Bought at the Monash University Bookshop for my American Literature class, semester one 2006

From the blurb:
First published in 1984, White Noise, one of DeLillo's most highly acclaimed novels, tells the story of Jack Gladney and his wife Babette who are both afraid of death. Jack is head of Hitler studies at the College-on-the-Hill. His colleague Murray runs a seminar on car crashes. Together they ponder the instances of celebrity death, from Elvis to Marilyn to Hitler. Through the brilliant and often very funny dialogue between Jack and Murray, DeLillo exposes our common obsession with mortality and delineates Jack and Babette's touching relationship and their biggest fear - who will die first?

Unusual book, this one, and I'm not completely sure of what I think of it. For the first few chapters, I hated it and didn't think I'd be able to finish it. After a while, though, I kind of got into the style and pace, and I think, ultimately, I enjoyed it. I'd like to revisit it some time.

Oh no!
I left it out on the table overnight during my exam period near a glass of water. Unfortunately my cat Lucille decided to paddle in the water (she's rather odd) and most of my papers got wet, including the book. It's still clean and entirely readable - no runny ink as far as I can tell - but it's a bit warped. Rotten cat!

This one's heading out on a bookring.
The list so far:

jubby
lakelady2282
livrecache
Trezise
BellaMack
leeny37
xoddam
...
back to me.

The usual rules apply:

- Please journal the book when it arrives to let everyone know that it's with you.
- As it's such a small ring there's not as much pressure to keep the book moving, but please aim to have the book ready to send to the next person after about a month. Please let me know if you need more time.
- PM the next person on the list for their address when you're finished with the book, and write a journal entry letting others know what you thought of the book and that it's travelling again.
- Enjoy!

Got home this evening, to find this sitting on my doorstep. The perfect way to end a great weekend.

I am sad to add, that there is a little bit of water damage (but I've dried it, and the pages are not stuck together), but I think a little sit on the bookshelf between some nice fat books will sort it out.

Thank you.

Firstly, I apologise for sitting on this one for so long.

I have read it, and wow! I really enjoyed it.

I can see why people rave about this book and writer. The short, sharp sentances, wide ranging topics, and universal themes makes this an accessible book twenty years after it was written.

I really ought to make a greater effort with this entry (and I may return to re-write it), but I am rushing, so I can get it in to the post box this evening.

Thank you.

RELEASE NOTES:

Posted to the Lady in the Lake.

Arrived in the mail today. Thanks so much jubby and theadi. Looking forward to reading it.

Sorry for the delay in reading this book. I got bogged down in the toxic waste chapter but I'm so glad I persevered. Although the conversations between the characters are often bizarre they touch on issues that are important to us in this technologically driven age. The ending was a surprise but well handled. Thanks so much for sharing. I have pmmed livrecache.

RELEASE NOTES:

"Caught" isn't quite the right word, as I received it in the mail today from Lakelady2282. I'm looking forward to reading it while I'm on holidays next week.

Well, this book isn't really holiday reading. It took me ever so long to get into it, and it made me think! It's takes some interesting twists on post-modernism, and is very cynical about US society in a weirdly humorous way. I'm glad I persevered with it. I don't think I would normally have even picked it up.

It's off to Trezise within the next day or so. PMing now.

Posted today to trezise. I'll be interested to read other readers' comments. Thanks for sharing this, theadi.

Thanks for sending this on to me.

Sorry for taking so long with it, but to be honest it took me ages to get into. I only finished it as I made myself carry on reading it over Christmas.

However..... while it was a struggle at first, I did find myself getting more and more into it as time went on. The characters infuriated me with their constant circular arguments, but towards the end of the book I started to see what the author was trying to say - we are so scared of the inevitable, we will do anything to distract ourselves. Talk rubbish. Argue incessantly. Collect flotsam.

There are some very funny, and quite depressing, elements to this book. Jack's assertion that he wouldn't be affected by the toxic cloud as 'society is set up in such a way that only the poor and uneducated suffer the brunt of natural and man-made disasters...I am a college professor. Did you ever see a college professor rowing a boat down his own street in one of those TV floods?' made me laugh through the sheer arrogance of it.

Equally, his doctor's statement that 'it just means that you are the sum total of your data - no man escapes that' is a thoroughly depressing post-modern view of the world.

In short, it's a bleak look at America in the 1980s. I feel it is now a little dated, but a good read none the less.

PMing BellaMack today.

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Posted today (05/01/07)

Received today thanks trezise for posting and theadi for sharing. Have quite a few to get through before I can read it but will do asap.

I just can't get into this book. I've had the same problem with books of this author before so I will just email xoddam for his address and post it on. Thanks theadi for sharing the book

Safely received today. It may take me a while as I head overseas tomorrow but I will try to be as quick as I can. I assume I try xoddam next when I'm done? I look forward to this one as I have not heard of this author or this book, let's see how I go with it!

Like the others, I'm struggling to get into this book and while it seems that it may be worthwhile persevering, I don't think I will press on. It's very dry and I find it very hard to be engaged -- I like to "fall" into my novels and I just bounce right out with this one. Cheesy analogy, I know, but that's how I feel with this book. I did enjoy reading the previous journal entries though, at least I gleamed a little insight into the book. I will check with xoddam if he's still interested in this one, otherwise, it will head home to theadi!

RELEASE NOTES:

Well, xoddam is keen as to get this book so it's heading his way via a prepaid Express Post satchel, tracking #: MV6607212. Enjoy! :)

Somewhat-embarrassed xoddam journals almost a week after receiving the book -- by Express Post, within 24 hours of giving leeny37 my address! Doubly embarrassed after reading your journal entry below. By "keen", I only meant I really wanted to read it, not "I need it on my desk yesterday!" But thanks leeny for rushing it to me all the same, I owe you a large-size favour. Many thanks, everyone.

Reading this is a bit like studying a Salvador Dali painting. It's beautiful, it reflects the beauty of reality but is itself utterly unreal.

It's the kind of novel where you want to highlight or copy out choice phrases -- but there are actually so many of them that it would become a pointless exercise, so I won't quote.

I love the names of the towns and of Jack's children: Irontown, Germantown, Heinrich, Wilder. I don't love it that so many of Jack's ex-wives work for the CIA. What is it with this family? I *do* love Babette. That is the point of Babette.

The central theme, the fear of dying and of being left alone, didn't seem to go anywhere. The dreamlike sequences near the end inspire a certain adrenaline in the reader (helped along because I read the last couple of chapters drunk) as we anticipate the deaths of central characters.

I'm afraid the "sheer arrogance" of the college professor's confidence that society is set up so that people like him won't be victims of natural disasters and toxic spills is entirely well-founded. Victims are overwhelmingly of the lower classes, and this is by choice of the powers that be, particularly in class-stratified and strongly market-directed countries like the USA and its Western Hemisphere clients. Witness the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina -- people in wealthy suburbs evacuated promptly and returned home within weeks. Some inner-city dwellers are still in emergency housing, while others have permanently resettled in neigbouring states and have no intention of returning. The racial demographics of New Orleans have been permanently altered: what is this but opportunistic ethnic cleansing?

The one thing about the novel that I found entirely alienating was the way in which -- exemplified by the passage in which Jack muses on the family being the source of disinformation -- people respond to one another with ever-widening spirals of not-quite-sequiteurs, not-quite-facts.

The novel ultimately disappoints, despite being rather stunningly written. It's a great indicator of the zeitgeist of 1984, and some of those fears remain with us now (worse than ever?) but I think it would rather like to be timeless, as well as being without precise geographical location. It isn't, and because it is full of deliberate non-facts, the overall feeling is of a book that has nothing concrete to say. Pity, really.

Have PM'd theadi to see what is next for this book.

White Noise is going home tomorrow, probably in the evening when the postman gets to the box. I have a row of parcels here, and I'm going to slip on my socks (presently warming on the heater) and shoes, and tiptoe out to the big red pillarbox (naturally, wearing my red scarf). It will be just before three o'clock on Sydney's coldest night in a decade ... what an adventure! I might even venture an extra block up the road for a glimpse of the dark expanse which is the chilly Pacific Ocean.

Pity we don't get snow here -- without it the whole escapade seems frivolous.

I have to ask, is Clayton South where you go when you're not really going south?

My apologies, theadi, for not including a book from your wishlist. I have one (a HUGE hardback) in a box, and I saw another pass under my nose at the Sydney meetup a week ago, but sadly I can't reach either from where I am now. Next time, and have a cup of tea.

This book arrived safely home about two weeks ago - I''ve been semi-absent from bookcrossing for a few months and am only getting back into it now.
I believe this is my first successful bookring - thankyou all!
It has been fascinating to read everyone else''s thoughts on this book and I do look forward to a (hopefully more satisfying) re-read in the future.
Thanks again!