Literary Fiction Annotation

White Noise

By Don Delillo

Synopsis:

White Noise centers on Jack Gladney who pioneered the academic field of Hitler studies at the College-on-the-Hill. The narrative centers around Jack’s family and collegiate peers as we delve into their idiosyncratic lives, disillusionment, and ultimately their fear of death. Central events involve murder, sickness, mass hysteria, and trust. The plot, in itself, serves as a layered character that challenges the reader yielding dialogue both absent and rich.  

Elements of Literary Fiction:

Language

As the title suggests, White Noise, offers a commentary on language and conversation weaved throughout the character’s dialogue. This enables Delillo’s artistic word choice, phrasing, and style to not only carry the story, but also impact a greater conversation. The sentences themselves have a tendency to be deceptively simple, the same is true about the sequences of dialogue. Yet many readers will find the work challenging as they are asked to read between the lines. White Noise also challenges the reader to question whether they trust the narrator’s explanations and motivations at face value, as there seems to be a current of emotions if the reader is able to break the logical surface.  

Pacing

White Noise develops its layers slowly, asking the reader to contemplate events while reading. At its best, Delillo offers a pace that desires the reader to savor passages much more like a fine meal than a hamburger. The post-modern-esque writing style contributes to a feeling of a languished pace, this an artistic choice forcing the reader to dwell on the writing, often in times of inaction. The pacing of action events provides a counterpoint, often moving at a speed that feels blurred. Though that description may seem like an inept quality, a reader will understand, they are being forced to experience events as the author’s hand brilliantly intends.   

Storyline

The story of White Noise is simple, it is able to be fully explained in a matter of a few sentences, yet I will withhold at this moment to avoid spoilers. The simplicity of the overall story belies its significance to the overall conversation the book offers. As is common in literary fiction, especially in works that learn to the post-modern, Delillo has stitched meaning into the fabric of both menial and elaborate events. This makes what seems like a simple dialogue that takes place within the safety of Jack’s home as important to the overall arc as a large community-wide tragedy. The story offers a resolution, but the reader will most likely be left with questions unresolved, challenged to think about the book long after the last page.

Tone/Mood

Overall, White Noise is somber and serious. Ironically, a reader approaching the work will find humor and wit within the passages. The characters often feel like caricatures who act and voice ridiculous opinions, ‘facts’, and worldviews. The interplay between the narrative voice, dialogue, and action presents an intentional hodgepodge of emotions and responses. An overarching feeling exists throughout the book asking the reader if they “get it” yet. The feelings the reader has while reading White Noise seem as intentional as the mood the words of the book generate. They are constantly intertwined and interplayed with another.   

Read-A-Likes:

Endgame by Samuel Beckett

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

The Marriage Plot by Jeffery Eugenides