Don DeLillo Should Win the Nobel Prize

• Episode 23: The White Noise Film

  Roll film! In Episode 23, DDSWTNP continue our White Noise residency by heading to the movies (or the TV screen) and examining Noah Baumbach’s 2022 film adaptation of the novel. We discuss the drive over the years to adapt the supposedly “unadaptable” DeLillo for the screen, the 2020s context of this film, and our varied reactions to successive viewings of it over the two-plus years since its release. Other topics include the central performances (especially Adam Driver as an unexpectedly good Jack Gladney and Don Cheadle as a refashioned Murray Siskind); Baumbach’s successes and failures at re-ordering DeLillo’s dialogue and visually distilling certain themes; and his shaping of the narrative as a “meta-cinematic” journey through his personal film history and a mixture of genres. Reviews by Tom LeClair, Marco Roth, and Jesse Kavadlo figure in our analysis, and we close by considering whether we do in fact “need a new body” in the film’s concluding supermarket song and dance number, which in our view captures some of the novel’s themes and distorts others. We’d love to hear on Instagram or email what you think of the film and our reactions, too! We also take a little time to correct a historical error in our Episode 19 on Rachel Kushner’s Creation Lake. Texts and sources for this episode: White Noise (dir. Noah Baumbach, 2022) (Netflix). Film adaptation pages at “Don DeLillo’s America”:http://www.perival.com/delillo/whitenoise_film_2022.htmlhttp://perival.com/delillo/ddoddsends.html Patrick Brzeski, Alex Ritman, “Noah Baumbach on Getting LCD Soundsystem to Create New Track for ‘White Noise,’” The Hollywood Reporter, August 31, 2022.https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/venice-noah-baumbach-white-noise-lcd-soundsystem-1235209318/ Jesse Kavadlo, “Don DeLillo’s ‘White Noise’ Remains Unfilmable,” Pop Matters, January 11, 2023.https://www.popmatters.com/white-noise-noah-baumbach-unfilmable Tom LeClair, “The Maladaptation of White Noise,” Full Stop, December 29, 2022.https://www.full-stop.net/2022/12/29/features/tomleclair/the-maladaptation-of-white-noise/ Jon Mooallem, “How Noah Baumbach Made ‘White Noise’ a Disaster Movie for Our Moment,” New York Times Magazine, November 23, 2022.https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/23/magazine/white-noise-noah-baumbach.html Marco Roth, “Don DeLillo on Xanax,” Tablet, November 3, 2022.https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/don-delillo-xanax-white-noise-noah-baumbach

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• Episode 22: White Noise (2)

  We’ve arrived at the big one, the breakthrough book of 1985 – White Noise. In Episodes 21 and 22, DDSWTNP extend our White Noise “residency” and turn in-depth attention to DeLillo’s most popular piece of fiction in another double episode.  Episode 21: White Noise (1) takes an expansive view of the novel’s narrative and goes into depth on (among many other subjects) the iconic opening chapter’s commentary on America and Americana, the meaning of Mylex suits, Jack’s relationships with Heinrich and Orest Mercator, and what it means to be a rat, a snake, a fascist, and a scholar of Hitler in this book’s universe. Episode 22: White Noise (2) interprets passages mainly from the book’s second half, including scenes featuring the dark humor of Vernon Dickey and of SIMUVAC, the meaning of DeLillo’s desired title “Panasonic,” Jack’s shooting of Willie Mink (and what it owes to Nabokov), a riveting fire and a fascinating trash compactor cube, and the Dostoevskyan interrogation of belief by Sister Hermann Marie. Every minute features original ideas on the enduring meanings of White Noise in so many political, social, technological, and moral dimensions – what it teaches us about the roots and implications of our many epistemological crises, how it does all this in writing that somehow manages to be self-conscious, philosophical, hilarious, and warm all at once. Texts and artifacts discussed and mentioned in these episodes: Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (Free Press, 1973).  Adam Begley, “Don DeLillo: The Art of Fiction CXXXV,” The Paris Review 128 (1993): 274-306.            (DeLillo: “And White Noise develops a trite adultery plot that enmeshes the hero, justifying his fears about the death energies contained in plots. When I think of highly plotted novels I think of detective fiction or mystery fiction, the kind of work that always produces a few dead bodies. But these bodies are basically plot points, not worked-out characters. The book’s plot either moves inexorably toward a dead body or flows directly from it, and the more artificial the situation the better. Readers can play off their fears by encountering the death experience in a superficial way.”) Buddha, Ādittapariyāya Sutta (“Fire Sermon Discourse”). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%80dittapariy%C4%81ya_Sutta Don DeLillo, White Noise: Text and Criticism, Mark Osteen, ed. (Penguin, 1998). ---. “The Sightings.” Weekend Magazine (August 4, 1979), 26-30. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (Routledge, 1966). Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (1880). Franz Kafka, “A Hunger Artist” (1922). Édouard Manet’s Olympia (1863). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympia_(Manet) Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955). Mark Osteen, “‘The Natural Language of the Culture’: Exploring Commodities through White Noise.” Approaches to Teaching DeLillo’s White Noise, eds. Tim Engles and John N. Duvall (MLA, 2006), pp. 192-203. Ronald Reagan, “Farewell Address to the Nation,” January 11, 1989. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjECSv8KFN4            (“I’ve spoken of the ‘shining city’ all my political life . . .”) Mark L. Sample, “Unseen and Unremarked On: Don DeLillo and the Failure of the Digital Humanities.” https://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/untitled-88c11800-9446-469b-a3be-3fdb36bfbd1e/section/be12b589-a9ca-4897-9475-f8c0b03ca648(See this article for DeLillo’s list of alternate titles, including “Panasonic” and “Matshushita” (Panasonic’s parent corporation).)

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  1:44:54
• Episode 21: White Noise (1)

  We’ve arrived at the big one, the breakthrough book of 1985 – White Noise. In Episodes 21 and 22, DDSWTNP extend our White Noise “residency” and turn in-depth attention to DeLillo’s most popular piece of fiction in another double episode.  Episode 21: White Noise (1) takes an expansive view of the novel’s narrative and goes into depth on (among many other subjects) the iconic opening chapter’s commentary on America and Americana, the meaning of Mylex suits, Jack’s relationships with Heinrich and Orest Mercator, and what it means to be a rat, a snake, a fascist, and a scholar of Hitler in this book’s universe. Episode 22: White Noise (2) interprets passages mainly from the book’s second half, including scenes featuring the dark humor of Vernon Dickey and of SIMUVAC, the meaning of DeLillo’s desired title “Panasonic,” Jack’s shooting of Willie Mink (and what it owes to Nabokov), a riveting fire and a fascinating trash compactor cube, and the Dostoevskyan interrogation of belief by Sister Hermann Marie. Every minute features original ideas on the enduring meanings of White Noise in so many political, social, technological, and moral dimensions – what it teaches us about the roots and implications of our many epistemological crises, how it does all this in writing that somehow manages to be self-conscious, philosophical, hilarious, and warm all at once. Texts and artifacts discussed and mentioned in these episodes: Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (Free Press, 1973).  Adam Begley, “Don DeLillo: The Art of Fiction CXXXV,” The Paris Review 128 (1993): 274-306.            (DeLillo: “And White Noise develops a trite adultery plot that enmeshes the hero, justifying his fears about the death energies contained in plots. When I think of highly plotted novels I think of detective fiction or mystery fiction, the kind of work that always produces a few dead bodies. But these bodies are basically plot points, not worked-out characters. The book’s plot either moves inexorably toward a dead body or flows directly from it, and the more artificial the situation the better. Readers can play off their fears by encountering the death experience in a superficial way.”) Buddha, Ādittapariyāya Sutta (“Fire Sermon Discourse”). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%80dittapariy%C4%81ya_Sutta Don DeLillo, White Noise: Text and Criticism, Mark Osteen, ed. (Penguin, 1998). ---. “The Sightings.” Weekend Magazine (August 4, 1979), 26-30. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (Routledge, 1966). Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (1880). Franz Kafka, “A Hunger Artist” (1922). Édouard Manet’s Olympia (1863). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympia_(Manet) Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955). Mark Osteen, “‘The Natural Language of the Culture’: Exploring Commodities through White Noise.” Approaches to Teaching DeLillo’s White Noise, eds. Tim Engles and John N. Duvall (MLA, 2006), pp. 192-203. Ronald Reagan, “Farewell Address to the Nation,” January 11, 1989. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjECSv8KFN4            (“I’ve spoken of the ‘shining city’ all my political life . . .”) Mark L. Sample, “Unseen and Unremarked On: Don DeLillo and the Failure of the Digital Humanities.” https://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/untitled-88c11800-9446-469b-a3be-3fdb36bfbd1e/section/be12b589-a9ca-4897-9475-f8c0b03ca648(See this article for DeLillo’s list of alternate titles, including “Panasonic” and “Matshushita” (Panasonic’s parent corporation).)

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  1:59:43
• Episode 20: Discovering White Noise

  Looking to start reading Don DeLillo, or already a fan and looking for ways to persuade your friends, relatives, or students to finally access the wonders of White Noise? In Episode Twenty, DDSWTNP offer an introduction to White Noise for the first-time reader of DeLillo, focusing on elements of plot, action, character, humor, and voice that often present stumbling blocks to initiates. We help listeners navigate DeLillo’s most popular novel, the “gateway drug” to the joys and challenges that a lifetime of reading his corpus holds in store. We also answer key questions like how to regard Hitler Studies and whether you need to know anything about “postmodernism,” philosophy, or how a media theorist might read the Most Photographed Barn in America before entering DeLillo’s world (spoiler: no!). Longtime listeners to the pod will find here, we hope, an episode to send along to anyone they’ve given a copy of White Noise for Christmas or ever told, “Hey, you should read Don DeLillo.” The first of several episodes to come from us on White Noise as the novel turns 40, this podcast will be followed in 2025 by our deep dives into the novel itself, its massive body of criticism, and the recent film adaptation – so stay tuned, and may you be immensely pleased. First-time readers of White Noise looking for illuminating critical and contextual reading should try some of the essays and excerpts collected in Mark Osteen, ed., White Noise: Text and Criticism (New York: Penguin, 1998), as well as the many excellent resources at Curt Gardner’s website “Don DeLillo’s America” (http://perival.com/delillo/delillo.html). But as we suggest in the episode, mainly we advise just going back and re-reading all your favorite scenes, or even the whole thing!

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  1:08:03
• Episode 19: Rachel Kushner's Creation Lake

  In Episode Nineteen, DDSWTNP turn outward to a discussion of Rachel Kushner, whose Booker Prize-nominated Creation Lake, a 2024 novel about the folly of espionage, revolutionary violence, life underground, and confronting modernity with ancient practices in rural France, solidifies its author’s reputation as a key inheritor of DeLillo’s influence and themes. Creation Lake is narrated by a nihilistic spy named Sadie Smith who infiltrates a farming commune called Le Moulin and grows enchanted with the claims of their cave-dwelling philosophical advisor, who argues that Neanderthal life thousands of years ago holds the key to reshaping humankind. In it Kushner explores the legacy of France’s 1968 while echoing The Names, Great Jones Street, Ratner’s Star, Mao II, and other DeLillo works, as we outline in our discussion. We find rich references as well in Creation Lake to Nathaniel Hawthorne, Joan Didion, Michel Houellebecq, and Kushner’s own previous works, especially The Flamethrowers and The Mars Room. Listeners looking for new writing reminiscent of DeLillo and those already knowledgeable of Kushner’s works will find plenty here, and we hope this episode will be the first of several over time dedicated to DeLillo’s massive influence on exciting new world literature. Texts and quotations mentioned and discussed in this episode, in addition to Creation Lake and those by DeLillo: Joan Didion, Play It As It Lays (1970) and Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968) Dana Goodyear, “Rachel Kushner’s Immersive Fiction,” The New Yorker, April 23, 2018 (includes discussion of Kushner’s friendship with DeLillo) Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance (1852) and The Scarlet Letter (1850) Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin (2019) Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers (2013) and The Mars Room (2018) ---. “Rachel Kushner: ‘The last book that made me cry? The Brothers Karamazov,” The Guardian, October 5, 2018 (source of this answer: “The book that influenced my writing: Probably novels by Joan Didion, Denis Johnson and Don DeLillo. But a whole lot of other books, too”) “In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.” (F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Crack-Up” (1936)– a line mangled slightly in the episode)

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