When an industrial accident unleashes an airborne toxic event, a lethal black chemical cloud floats over their lives. The menacing cloud is a more urgent and visible version of the white noise engulfing the Gladneys, radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, ultrasonic appliances, and TV murmurings, pulsing with life, yet suggesting something ominous.
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When an industrial accident unleashes an airborne toxic event, a lethal black chemical cloud floats over their lives. The menacing cloud is a more urgent and visible version of the white noise engulfing the Gladneys, radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, ultrasonic appliances, and TV murmurings, pulsing with life, yet suggesting something ominous.
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This book was a really interesting read. I had always thought of DeLillo as 'one of those post-modern writers,' and after reading Pynchon, I was expecting something similarly disjointed and abrupt. I was delighted to find a quieter post-modernism, no less radical - in some ways more - but gentler about it. DeLillo allows the reader to read this book like it is a story AND gives commentary on all aspects of life and litcrit. In some ways he also reminds me of Dickens and the other classics; his sentences seem to contain more than the sum of their words. The title is pervasive throughout the book, as the stream-of-conscious-type narration is filled with small non-sequitor 'white noise.' This is going on the shelf with half a dozen other books that I consider to be a perfect pleasure to read.
