Some books I read for enjoyment, others for a challenge. Then there are books like White Noise I read as a kind of secular penance, because every now and then I need something to more or less kick my teeth in.
Punishment literature, I call it. Post-modern literature is the more accepted term. It’s not my scene, but there are post-modern books, even a couple by the same author, that I can find pleasure in reading. White Noise is such a death-obsessed, narrative-splintered drag that I can’t even fake a baseline appreciation for it.
Jack Gladney is a college professor who chairs a department in Hitler Studies at a geographically isolated college. He is married to Babette, with whom he shares responsibility for a number of children (who are either his or hers but not theirs) and an all-consuming fear of dying.
