Thoughts on Don DeLillo’s White Noise (1985)

I couldn’t help but find myself comparing the end of White Noise to Camus’ The Stranger.  The terseness of the shooting scene, the insensitive harming of another with the inhumane, animalistic self-reflection…it was just very Camusian for lack of a better word. 

But the ending wasn’t the best part, not by a long shot. The weirdness of the novel, the only intimations as to deeper meaning, the fact that it made you think, made you define… “What is nature?”… These were the best parts of the book. 

A toddler that won’t speak, a maybe genius teenager who runs with an asking-for-it Guinness record attempter, a wife named “Babs,” Hitler Studies, photographic-memory-having colleagues,  a pervert colleague who hits on the aforementioned “Babs,” and of course, the airborne toxic event. 

And all of it “caged” in death (just like the snakes). Or should we say the fear of death? Just as death gives life context and delineation, death gives White Noise life and delineation. What is the airborne toxic event if not nearness to THE ownmost possibility? What is Dylar if not to push away THE ownmost possibility?  Why run the stadium stairs if not to meet THE ownmost possibility? Yes, death my friends, does it make life rare? Does it turn your years of life from a ubiquitous carbon to a rarefied diamond? 

I don’t think DeLillo knows…and that’s a good thing. That he asks in the first place is more important. Does he believe? The nuns believed, if only in a perfunctory way so that we couldn’t believe…capisce?

Is Delillo saying we need both sides of the belief coin? Maybe, just like we need both sides of life and death.

As I read the book I also couldn’t help but reflect on my undergraduate years, those years shaped by the coins with sides like Martin Heidegger and Leo Buscaglia. Heidegger taught me we are beings-unto-death facing an ownmost possibility that ends all others and Buscaglia taught me that “I don’t brood over death, I’m too busy living.”

So it’s like Delmar in O’Brother Where Art Thou?

Pete: Wait a minute. Who elected you leader of this outfit?

Ulysses Everett McGill: Well Pete, I figured it should be the one with the capacity for abstract thought. But if that ain't the consensus view, then hell, let's put it to a vote.

Pete: Suits me. I'm voting for yours truly.

Ulysses Everett McGill: Well I'm voting for yours truly too.

[Everett and Pete look at Delmar for the deciding vote]

Delmar O'Donnell: Okay... I'm with you fellas.

Life or Death?

You bet.