White Noise [Anglais] [Broché]

Better than any book I can think of, White Noise captures the particular strangeness of life in a time where humankind has finally learned enough to kill itself. Naturally, it's a terribly funny book, and the prose is as beautiful as a sunset through a particulate-filled sky. Nice-guy narrator Jack Gladney teaches Hitler Studies at a small college. His wife may be taking a drug that removes fear, and one day a nearby chemical plant accidentally releases a cloud of gas that may be poisonous. Writing before Bhopal and Prozac entered the popular lexicon, DeLillo produced a work so closely tuned into its time that it tells the future.

Chairman of the department of Hitler studies at a Midwestern college, Jack Gladney is accidently exposed to a cloud of noxious chemicals, part of a world of the future that is doomed because of misused technology, artifical products and foods, and overpopulation. PW appreciated DeLillo's "bleak, ironic" vision, calling it "not so much a tragic view of history as a macabre one." January
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

It's very difficult listening to Michael Prichard narrate the first two tapes of this wicked satire. His voice is a tinny mess that holds no emotional weight; he seems to fight DeLillo's words every step of the way. But then a remarkable metamorphosis takes place around Tape 3. Prichard adjusts his voice, smoothes his timbre, and realizes that the author has written a really great story. He still reads with a monotone, but his inflections hit the words just right, and a subtle, snide tone enters his realm. Another book saved! The moral of the story is to stick with this book, and Prichard, through the rough spots. You will be rewarded with the never-wavering magic of DeLillo, and some good laughs. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Jack Gladney teaches Hitler studies at a liberal arts college in Middle America where his colleagues include New York expatriates who want to immerse themselves in "American magic and dread." Jack and his fourth wife, Babette, bound by love, fear of death, and four ultramodern offspring, navigate the usual rocky passages of family life to the background babble of brand-name consumerism. Then a lethal black cloud floats over their lives, an airborne "toxic event," an industrial accident. The menacing cloud is a more urgent and visible version of the "white noise" engulfing the Gladney family - radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, ultrasonic appliances, and TV murmurings - pulsing with life, yet filled with dread and danger.

"A stunning performance from one of our most intelligent novelists...also, tremendously funny." (The New Republic)

9 1.5-hour cassettes