White Noise by Don DeLillo

 

Well, here it is, a classic of postmodern fiction, in a special twenty-fifth anniversary edition, complete with an over-enthusiastic (if not overwritten) introduction. Well, it's an interesting read--more coherent than I was really expecting, if I'm honest--but the sharp wit and turns of phrase kinda disappear about a third of the way through, when something like a plot, or a story, or at least things happening, start to emerge: at that point it turns out that there's not much substance beneath that surface wit. It's pretty clear there are things the novel really wants to say, about consumerism, about fear of death, about media, about government and industry and pollution; and it's clear why some people think it's prescient, but especially toward the end of the novel there doesn't seem to be much signal in the noise.