White Noise : Text and Criticism

by DeLillo, Don (Author); Osteen, Mark (Editor/introduction)

• ISBN13: 9780140274981
• ISBN10: 0140274987
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-12-01
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)

Summary

Winner of the National Book Award in 1985, White Noise is the story of Jack and Babette and their children from their six or so various marriages. They live in a college town where Jack is Professor of Hitler Studies (and conceals the fact that he does not speak a word of German), and Babette teaches posture and volunteers by reading from the tabloids to a group of elderly shut-ins. They are happy enough until a deadly toxic accident and Babette's addiction to an experimental drug make Jake question everything. White Noise is considered a postmodern classic and its unfolding of themes of consumerism, family and divorce, and technology as a deadly threat have attracted the attention of literary scholars since its publication. This Viking Critical Library edition, prepared by scholar Mark Osteen, is the only edition of White Noise that contains the entire text along with an extensive critical apparatus, including a critical introduction, selected essays on the author, the work and its themes, reviews, a chronology of DeLillo's life and work, a list of discussion topics, and a selected bibliography.

Author Biography

Don DeLillo was born in 1936 in the Bronx, New York, and educated at Fordham University. He is the author of eleven novels, including White Noise (1985), which won the National Book Award, and Libra (1988), which won the Irish Times-Aer Lingus International Fiction Prize. His 1991 novel Mao II won the Pen/Faulkner Award. Other novels include Americana (1971), End Zone (1972), Running Dog (1978), and The Names (1982). His most recent novel is Underworld (1997). Don DeLillo is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Table of Contents

Introduction	vii	(10)
Chronology	xvii	(4)
I. WHITE NOISE: THE TEXT	xxi
II. CONTEXTS	327	(36)
ANTHONY DECURTIS
from Matters of Fact and Fiction	329	(2)
ADAM BEGLEY
from Don DeLillo: The Art of Fiction	331	(2)
CARYN JAMES
"`I Never Set Out to Write an Apocalyptic Novel'"	333	(2)
DON DELILLO
from Americana	335	(4)
DON DELILLO
from End Zone	339	(3)
DON DELILLO
from Players	342	(2)
DON DELILLO
Silhouette City: Hitler, Manson and the Millennium	344	(9)
Newsweek, Stories on the toxic leak at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India	353	(10)
III. REVIEWS	363	(22)
SOL YURICK
Fleeing Death in a World of Hyper-Babble	365	(5)
ALBERT MOBILIO
Death by Inches	370	(4)
DIANE JOHNSON
Conspirators	374	(5)
PICO IYER
A Connoisseur of Fear	379	(6)
IV. CRITICAL ESSAYS	385	(132)
TOM LECLAIR
Closing the Loop: White Noise	387	(25)
FRANK LENTRICCHIA
Don DeLillo's Primal Scenes	412	(5)
JOHN FROW
The Last Things Before the Last: Notes on White Noise	417	(15)
JOHN N. DUVALL
The (Super)Marketplace of Images: Television as Unmediated Mediation in DeLillo's White Noise	432	(24)
CORNEL BONCA
Don DeLillo's White Noise: The Natural Language of the Species	456	(24)
ARTHUR M. SALTZMAN
The Figure in the Static: White Noise	480	(18)
PAUL MALTBY
The Romantic Metaphysics of Don DeLillo	498	(19)
Topics for Discussion and Papers	517	(8)
Selected Bibliography	525