Notes For January 21st, 2010
This Day In Writing History
On January 21st, 1985, the famous writer Don DeLillo won the American Book Award for his 1984 novel, White Noise. Although DeLillo had been publishing novels since 1971, they mostly received little attention due to their avant-garde nature. White Noise, however, proved to be DeLillo's breakthrough novel; it established him as a major talent and made him famous.
White Noise is narrated by its main character, Jack Gladney, a professor of Hitler Studies - a field he originated. He is considered a master of his field, though he speaks no German. His fellow professor and star of the department, Murray J. Siskind, wants to start a field of his own - Elvis Studies. Jack lives with his fourth wife, Babette, and their children from previous marriages. 14-year-old Heinrich is a moody and introspective teen whose hairline is already receding. He plays chess by mail with an imprisoned mass murderer.
Eleven-year-old Denise is a "hard-nosed kid," and she leads "a more or less daily protest against parental habits she considers wasteful or dangerous." Younger daughter Steffie is a sensitive child who ''becomes upset when something shameful or humiliating seems about to happen to someone on the [TV] screen," so she leaves the room and stands outside while Denise tells her what's going on. Three-year-old Wilder rarely speaks, but his mere presence is a comfort to his parents.
The first part of the novel, Waves and Radiation, establishes these characters as it paints an absurdist portrait of modern (1980s) family life and satirizes the world of academia. Most of the plot takes place in the second and third parts of the novel. In the second part, The Airborne Toxic Event, a toxic chemical is spilled from a railroad car and released into the air over Jack Gladney's hometown, resulting in an evacuation. He discovers that SIMUVAC, an organization that recruits schoolchildren as volunteer victims in simulated evacuations is using the real-life airborne toxic event to rehearse its simulated evacuations.
In the third part of the book, Dylarama, Jack and Babette both confront their severe thantophobia - fear of death. Babette copes with her phobia in an unusual way. Jack discovers that she has become addicted to Dylar, an experimental drug used to treat thantophobia. (Acutally, Denise is the first to discover her mother's habit.) In order to get her fix, Babette has been sleeping with the shadowy manager of the Dylar research project, whom she refers to as "Mr. Gray." Babette doesn't see this as adultery. She explains to Jack that "it was a capitalist transaction" in exchange for drugs.
White Noise is a brilliant work of avant-garde postmodernist fiction that satirizes modern family dynamics, novelty academia, crass commercialism, media saturation, conspiracy theories, and the virtues of violence, all of which are part of the omnipresent soundtrack of American life - the white noise of the title.
The original title of the novel was Panasonic, which comes from the Greek word pan, which means all, and the Latin word sonus, which means sound. Unfortunately, Panasonic is also a registered trademark of the Matsushita electronics corporation, and they were opposed to DeLillo's use of the word as the title of his novel. So, his publisher made him change it.
In 2006, a feature film adaptation of White Noise reached the preproduction stage, but then the plans fell through and the novel was never filmed. Whether it will be filmed in the future is unknown.
Don DeLillo has written over a dozen novels. He still writes at the age of 73. His latest novel, Point Omega, is scheduled for release on February 2nd, 2010. On February 11th, he will give a first public reading of his new novel at Book Court in Brooklyn, New York, at 7PM.
Quote Of The Day
"There's a curious knot that binds novelists and terrorists. Years ago I used to think it was possible for a novelist to alter the inner life of the culture. Now bomb-makers and gunmen have taken that territory. They make raids on human consciousness. What writers used to do before we were all incorporated." - Don DeLillo
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a BBC radio interview with Don DeLillo, conducted by John Humphrys. Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment