared at the sky.
"Wow."
"What?"
"Did you notice how blue the sky is today?"