In Tom Wolfe's essay "Stalking The Billion-Footed Beast," he bemoans the death of the realistic novel and the dearth of any such writers. He calls for an end to metafictions and a return to the documentations of the past. But Wolfe misses the boat on this one. His brushback of all that is unreal disregards a large segment of the fiction that is produced now. Wolfe comes across as a snooty highbrow with nothing but scorn for those with different points of view or different ways of expressing them. There is room in literature for all kinds of styles, especially if the work is of high quality. Don DeLillo"s White Noise (which isn't really true metafiction) certainly is an interesting and stimulating book which undoubtedly would have drawn Wolfe's ire. Moreover, White Noise is important because it asks questions that a realistic novel probably is not able to deal with. White Noise, in a subtle and oblique way, is every bit as "real" as the books that Wolfe mentions. Real because it touches on topics that exist in today's world; none of the issues raised by DeLillo are made up. They are the problems of America in the late twentieth century.
One of the problems is technology and its effects. Of course, any realistic novel set today has to include at least a passing reference to the ever-changing world of bytes and hard-drives. Everybody knows about the information superhighway and how it's going to change our lives. Instead of tackling the issue head-on, like Wolfe advocates, DeLillo takes a different approach. He prefers to let the reader decipher the meaning rather than making it obvious. For instance, there seems to be a television or radio always on in the background. DeLillo doesn't say what this means and forces the reader to think. Technology is not at the forefront (except for the cloud incident) but always appears to be hiding in the background. This works well because the increasing influence that technology is having on our lives is not an overnight phenomenon. It just slowly creeps more and more into our lives. As technology becomes more prominent, however, it also becomes more detached and incomprehensible to the common man (and woman), like Jack in front of the ATM machine. Hence, many people (like Jack) feel somewhat scared about what modern science is capable of. This fear is best displayed in the black cloud and the havoc it creates. Everyone is at the mercy of the wind and the anonymous SIMUVAC. Even these authorities don't know what the cloud is or what its effects are. It is this loss of power, this helpless feeling, that makes many people ambivalent about science. DeLillo captures all the mixed feelings perfectly.
Death, and the fear of it, basically takes over the last part of the book. Babette has an almost pathological fear of being alone, and this drives her to seek out Dylar to ease her pain. This fear is irrational and slightly unrealistic especially to the extent that Babette takes it. But that is not the point. All people have a small fear of death, and DeLillo merely amplifies this feeling to demonstrate the fact that we live in a consumer society where just about anything can be bought, including a remedy for an acute fear of death. Is it really so far-fetched that a person would think of this idea and then try to produce it? Not really. If it could sell, then someone would put it out. The whole episode with the Dylar culminates in the incident at the motel. By shooting Mink Jack may have been trying to exorcise his and Babette's fears like Murray told him to. But I think it is significant that Jack takes Mink to the hospital instead of letting him die. It is as if Jack regains his humanity and loses his fear. In the final scene, Babette, Jack, and Wilder go to the overpass to witness the fantastic chemical-induced sunset. It appears that Babette and Jack have at least accepted their fears and have come to term with them. They are willing to live their lives out instead of living in fear.
Simply put, this book would have been much less engrossing if it was written in a realistic manner. DeLillo was able to do things that a conventional novel probably can not. All the references to brand-names and pop culture have little narrative value but contribute to the atmosphere of the book. DeLillo is doing more than just tell a story with a message; he is challenging the way we look at things. One could say that DeLillo rails against technology and all that it entails, but is this an accurate statement? True, he doesn't show modern science in a sympathetic light, but one could also say that those who are shown in the worst light are those who allow themselves to be taken over by these new inventions. I am not sure which one of these statements is closest to the true, because of the ambiguous nature of the book. Not ambiguous meaning muddled or convoluted, but ambiguous meaning thought-provoking. DeLillo does a masterful job of creating a mood (the room of Jack's German tutor) and connecting seemingly random passages. This flies in the face of Wolfe, who felt that the novel should "wrestle the beast" that is reality. No one really lives a life like Jack and his family, but that doesn't undermine the book. In fact, the detached and improbable tone of the book increase its effectiveness because it keeps the reader on the outside wondering what is going on and what the meaning of all of this is. DeLillo leaves it up to the reader. Wolfe's method is equally valid but I feel that White Noise, with its eerie ambiance and unsettling, unanswerable questions, was best suited to the "Radical Disjunction/ Absurdist" style that DeLillo employs.