White Noise - Don Delillo

This is the story of Jack Gladney, who lives with his unbelievably charismatic children and his death fearing wife. The family witness "The Airborne Toxic Event," and Jack's thoughts become more and more orientated around his own death.

This book is split into three parts, which almost feel like three completely separate books. Part one introduces the reader to the characters; mainly Jack and his wife and children and his fellow professor, Murray. Jack is a professor of Hitler Studies at a small town college, after he invented the department himself, and has earned respect from his peers for breathing new life into the college. Jack's dark secret is that he can't speak any German, despite studying Hitler for his whole life. How can he watch the speeches? He is constantly reading Mein Kampf, though hit must be a translated copy, so how can he be an expert in the text, knowing what we do about the loss of meaning in translated literature? Jack's children are all equally as complicated and confusing. They are the children from Jack's and his wife's previous marriages. Jack was married 4 times before he married his current wife, Baba. All of his ex wives were spies or involved in secret intelligence. His children are all eccentrics - his son Heinrich is balding teenager, who is an expert in everything and always has a question for his father's answers. His daughter Denise is a pharmaceutical genius. The list goes on. 

The second part of this book is "The Airborne Toxic Event". An chemical used in pesticides is spilled in the town, and creates a black billowing cloud in the area, which is dangerous for humans to be exposed to. The family is evacuated. Things get a bit odd - bureaucracy becomes the king and stands in the way of common sense, but before long the family is returned to their home. Jack can't get a straight answer to his questions - was I exposed? How long do I have left? And the questions begin to plague him.

The third part of the book rounds it off nicely. We learn more about Baba, and her seeming degenerating mental capabilities, and it leads the book to an ending which rounds things off nicely, but I think some will see as frustrating.

This book is delightfully strange. I'm sure the above description makes it sound wacky, but it is a mostly sensible affair. It isn't weird for the sake of being weird - there are reasons for the oddball characters and the strange things the family talks about. This is post-modernism, but it is a subtle touch, and there is symbolism and the oddness is all here to help Delillo make the points he is trying to make. 

This is one of those books where there is a plot, but it feels like that wasn't the focus of the author. This book has so many themes and points it wouldn't be far off to call it a satire. Academia is mocked, through Jack's high esteem despite his gaps in knowledge. The family life is scrutinised, through the structure of this family and the conversations they find themselves having. Television keeps popping up - Delillo is a harsh critic of TV. The criticism of TV ties in nicely with the anti-consumerist themes in this book too. There is running idea that TV is filling the characters' consciousnesses with brands and the need to shop. One of my favourite parts of the book is when Jack is watching his daughter sleep, enjoying the peace as she starts to talk. He sits watching, hoping for some glorious wisdom or insight into her character, as she utters the words "Toyota Celica". The family is constantly bumping into professors in the supermarket, who are sure there is lots to learn there, and they muse on the various things going on, which really don't mean anything. 

Then there is death. There is so much dwelling on death here it could give you a complex. Healthy adults with no reason to worry about dying are driven mad by the fear of death. The fear of death slowly invades the narrative, and it grows and grows and becomes the motivating force behind Jack's actions. He walks us through his world - his German lessons, his lectures at college, the Dr's appointments, all the while fretting about his demise. The only release he can seem to find is in shopping, which is almost a spiritual experience for him.

Delillo's writing is razor sharp. The tone seems to shift constantly through the book and makes it rally readable. There are great moments of humour, mixed in with great melancholy and confusion. I'm sure not many authors can pull off a book like this one.

I came into this book expecting an apocalyptic story. All the reviews I read seem to focus on the event. That isn't the case here. This is a great late 20th Century novel that touches on a lot of subjects that are still relevant today.