Title: an anti-novel for anti-readers
Product review: To say that Don DeLillo is pretentious is like saying that Mike Tyson is prone to anger: it's true but it doesn't really give you the full picture. Self-importance is DeLillo's defining quality and, in this sense, "White Noise" is his masterpiece. Every sentence seems unjustifiably pleased with itself; every page is dense with humorless profundity. The "Toxic Event" at the novel's heart has such an artificial, manufactured quality that it seems to arrive with the words VERY IMPORTANT SYMBOL emblazoned across it. Gore Vidal once described Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow" as the perfect teacher's novel, in the sense that it was plainly written to be taught rather than read. With all due respect to Vidal, and to Pynchon's unreadable concoction, "White Noise" is a strong contender for the throne: the symbols are plentiful enough to keep any grad student busy, and, more importantly, it's impossible to imagine anyone reading this novel except under duress.
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