A break from Ulysses. Some background noise so that my brain could take a break. A reason to join my bookclub again after many months. All reasons why I started reading White Noise. I wasn’t quite sure I was going to like it based on its description. Especially when I read the description for it, a professor of “Hitler Studies” going through his life when a mysterious cloud starts looming over their town. I thought it felt kind of cliché because over the years I’ve seen many stories use Hitler or Nazism as a way to grab attention to itself. I get that it is important to be aware of it but it kind of exhausted me. In the end however, it rarely came up as a super big thing in the book so I am quite glad for that.

I was going to write a full summary here but honestly it doesn’t really matter. The story feels like fluff and I will get to why that is the point I think.

Summary#

So the book follows Jack, a professor at a university where he started a course called “Hitler Studies”. In the beginning we shortly follow how the school year starts and how he is getting accustomed to his new role as spearhead of his course. In the later part but still in the first 3rd of the book we also get to know his (4th) wife and some of his kids. We, sort of, get a feel for how they are and how the family dynamic is.

Then finally we get to the big bad of the story or what I thought was supposed to be like a big part of the story. A train carriage crashes and releases toxins into the air. These toxins form a big cloud that start hanging over the town Jack and his family live in. For a bit, we see how they stay basically entirely calm and unfazed about the entire ordeal. Even when they and the people of the town are all told to evacuate out of the town to a nearby camp.

—— Kind of a big spoiler here I guess? ——

During their evacuations Jack has to stop for some gas and gets out of his car, even after they were warned to stay in their cars and or indoors while the cloud is overhead. Jack doesn’t notice the cloud doing anything and just goes about refueling and getting back in the car. After they get to the camp Jack and his family all “check-in” with the personnel at the camp.

While separated Jack gets tested by some military contractor. He explains how he was outside for a bit and some other general life details. The contractor then tells him basically how he exactly fits into the character profile of people exposed to the toxin. He also vaguely tells him how it might affect later in his life but without any definitive terms. Obviously, this puts some mental burden onto Jack and he decides to not tell his family.

A while later, we get to them going back to regular living and we read about some of Jack’s struggles and his “acceptance” of his mortally that supposedly is coming up. He secretly takes more doctor tests, lies to his doctor about his exposure, goes to a clinic that further tests him on advice of his doctor, and at the end of the entire testing he receives his results in an envelop he is supposed to give to his doctor so he can analyze the results. He does not give envelop to his doctor and IIRC never actually opens the envelop.

Anyway, he, shortly after all these medical tests, finds a mysterious medicine bottle hidden behind the radiator. This bottle contains some mystery drug called Dylar. TL;DR it comes out that his wife read in some magazine that a medical group has been doing research into negating the fear of dying and his wife signed up for a trial. She wasn’t eventually chosen but the head researcher could give her the drug as long as she slept with him. She does…secretly.

You know now that I am writing this I guess she is a victim. During my read and my first short review draft, I really disliked her for this but I guess she was sort of taken advantage of.

To get back on track, after we, us, the reader, and Jack, learn this Jack starts to want to know more about this mysterious person and drug. His wife doesn’t budge but eventually he learns about the mysterious drug and the person that has sex with his wife. Jack starts plotting a way to confront this mysterious person. In the end Jack does exactly what he said at the beginning of the book.

“All plots tend to move deathward. This is the nature of plots. Political plots, terrorist plots, lovers’ plots, narrative plots, plots that are part of children’s games. We edge nearer death every time we plot. It is like a contract that all must sign, the plotters as well as those who are the target of the plot”-Page 26

He eventually confronts Mr. Grey (I think is his name. I can’t be bothered to check honestly). He confronts this man who seems to be himself addicted to the Dylar pills and continuously chugs them down while having a conversation with Jack. As if, he too knows that this might be his end. So, he shoots him but messes up and does not kill him. In the “altercation” Jack gets closer to Mr. Grey and in turn gets shot in the hand. After a brief shock from Jack he decides to rescue Mr. Grey and brings him to a nearby hospital where there are a bunch of nuns. Anyway that’s basically where this plotline ends.

In the final chapter there is brief happening of one of his kids cycling over a highway and somehow crosses it safely. I am don’t know what this is supposed to mean. Maybe something along the lines of how Jack has also barely scrapped by alive while doing something insanely dangerous? Idk tbh.

My opinion#

I……….don’t know. It was alright. It has some good moments. I can relate to Jack and his diagnosis of some indiscernible thing happening in his body. Being non the wiser how it might be slowly killing you and all the tests also somehow showing this but not noticing anything yourself. Other than that I am not sure what the book was about.

What I think the book might be about is why it is so confusing. So many random things are happening here, in the life of Jack, that it is hard to decern what might be important to keep track of. We go from him being the head of Hitler studies, to some inexplicable cloud that might kill people if they inhale it, to his wife secretly taking medication, to his wife having a secret affair of some sort, and a quick detour of his kid almost dying on a highway. The narrative information destiny is so high that its hard to make heads or tails from the entire thing and I think that is the point.

Life, today, is so busy that it is hard figure out what is important in our lives and what we should focus on. We got personal life events, work life events, and a whole slew of other things all occurring side to side. All things we are supposed to pay attention to and it is just impossible for anyone who isn’t you living that life right then and there to understand what really is going on.

Would I recommend reading White Noise tho? Meh maybe not maybe yes. If I did it would be with the explanation that it is sort of confusing but that also being the point.