Don DeLillo
I’ve been a long-time fan of J.G. Ballard and know his skill at dowsing the madness of the modern. DeLillo has the same sensors on full alert in this book, but in a more light-hearted way. He doesn’t have to search as hard to convince us of the strangeness of the era.
The narrator, Jack, is chairman of the Department of Hitler Studies at a small university. He has a warm-hearted wife and some 5 or 6 children about the house, most from previous marriages. There is nothing at all weird about Jack himself; the weirdness is of an everyday kind in the world all about him. In an early scene they take a trip to see “the most photographed barn in America”. It’s just an ordinary barn, notable only for being the most photographed. A fairly obvious swipe at the notion of celebrities being famous for being famous, but the novel was written in 1984. Maybe nowadays we accept such situations as being a foible of human nature; irony seems pointessly harsh.
On almost every page there is some event or image which could only below to the post-everything last quarter of the twentieth century. DeLillo himself may not always be aware of this: he’s part of the age like a fish in water. For instance the children speak like adults and are treated like adults in a way which is becoming familiar. Little Steffie wonders if she should visit her mother. “You saw her last year, you liked her,” says Jack.
When I spotted Denise I blew the horn and she came over. This was the first time I’d ever picked her up at school and she gave me a wary and hard-eyed look as she passed in front of the car – a look that indicated she was in no mood for news of a separation or divorce.
If Jack is in fact very faithful to Babette and a dedicated father, it is because it is in his nature. The family as a whole manages quite well without any principles, religion, or core values.
B.R. Myers in an article in the Atlantic attacks the pretentiousness of current literary prose. White Noise is one of his prime targets; the author is indirectly referred to as ‘a novelist of limited gifts.’ The novel’s depictions of contented consumers grazing around a mall, children mesmerised by advertising etc are described as “patronising” and “exaggerated”.
Read on …
True, DeLillo’s main ideas are not new. But Myers is wrong to think there are no real people like this. The shopping mall and television are the environment in which whole swathes of people spend their lives. I have seen them. They are real. The opening of a new shopping center in this city was headline news for weeks. The new IKEA centre is attracting similar attention. It frightens me. For many of the people on reality/talent shows, seeing themselves on television is a magic so powerful their lives can never be the same again. For better or for worse.
Maybe this phase will pass soon, but at the moment it seems every irony is overtaken by reality.
The novel shows signs of being quickly-written, poorly-edited and aimed at the mass market. If DeLillo thinks a particular verbal trick is good, he’ll have no problem with repeating it, even three times. So who is it trying to persuade Myers this is great literature? Why is he getting on his box like he’s seen through the emperor’s clothes?
The problem may be this: the college-educated critic reads a novel he likes. He wants to praise it, yet all he can talk about is “the writing”. This is not the 19th century – he cannot talk about the truth expressed in the novel, or ennobling insights, or the artistic soul. So the novel gets misdirected praise for its prose and “craft”.
This novel is great not because of the prose, but because the sensors are on maximum receptivity and taking in what’s all around.
When Jack meets his fellow-academic Murray, one grips the other by the elbow and they walk across the campus “like a pair of European senior citizens, heads bowed in conversation”. It’s a throwaway comparison, but implications ooze from it.
It’s so good he repeats it a chapter later.
Valancourt The Viaduct reissue
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Irish Times Q+A