White Noise

I’m in the “reading mode” at this point in the academic year, almost 1 a day.  Today’s book was White Noise by Don DeLillo. The book follows the life of college professor, Jack Gladney, who makes his name in the academic circles as the creator and teacher of Hitler studies.  The first section of the book introduces the reader to his family (wife and kids) and also to his life as a faculty member.  In the second section, Gladney and his family are running from a “toxic airborne event” in which the local government mandates all community members to leave the area based on toxic clouds bringing harmful air to the area.  Gladney and his family leave for the quarantine area, but on the way Gladney has to leave the safe confines of his car to fill the car with gas and later learns that he was exposed to the deadly air mass.    In the last section, the reader learns that Gladney’s wife (Babette) is having an affair with a doctor who may have created a drug that allows people to live longer, as Babette is afraid of dying,  and she is provided the pill, ‘Dylar,’ to help her overcome the fear of dying.  Additionally, Gladney is driven to attempt to kill the doctor, after his conversation with a colleague about his own fear of dying.  His colleague encourages him that being a ‘killer’ might actually help him to live a fuller life.  Gladney decides to experiment with this idea and plots to kill the doctor.  While in the end he shoots the doctor, he is not successful and the doctor lives.  The end of the book adds a strange twist when Gladney and his family go to a highway overpass, contemplate life while watching his son ride a bicycle through traffic, and lives!  The story has some bizarre futuristic thinking, but does raise the age-old question, when and how do I die, what does the after-life hold, and the fact that at some level we all face death.  The book was clearly impacted by the nuclear age and the fear of living life outside of ourselves.  In many ways it seemed life a few different books, not a great deal of linear thinking.  There is some absurdist elements, which also allows the reader to suspend their beliefs. The book asks the ultimate question about our morality and how fear can affect how we respond to the various inputs can impact an unexpected outcome.  I enjoyed the characters and the manner in which the author wrote the story.  The Hitler piece reinforced the impact of the negative and how we all have some level of being captured in this life.  While I liked the writing and characters, the story was a bit unconnected… I guess that what absurdist want us to feel.