Is this supposed to be funny? I just started today and am only

>>9574702

>Is this supposed to be funny
>I laughed

It's not supposed to be HAHA funny as much as intelligently comic. Much of the book is predicated on drawing attention to the oddness of otherwise ordinary daily reactions. Fear of death and fear of social suicide being issues for the novel's nuclear family. There's probably more but I've forgotten.

Also, the world's most photographed barn is supposed to reflect how people no longer even see the point of that barn. It's been photographed and reproduced so many times that the whole thing exists for no other purpose than as a tourist attraction. Nobody reflects on its use as a home for cows, or for storing tractors, or maybe even just for hiding out in after robbing a 7-11. It's just there to get people to drive in off the freeway and wile away an hour, take a picture and go home. It's like DeLillo's way of reflecting how people no longer go to museums for the purpose of actually seeing art; they go so they can snapchat shit to their mates.

>>9574702
No, it's supposed to be incredibly painful to read because it describes your life so well.

Think of an American Houellebecq-ian depressive realism.

Add me to the 'didn't find it funny' team

>>9574758
Don DeLillo has written better books for a longer time than Michel Houllebecq. The fact that you refer to him as "Houllebecq-ian" is fucking retarded and misses the tradition of both writers.

Was anyone else immensely unimpressed by this? Maybe I just seen it too often but criticism of TV culture and consumerism doesn't really do it for me and all the commentary on it was so obvious, I'm fairly sure this novel is so widely acclaimed is simply because its easy for undergrads to analyse. That said I found the middle section and start of the final enthralling and will certainly read more of him.

dude how come when he writes dialogue he doesnt change the voice or style like as if instead of dialogue its just continued narration

>>9575523
I was quite impressed by the comentary of this culture of noise where there's information everywhere but we don't know which information is useful or even correct and its comentaries about the devaluation of culture. It's a far more interesting book that it may seem, in my humble opinion. This and Gaddis' JR are probably my favourite books about "the now" of culture.

>>9575530
it makes the book feel more eerie imo

found it extremely comfy.

>>9574702
It's a satire for sure, comic and absurd in tone but not really the kind of stuff that makes you laugh out loud.

>>9575523
Agree that it's pretty obvious and direct but that's just a matter of style. It kind of works because it makes the characters come across as kind of mechanical, overly analytical, inhuman. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the critique aspect, I thought it'd just be the usual "dude, you buy too much stuff!"

I found it pretty funny desu

didn't stop it from giving me a bunch of existential crises

>>9575523
This is how I felt. Maybe at the time it was written, this was a fresh, new sort of commentary. But now it just feels obvious and not very interesting.

I did enjoy it, and found parts of it quite funny, but overall, nothing especially new or stunning to me.

It's hardly a critique lmao

get over yourselves

>>9574702
In the ridiculous kind of way, yeah. White Noise is a parody of the postmodern world. It's okay to laugh at it.

>>9575486
Stay mad. I didn't say Houellebecq is good or Delillo owes to Houellebecq. But White Noise is undeniably Delillo's most depressing.

It's not fucking funny. It's accurate.

File: hopsin-funk-volume-solo.jpg (34KB, 600x400px) Image search: [Google]

34KB, 600x400px

It's Idiocracy-tier schlock for Tool fans.

>>9574729
Pretty spot on with the barn. To truly get what DeLillo is getting at I'd read Benjamin's 'art in the age of mechanical reproduction' and get acquainted with his term "Aura," which is actually used in that specific DeLillo passage (the only time the word aura is used in the novel I believe).

>>9575523
It's well written prose. The characters of the husband and wife are very memorable, as are the lengthy descriptions of random minutia for having a sort of odd psychological effect.

The book really does capture that weird 80s/90s feeling of consumer mass media culture as it was first blossoming in a way that little else has done.

To be honest, I felt kind of "meh" about it, but it has genuinely stuck with me since I read it. It's a weird book and I think it earns its place in the canon, despite the fact that I feel no real emotional reaction to it besides a sort of hesitant and puzzled admiration. Setting and characters are excellent, the arc of the story itself is forgettable. In my view.

>>9577202
except it preceded all those things you goddamned retard. What's next? you gonna call it Reddit tier? I guess Summer posters are real.

>>9574702
I thought it was hilarious and laughed out loud often. Then again, I'm extremely schizotypal but not at all a humorless sperg like most of the retards here.