White Noise

I found myself in a moment of looking for something to do. In result of that, I decided to sort through the books on my shelf and figure out how I wanted to reorganize them. Do I sort them by author's last name, or simply by the title? Maybe I'll go with the shape of the book: largest to smallest. How about segmenting them by genre, and within each genre, putting them in alpha order by author's last name? Nonetheless, I did not finish my intended goal because I was caught off guard by the book White Noise. The book is written by Don DeLillo and was published in the mid 80s. I had to read it for Politics and Media, some class I took over the summer to get my social science credit taken care of while in college. The book definitely made an impact, seeing how it's one of the few that I didn't sell back at some given point.

The content of the book is a bit complex; it covers many topics and there isn't really a straight forward narrative. It focuses on a specific family, which is kind of a postmodern Brady Bunch. The father has children from various marriages and the same for the wife. So, none of the siblings carry any full blood between each other. Themes within the story are mainly about the fear of death, hysteria, and what role authority plays in society.

Below is probably my favorite piece of dialogue in the book. It's between the father and his son, who he is driving him to school:

"It's going to rain tonight," the boy said.

"It's raining right now," I said.

"The radio said tonight."

"Look at the windshield," I said. "Is that rain or isn't it?"

"I'm only telling you what they said."

"Just because it's on the radio doesn't mean we have to suspend belief in the evidence of our senses."

"Our senses? Our senses are wrong a lot more often than they're right. This has been proved in the laboratory. Don't you know about all those theorems that say nothing is what it seems? There's no past, present or future outside our own mind. The so-called laws of motion are a big hoax. Even sound can trick the mind. Just because you don't hear a sound doesn't mean it's not out there. Dogs can hear it. Other animals. And I'm sure there are sounds even dogs can't hear. But they exist in the air, in waves. Maybe they never stop. High, high, high-pitched. Coming from somewhere."

"Is it raining," I said, "or isn't it?"

"I wouldn't want to have to say."

"What if someone held a gun to your head?"

"Who, you?"

"Someone. A man in a trenchcoat and smoky glasses. He holds a gun to your head and says, 'Is it raining or isn't it? All you have to do is tell the truth and I'll put away my gun and take the next flight out of here."

"What truth does he want? Does he want the truth of someone traveling at almost the speed of light in another galaxy? Does he want the truth of someone in orbit around a neutron star? Maybe if these people could see us through a telescope we might look like we were two feet two inches tall and it might be raining yesterday instead of today."

"He's holding the gun to your head. He wants your truth."

"What good is my truth? My truth means nothing. What if this guy wuth the gun comes from a planet in a whole different solar system? What we call rain he calls soap. What we calls apples he calls rain. So what am I supposed to tell him?"

"His name is Frank J. Smalley and he comes from St. Louis."

"He wants to know if it's raining now, at this very minute?"

"Here and now. That's right."

"Is there such a thing as now? 'Now' comes and goes as soon as you say it. How can I say it's raining now if your so-called 'now' becomes 'then' as soon as I say it?"

"You said there was no past, present, or future."

"Only in our verbs. That's the only place we find it."

"Rain is a noun. Is there rain here, in this precise locality, at whatever time within the next two minutes that you choose to respond to the question?"

"If you want to talk about this precise locality while you're in a vehicle that's obviously moving, then I think that's the trouble with this discussion."

"Just give me an answer, okay?"

"The best I could do is make a guess."

"Either it's raining or it isn't," I said.

"Exactly. That's my whole point. You'd be guessing. Six of one, half dozen of the other."

"But you see it's raining."

"You see the sun moving across the sky. But is the sun moving across the sky or is the earth turning?"

"I don't accept the analogy."

"You're so sure that's rain. How do you know it's not sulfuric acid from factories across the river? How do you know it's not fallout from a war in China? You want an answer here and now. Can you prove, here and now, that this stuff is rain? How do I know that what you call rain is really rain? What is rain anyway?"

"It's the stuff that falls from the sky and gets you what is called wet."

"I'm not wet. Are you wet?"

"All right," I said. "Very good."

"No, seriously, are you wet?"

"First-rate," I told him, "a victory for uncertainty, randomness and chaos. Science's finest hour."

"Be sarcastic."

The conversation continues more into some other topics and then the father starts to describe what the boy's mother was like. Everytime I read this passage, I crack up and then start thinking. Although the boy comes across as annoying, and at first, slightly ridiculous, he somehow makes some mind-scratching points.

Of course, the point about the sun moving across the sky; any astronomer will tell you that it is the earth turning. However, many centuries ago, astronomers would have told you that the earth is the center of the universe. And it wasn't until a few centuries later that they decided the world was not flat. So, where will we be a few centuries from now?

Overall, that slice of dialogue makes me not take everything so seriously. When I get ready for work in the morning, I won't let the bad weather bother me. Besides, what is rain anyway?