The Books: “White Noise” (Don Delillo)

Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction

White Noise – by Don DeLillo

I know Underworld was a huge EVENT – and while Don DeLillo has been writing novels for decades – suddenly, with Underworld he was everywhere. But I think White Noise is his masterpiece. (So far.) I have a couple of friends (Allison, Michael) who count White Noise as one of their favorite books. I have very conflicted feelings about Underworld (which I’ve written about before – and which I’ll get to tomorrow) – but White Noise is one of those books where you barely notice you’re READING – it’s so perfect. And yet – at least in my copy of the book – there are some lines that are so good to me, so … I guess that yes, they do call attention to themselves – and I’ve underlined those lines – I can FEEL the excitement I had when I first read the book, in those scratch marks on the page.

Like:

I like clearing my arm from the folds of the garment to look at my watch. The simple act of checking the time is transformed by this flourish.

That still thrills me. It’s classic DeLillo.

Or another line I marked:

Shouldn’t death, I thought, be a swan dive, graceful, white-winged and smooth, leaving the surface undisturbed?

Last one (although the book is full of startling lines like this one):

Children wincing in the sun, women in sun hats, men shading their eyes from the glare as if the past possessed some quality of light we no longer experience, a Sunday dazzle that caused people in their churchgoing clothes to tighten their faces and stand at an angle to the future, somewhat averted it seemed, wearing fixed and fine-drawn smiles, skeptical of something in the nature of the box camera.

White Noise is an ominous story, eerie and quiet. Jack and Babette are a married couple (she’s his fourth wife, I believe) – he teaches “Hitler studies” at a small college in the Midwest (if I remember correctly) – and they have a couple kids. And one day there is an ‘airborne toxic event’ – some industrial accident has unleashed this perfect black cloud that floats by overhead. (No matter how I write about this I am going to make it sound stupid … what DeLillo does with the black cloud, what he makes it about … is along the lines of what Mary Shelley did in Frankenstein – Allison helped me see this when we talked about the book. There’s a huge metaphor at work here … and it’s gracefully handled – you never feel bashed over the head with it.) Anyway, the “airborne toxic event” begins to affect their lives in all kinds of ways – it sort of takes over – the black cloud … How does something like that get INSIDE you? I don’t mean “pollution” – I mean, psychological pollution. The “white noise” shimmers through their lives – messing up the radio, the television – every transmission you can imagine – until you can barely have a conversation with the person sitting right next to you it is so “loud”. It’s been years since I read the book – but I can still recall the THRILL of my first time reading it.

The excerpt below is something that immediately came to mind this morning when I picked up the book. “Oh, maybe I’ll excerpt the bit about the kid crying.” One of Jack and Babette’s kids – a little baby boy – cries one day for seven hours. Straight. They end up taking him to the doctor – the doctor is baffled, nothing is wrong with the kid. It’s how DeLillo talks about the crying … Seriously, the guy is just a phenomenal writer. A bit distant, I would say – not necessarily warm … but “warmth” is not a prerequistie for good writing. What is unbelievable about DeLillo is his EYE – what he sees … and then how he chooses to put it into words – I can’t get over it!

So here’s an excerpt.

Excerpt from White Noise – by Don DeLillo

He was in the sixth hour of his crying. She ran along the sidewalk and into the building.

I thought of taking him to the hospital. But if a doctor who examined the boy thoroughly in his cozy office with paintings on the wall in elaborate gilded frames could find nothing wrong, then what could emergency technicians do, people trained to leap on chests and pound on static hearts?

I picked u=him up and set him against the steering wheel, facing me, his feet on my thighs. The huge lament continued, wave on wave. It was a sound so large and pure I could almost listen to it, try consciously to apprehend it, as one sets up a mental register in a concert hall or theatre. He was not sniveling or blubbering. He was crying out, saying nameless things in a way that touched me with its depth and richness. This was an ancient dirge all the more impressive for its resolute monotony. Ululation. I held him upright with a hand under each arm. As the crying continued, a curious shift developed in my thinking. I found that I did not necessarily wish him to stop. It might not be so terrible, I thought, to have to sit and listen to this a while longer. We looked at each other. Behind the dopey countenance, a complex intelligence operated. I held him with one hand, using the other to count his fingers inside the mittens, aloud, in German. The inconsolable crying went on. I let it wash over me, like rain in sheets. I entered it, in a sense. I let it fall and tumble across my face and chest. I began to think he had disappeared inside this wailing noise and if I could join him in his lost and suspended place we might together perform some reckless wonder of intelligibility. I let it break across my body. It might not be so terrible, I thought, to have to sit here for four more hours, with the motor running and the heater on, listening to this uniform lament. It might be good, it might be strangely soothing. I entered it, fell into it, letting it enfold and cover me. He cried with his eyes open, his eyes closed, his hands in his pockets, his mittens on and off. I sat there nodding sagely. On an impulse I turned him around, sat him on my lap and started up the car, letting Wilder steer. We’d done this once before, for a distance of twenty yards, at Sunday dusk, in August, our street deep in drowsy shadow. Again he responded, crying as he steered, as we turned corners, as I brought the car to a halt back at the Congregational church. I set him on my left leg, an arm around him, drawing him toward me, and let my mind drift toward near sleep. The sound moved into a fitful distance. Now and then a car went by. I leaned against the door, faintly aware of his breath on my thumb. Some time later Babette was knocking on the window and Wilder was crawling across the seat to lift the latch for her. She got in, adjusted his hat, picked a crumpled tissue off the floor.

We were halfway home when the crying stopped. It stopped suddenly, without a change in tone and intensity. Babette said nothing. I kept my eyes on the road. He sat between us, looking into the radio. I waited for Babette to glance at me behind his back, over his head, to show relief, happiness, hopeful suspense. I didn’t know how I felt and wanted a cue. But she looked straight ahead as if fearful that any change in the sensitive texture of sound, movement, expression would cause the crying to break out again.

At the house no one spoke. They all moved quietly from room to room, watching him distantly, with sneaky and respectful looks. When he asked for some milk, Denise ran softly to the kitchen, barefoot, in her pajamas, sensing that by economy of movement and lightness of step she might keep from disturbing the grave and dramatic air he had brought with him into the house. He drank the milk down in a single powerful swallow, still fully dressed, a mitten pinned to his sleeve.

They watched him with something like awe. Nearly seven straight hours of serious crying. It was as though he’d just returned from a period of wandering in some remote and holy place, in sand barrens or snowy ranges – a place where things are said, sights are seen, distances reached which we in our ordinary toil can only regard with the mingled reverence and wonder we hold in reserve for feats of the most sublime and difficult dimensions.