On-line Response #4: Don DELILLO
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
Regarding White Noise:
1. How does the domestic setting in White Noise compare to those in Carver's stories? In Wallace's stories?
2. Explain the significance of the "Waves and Radiation" (or the "White Noise") that form the backdrop to this idyllic suburban setting?
3. Or consider the bookjacket comments, e.g. "The most adventurous and original fiction in recent times" (Chicago Tribune). Do you start to feel, like Murray when he sees "THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA," that "'We can't answer these questions because we've read the signs, seen the people snapping the pictures[?]...[because] We can't get outside the aura'"?
4. Finally, why is the word "death" so omnipresent, mentioned so much in White Noise?
Regarding "E Unibus Pluram":
Consider if Wallace's overall thesis applies to recent American fiction you've read. Do you agree with Wallace? And might this piece of criticism itself be considered "literary"?
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