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David's Reviews > White Noise
White Noise
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by
Ooh look! It's a can. Looks like it might have worms inside. Let's open it up again.
Updated (i.e. "final") review: March 30th, 2008
So. I had read three quarters of this and decided to chuck it, but last night my compulsive side won over, and I went ahead and finished it. I still can't wrap my mind around the notion that I should somehow regard it as a "great book of the 20th century", and none of the 19 comments in this thread to date really addresses why I should. So, I am asking for enlightenment.
To sum up my three main difficulties with the book:
(a) dialog that is clunky to the point of unreadability. It's so dreadful that I'm quite willing to believe it's deliberately implausible. But - assuming it's not just laziness and a tin ear - why would an author make such a choice? What's the point? Giving DeLillo the benefit of the doubt, and assuming he could have written believable dialog, what is the point of not using his gifts to the best of his ability, instead irritating the reader with substandard rubbishy 'conversations' that draw attention to their own lack of believability?
(b) "satire" whose effect is similar to assaulting the reader with a blunt instrument. Whether it's the repeated use of such tired and obvious devices as the random scattering of consumer product names throughout the text, or having his protagonist lead the department of "Hitler Studies", there's nothing remotely smart about it. This kind of heavy-handed bludgeoning is the hallmark of a very inferior writer. It insults the intelligence. Authors are generally praised for demonstrating subtlety and wit - why should DeLillo be given a pass?
(c) The lousy dialog is symptomatic of a related problem - the characters are thinly developed, cartoonishly described, to the point of caricature. Not to mention aspects of the plot that don't even bother to approximate reality (did you know that just rolling up your car window will create a hermetic seal, preventing any and all gas exchange with the outside world?). Again, hardly qualities we associate with good writing.
So I'm left with the question - why is DeLillo given a pass? At best, (if one believes he is capable of writing well) in this book he's being incredibly lazy and just phoning it in. Another possibility is that he's genuinely incompetent and actually mistakes his cartoonish efforts here for genuine wit. Either way, why should he be held to a lower critical standard?
Because that's what seems to happen with this book. People acknowledge that it is poorly written, with characters that border on caricature, that it's hard to read, then go ahead and give it 4 or 5 stars anyway. Why?
*************************************************
my original comments start here
OK. I'm 50 pages into this award-winning effort and there's something I just don't get. Why is this book stuffed with such gratingly implausible* dialog throughout? It's so unspeakably bad, I have to think it's deliberate. But why? What would be the point? DeLillo has already made the questionable choice to filter the entire story through the voice of a first-person narrator who was already irritating by page 2 and isn't getting any more likeable. If none of the characters has a believable voice, why should I read on?
*: entered as supporting evidence -
I've bought these peanuts before. They're round, cubical, pockmarked, seamed. Broken peanuts. A lot of dust at the bottom of the jar. But they taste good. Most of all I like the packages themselves. You were right, Jack. This is the last avant-garde. Bold new forms. The power to shock.
"Your wife's hair is a living wonder."
"Yes, it is."
"She has important hair."
"I think I know what you mean".
"Whatever's best for you."
"I want you to choose. It's sexier that way."
"One person chooses, the other reads. Don't we want a balance, a sort of give-and-take? Isn't that what makes it sexy?"
"A tautness, a suspense. First-rate. I will choose."
There's not a human being on the planet who would say the boldfaced stuff. Ever.
Further examples - even more egregious - can be found (famously) in B.R. Myers's "A Reader's Manifesto".
So why does this not bother all you readers who gave 5 stars to this book? Just askin'
Updated (i.e. "final") review: March 30th, 2008
So. I had read three quarters of this and decided to chuck it, but last night my compulsive side won over, and I went ahead and finished it. I still can't wrap my mind around the notion that I should somehow regard it as a "great book of the 20th century", and none of the 19 comments in this thread to date really addresses why I should. So, I am asking for enlightenment.
To sum up my three main difficulties with the book:
(a) dialog that is clunky to the point of unreadability. It's so dreadful that I'm quite willing to believe it's deliberately implausible. But - assuming it's not just laziness and a tin ear - why would an author make such a choice? What's the point? Giving DeLillo the benefit of the doubt, and assuming he could have written believable dialog, what is the point of not using his gifts to the best of his ability, instead irritating the reader with substandard rubbishy 'conversations' that draw attention to their own lack of believability?
(b) "satire" whose effect is similar to assaulting the reader with a blunt instrument. Whether it's the repeated use of such tired and obvious devices as the random scattering of consumer product names throughout the text, or having his protagonist lead the department of "Hitler Studies", there's nothing remotely smart about it. This kind of heavy-handed bludgeoning is the hallmark of a very inferior writer. It insults the intelligence. Authors are generally praised for demonstrating subtlety and wit - why should DeLillo be given a pass?
(c) The lousy dialog is symptomatic of a related problem - the characters are thinly developed, cartoonishly described, to the point of caricature. Not to mention aspects of the plot that don't even bother to approximate reality (did you know that just rolling up your car window will create a hermetic seal, preventing any and all gas exchange with the outside world?). Again, hardly qualities we associate with good writing.
So I'm left with the question - why is DeLillo given a pass? At best, (if one believes he is capable of writing well) in this book he's being incredibly lazy and just phoning it in. Another possibility is that he's genuinely incompetent and actually mistakes his cartoonish efforts here for genuine wit. Either way, why should he be held to a lower critical standard?
Because that's what seems to happen with this book. People acknowledge that it is poorly written, with characters that border on caricature, that it's hard to read, then go ahead and give it 4 or 5 stars anyway. Why?
*************************************************
my original comments start here
OK. I'm 50 pages into this award-winning effort and there's something I just don't get. Why is this book stuffed with such gratingly implausible* dialog throughout? It's so unspeakably bad, I have to think it's deliberate. But why? What would be the point? DeLillo has already made the questionable choice to filter the entire story through the voice of a first-person narrator who was already irritating by page 2 and isn't getting any more likeable. If none of the characters has a believable voice, why should I read on?
*: entered as supporting evidence -
I've bought these peanuts before. They're round, cubical, pockmarked, seamed. Broken peanuts. A lot of dust at the bottom of the jar. But they taste good. Most of all I like the packages themselves. You were right, Jack. This is the last avant-garde. Bold new forms. The power to shock.
"Your wife's hair is a living wonder."
"Yes, it is."
"She has important hair."
"I think I know what you mean".
"Whatever's best for you."
"I want you to choose. It's sexier that way."
"One person chooses, the other reads. Don't we want a balance, a sort of give-and-take? Isn't that what makes it sexy?"
"A tautness, a suspense. First-rate. I will choose."
There's not a human being on the planet who would say the boldfaced stuff. Ever.
Further examples - even more egregious - can be found (famously) in B.R. Myers's "A Reader's Manifesto".
So why does this not bother all you readers who gave 5 stars to this book? Just askin'
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Finished Reading
February 26, 2008
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Comments Showing 1-50 of 113 (113 new)
David, I loathed this book. I mean, I loathed the beginning of it -- then I stuffed it down the garbage disposal. I know billions of people who love WN, but to me every sentence felt like like being waterboarded with sugar-free Redbull.... or something. I don't know what it felt like, really, just that the experience was really unpleasant.I did really like Underworld, and since these are the only two DeLillos I've ever tried, I'm not sure what to think of him. I also liked Infinite Jest, which I feel is associated with this unreadable piece of ironical torturous crap, but yeah, White Noise: one of the doozies that contributed greatly to that Several-Years-Beginning-In-The-Late-Nineties-When-I-Stopped-Reading-Fiction-Altogether episode. Honestly, though, it was a long time ago... maybe I should try again?
No. I should not.
Jennifer, you're entitled to be wrong about this and many other things. Neither this nor Dirty Dancing has lowered my esteem for you.
Jessica: I think you've nailed it. There's something uniquely *unpleasant* about the experience of reading this book - the dialog is incredibly bad, the narrator is a wack-job, his bizarro family members are - well - bizarre, as are his academic colleagues. And I can't even begin to describe how irritating it is when DeLillo interrupts whatever is going on to pull this kind of faux-portentous bullshit:"The emptiness, the sense of cosmic darkness.
MasterCard, Visa, American Express.
I tell her I want to die first."
Bravo, Don. That's the kind of subtlety that makes for award-winning writing.
Dacron, Orlon, Lycra Spandex.
Obviously, you have a pretty dim view of the intelligence of your readership. Just as I have a dim view of the phrase "the media is".
Tegrin. Denorex, Selsun Blue.
Aw, screw it, Don. Let's not mince words. Your writing sucks donkeyballs, your 'thinking' seems entirely pedestrian, and you have the finesse and subtlety of a neo-Nazi skinhead gang. You got your chance, but life is just too short. After 150 wretched pages, I'm bailing.
Haagen Dazs. Godiva. Nutty Nazgul. Fruusen Gladje.
Daniel, what is it that you like so much about this book? A lot of my Booksters have starred it generously, but none has written a review yet explaining why.Though I do have to wonder if, judging by your failure to appreciate one of the classics of western cinema, I should really care what you think. This lapse in judgment regarding Dirty Dancing does call your previously sterling credibility into question.
To paraphrase: Just put your stars on all the books, pomo-boy, and leave the hard stuff to me....
Jenny, unfortunately, since I must leave myself some time to masturbate and latch hook, I lack the time or energy to review every book I've read. Suffice it to say... Anyone who doesn't like this book is obviously a complete doodoo head who enjoys eating their mother's caca and then regurgitating it into their father's poohole. Delillo is brilliant more often than not, and especially in White Noise, which is one of my favorite books of all time. I am infallible and shall not be questioned on this matter. (But I love you all anyway. I am not a doodoo head bigot.)
Coprophagy gets such a bum rap, Desmond. I mean, Donnie ..... I'm sure Joanie would agree. Oops, I meant Jessifer, obviously.
Amen, Darwin! Poopie's not just for breakfast anymore...
I found the book very hard to read as well, but can't help but think that was part of the point. Whether or not you respect that device is your business, but the overwhelming message I got from the book is that spoiled 1980's American culture-with it's consumerism, self-centeredness, morbidity, voyeurism and inability to truly value anything--was insufferable. I thought DeLillo exaggerated the obnoxious-ness, and that he was a little hard on his own kind. Nonetheless, what I got was a very ugly, yet very honest portrait. You're supposed to have little respect for the narrator and his wife; even hate them. I didn't like the book's negativity. It really seemed like a 300+ page bitchfest, and you have to wonder what the point of that was. Nonetheless, I respect it as literature.
I also liked this book and was willing to accept the fact that the characters are totally unlikable and the dialog unbelievable. It was only because I hated them that I was able to find the ending so darkly hilarious.
Uh, Laura... You're emasculating me. (Your picture is, anyway.)
Yeah, she probably also digs Philip K. Dick. (I swear... That's all you women think about. Reading, I mean.)
AAARRRRRRGHH!!!!(sound of Chairwoman tipping over as she dies laughing...)
thanks guys.
Actually, I hate Philip K. Dick. But maybe it's only because I envy him so...
I couldn't finish White Noise, found it terribly boring, very, very written. I did finish Underworld, hated it (after the first chapter which was later repackaged as a novella?!) and I'd be hard pressed to try him again.
Donald, I am glad to hear this. True Confession: I've never had the patience to finish one of DeLillo's books. I've tried several. Have "The Body Artist" untouched on my bookshelf. Even tried one of his (forget which now) on Books on Tape. Couldn't do it. I feel like such a retrograde. Glad to hear there are other nonfans such as you (and David, with the above review...not talking of Daniel here)
Ah well, you can't love or even like everything, and it is refreshing to know that many people can cop to not liking a "Great Book of the 20th Century".
David, I liked your review and voted for it, mostly because I'm all for passionate bashing of the sacred cows of contemporary literature. I don't feel especially strongly about DeLillo one way or the other, so I feel no need to defend my (4-star) rating of this book. Those stars merely represent my immediate reaction to the experience on the final page. It was certainly no work of genius.But I do want to say one thing. To inveigh against a novel of any era on the premise that its dialogue is "unbelievable" is totally nonsensical. Who gives a sh-t? Since when is a writer beholden to realism in any capacity? In all the history of language it has never been incumbent upon the author to render narrative which looks, sounds, or feels like the real world. My brother tries this same argument (so does Meyers), and it's incoherent. Writing is representational.
Nice review, and it makes me feel better about never finishing Underworld. In the end, I decided DFW had good reasons for deliberately introducing a lot of bad writing into Infinite Jest. I never figured out what deLillo's point was, but to be fair to him I guess I might just not have been smart enough to get it. Could one of the deLillo fans at least give me a clue?
Your argument revolves around unrealistic dialogue. He is by no stretch of the imagination a bad writer. Why are you so hung up on dialogue? Think of the myriad works of 20th century genius which contain dialogue you wouldn't expect to be uttered from the mouth of any person you've ever met. Do you think Beckett cared about realistic dialogue? Joyce? Pynchon? Even Kafka. You need to learn that realistic dialogue isn't everything. In fact, when the author intends it to be, realistic dialogue is nothing at all.
Dear Kristian:If you read my review with a little more care, I think you will find that there were a few other points I took issue with besides the lousy dialog, such as the implausibility of certain plot points, the heavy-handed nature of the "satire", the two-dimensional, perfunctory characterization, the general treatment of the reader as if he were some kind of moron.
You wrote:
"In fact, when the author intends it to be, realistic dialogue is nothing at all."
which is as meaningless a sentence as I've read in at least the last month. Authorial intent and three bucks might buy you a latte at Starbucks if you're lucky. You can be sure that every wannabe Flaubert out there "intends" their work to be pure genius, but wishing doesn't make it so, and in the meantime, there are vexing details such as plot, characterization, and - yes - dialog that need to be addressed in an adequate, non-imbecilic fashion. In this particular book, DeLillo seemed to me to be just phoning it in. I cannot comment on his other work because I haven't tried it (other than some hideous tale about a vile plutocrat stuck in a limousine in Manhattan). So, he may not be a bad writer, in general. In this particular instance, I happened to think he was.
But, really, I'm tired of this book, and this particular discussion. So, if you´ll excuse me, what I NEED right now is to go to bed. I hope you won't mind if I treat your tedious, slightly condescending, rhetorical questions as just that.
You completely twisted that sentence of mine. Surely you knew exactly what I meant. If it needs spelling out for you again, then try this: Not all authors write realistic dialogue (refer to my aforementioned examples). Unrealistic dialogue serves the function which the writer intended it to serve. Do you whine about Shakespeare's characters? I bet you get really upset when they utter a rhyming couplet. A rhyming couplet?! Oh no, that wouldn't pass as 'believable' at all! Shakespeare, you hack.As for your review addressing 'the implausibility of certain plot points', I'm afraid you actually didn't. Notice the plural.
You wrote:
"Not to mention aspects of the plot that don't even bother to approximate reality (did you know that just rolling up your car window will create a hermetic seal, preventing any and all gas exchange with the outside world?)"
Care to go on? Not that it'll add any weight to your argument. Oh no! A work of fiction which 'doesn't even bother to approximate reality'?! Gregor Samsa turned into WHAT?!
Your other points (I use the term loosely) are harder to address. You thought the satire was heavy handed, I didn't. You thought the characters were thin, I didn't. You thought he 'treated the reader like some kind of moron', I laughed at the irony.
Kristian:Sorry. Upon re-reading my previous message, I was definitely cranky when I wrote it. You are right to call me on 'misunderstanding' your first point, which is a perfectly valid one.
It does seem to me that we have a legitimate difference of opinion. What worked for you just didn't work for me, in the case of this particular book. You are correct that, in other contexts, in other books, I would be happy to overlook any one of the particular points I raised in my review.
I don't know. I really disliked "White Noise", still don't understand why people raved about it. In the review I was trying to tease out why I disliked it as much as I did. (The intonation of consumer product names drove me up the walls for instance). Maybe we should agree to differ. I haven't written off DeLillo, so would be interested in hearing what else of his you would recommend.
Thanks for your input, and again - my apologies for the somewhat rude tone of my previous post - it was late, and I was tired when I wrote it.
Cheers
David
Well, I'm another five-star giving fan of this book. All I'm going to say is that some of the dialog being charged with the apparently Capital crime of being unrealistic really doesn't line up with my interaction with pop-cultural theorists and other academic clowns such as Murray (whom I find entertaining and even non-clownish at times throughout White Noise). Certain people who, say, write their dissertations on things like television commercials or the history of cinematic car crash scenes during the 1980s, or get philosophy course credits for watching The Simpsons or The Matrix (I could keep making fun) really would say something in conversation akin to "A tautness, a suspense. First-rate. I will choose." I mean, this "poet" in a class of mine actually tried to pass off "God does not play dice" during a discussion as if he'd invented the phrase on the spot. Some people really are that intellectually effete and hollow. And I think DeLillo was quite aware of this when writing certain dialog and, by my lights, captured it wonderfully among other five-star worthy things. But I haven't really thought all too hard about what I like about this book so much, other than the strangely pleasurable combination of agitating and soothing my own death-anxiety through out.
MFSO:Well, I'll certainly cop to obviously not having been in the right frame of mind when I read it. I found the other book by Delillo that I tried to be no better, unfortunately.
So what would you recommend for someone willing to give him another chance? (As kristian, apparently, just seems to have been happy to leave it at his drive-by snarking)
Well, I too hated White Noise and I too loathed Underworld and wrote a highly insulting review too, but there's nowt so queer as folk, you know, and I really loved Libra. So, Libra it is.
Oh dear - I really liked this book, thought the bits about death and sex and the comparisons between Hitler and Elvis were all very funny. The scene where the mad house is burning down is one of my favourite scenes in any of his books. I also really liked Mao II A Novel, Libra, Americana., Cosmopolis. - But a lot of his more recent stuff I've started and given up on - Underworld seemed unreadable to me, as did Falling Man A Novel.
White noise is a comedy about society. There is some introspections, though. Think Palaniuk wearing all black. That's it. The story is absurd and characters aren't meant to be realistic. Neither are the settings. His wife is taking pills to get rid of her fear. There is some commentary throughout the story but it's not supposed to be authentic. That's clear. For gosh sakes, laugh and have a good time. It's like trying to find the drama while watching Airplane.
We're allowed not to find comedies funny or dramas dramatic, we tells em as we finds em here.
David wrote: "So what would you recommend for someone willing to give him another chance? (As kristian, apparently, just seems to have been happy to leave it at his drive-by snarking)"Sorry that I took several months to get back to this, David. I've not read even half of DeLillo's books yet so I'm not an expert, but I'd say that purely from my experience, if you didn't like White Noise you probably won't like anything else by him. Though Paul's suggestion of Libra (which I still haven't read) sounds like the logical next step for you DeLillo-wise, if you're interested in giving him one more shot.
Nothing to do with anything, but I love your picture. Your cat is so cute.
I think the parts of the dialog that you don't like are where he is making fun of postmodernist academia. Which is especially funny in a postmodernist book, and in itself very postmodern.
I've read this twice (not by choice) and disliked it both times. Dislike is that feeling where you can't imagine anything worse, right? I also read Americana (hated it) and Libra (likewise). (I don't like how he deals with women. Or academics. Or people in general). (poor sentence structure brought to you by attempting comedic intonation on the internet)Somehow, I was still convinced to give Ratner's Star a shot, and I'm glad I did because it was amazing. So one DeLillo non-fan to another, try that one.
Just finished White Noise and my overall impression is that I could have done without it.There were however scenes I recall really enjoying. Jack and son Heinrich are arguing in the car about whether or not it's raining. I wanted to see this scene performed. Found it hilarious.
And, come to think of it, I could also picture more than a few people I know uttering the phrase, "She has important hair," in jest most likely but not necessarily. This scene was another of the exchanges I enjoyed. Listening to Murray is like listening to some fashion personality who keeps contradicting himself being interviewed by Bruno on Da Ali G Show. A wincingly painful experience but funny.
To follow up on what Moonglum points out, I'll add this from the commentary in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die:
"But the characters here are not the dupes of the system; they are its professional analysts." (p 730)
White Noise has provoked, in this thread alone, the kind of discussion DeLillo, and other postmoderns for that matter, might want to provoke.
Just too little of the reading experience was pleasurable and I have to go back and forth about whether that's okay with me. However, and for what it's worth, I probably wouldn't even bother to have this debate with myself if I didn't have anybody telling me that this is one of the "great books of the 20th century."
Such "tired and obvious devices as the random scattering of consumer product names throughout the text" may not have been so in 1985 when it was published. DeLillo has been incredibly influential.This book has to be put in context. There may be better sources but I found it helpful to go to this book's Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_No....
Finally, I want to express my appreciation for the original poster's tag "intellectual-con-artist-at-work."
the simplest way to understand why people love this book is to consider why people love Seinfeld. This is a show with petty, cheap, frivolous, neurotic people arguing about chickens/hens/roosters, the ugliest world leader, marble rye bread, the placement of a button on a shirt, stealing each other's "sex moves" and whether or not you can eat food out of a garbage can. in one infamous scene, Jerry, using a pointer, parodies the JFK assasination by tracing the collision points of a loogie on someone else's body. do you think any of that is "plausible" to the US audience that regards it as the best sitcom of all time?Would you really want to read a book where people make corny jokes, ask dumb questions, argue about doing housework, shout profanity at bad drivers and repeat the things that they heard on FOX news the night before? because that seems like it would be hyper "realistic," but a lot more tedious than White Noise.
The characters in this book are obvious prototypes for characters that show up everywhere in our culture. Gladney is incredibly similar to George Costanza, Heinrich is like that angsty kid in the movie Little Miss Sunshine to a tee. Babette is the depressed housewife whose husband idealizes her as a chipper pillar of support, represented by Gladney's use of her name in third-person, in passages like "this is not the point of Babette." or "Babette doesn't speak this way." Murray is like Kramer, a half-Zen, half-crackpot guy who seems to drift through his unexplainable life accumulating strange insights.
Noble, virtuous, proud people who work hard, worship God, talk "realistically" and overcome simple conflicts with a charming smile don't seem to exist anymore. Gladney even notices this when he compares his own anxiety towards death to Ghengis Khan's, whom he can't fathom being afraid of anything. And if those types of people do exist, are they really the ones you want to invite to a dinner party?
the 20th century has been defined by self-consciousness, technology, consumerism, subjective experience and information, all of which this book explores thoroughly. If you don't like the book, you might not like the century, which is okay because it does seem like it's been a weird one. but i feel like the book is great because it captures the dread, the anxiety, the bombardment of information, the weirdness of it all...
Great defence. I still hate this book, but a great defence.
Yeah, even though I'm not exactly smitten with the Seinfeld comparison, that was well said, Keith.
I agree. This is by far the most intelligent defence I've seen so far. It's probably no surprise that the Seinfeld characters get on my last nerve.
Thanks, Keith.
Same here - speaking as a big fan of Curb Your Enthusiasm, I find the whole Seinfeld thing really strange. It's not that funny and the characters are painful. But 100 million Americans can't be wrong I guess.
I agree on the dialog. It's always DeLillo's downfall. His characters don't talk real people, they talk like mouthpieces for the themes of the novel, or extensions of DeLillo himself. It's odd that the children in White Noise are just as hyper-intellectual as the adults. However, DeLillo's prose is almost unparalleled in fiction. Incredibly lyrical at times. And his power of observation is, in my opinion, fantastic. So many ideas that you knew were deep down in you somewhere, but DeLillo is the one retrieving them for you.
Keith wrote: "the simplest way to understand why people love this book is to consider why people love Seinfeld. This is a show with petty, cheap, frivolous, neurotic people arguing about chickens/hens/roosters, ..."Good observations. I can't believe that "unrealistic dialogue" can seriously be argued as an author's failure.
Hi Lambert - could you expand on that comment? I'm not quite sure where you're coming from! Perhaps this is the question : what constitutes realistic dialogue? Where do we draw the line? Do we need some concessions to whatever we think of a s "realistic" even in a novel which is intellectual cartoony satire?
All the examples of dialogue that David's quoted sound like instant messaging between intellectuals to me.People mightn't talk like that, but they message like that.
So pretty soon they might speak like that as well.
DeLillo might be what people will do when they have sufficient technology.
you can write a ten page polemic against every one of delillo's sentences. he's the worst writer to ever come down the pike
This pike that people come down... has anyone ever seen it? I want to stand on the side and watch them come down. Thing about Don is that after reading half of White Noise and a third of Underworld I would have agreed with John, but in the middle I read all of Libra, which is like something from writers' heaven... so I dunno.
Paul wrote: "This pike that people come down... has anyone ever seen it? I want to stand on the side and watch them come down."I think it's a bit like a petard that you wouldn't want to be hoist on.
Standing aside sounds like a good idea.
only people who've sunk low enough can come down the pike, my friend. i've been down the pike many times... boy, you don't wanna see any of my writing. delillo gave me a few tips on how to construct a sentence: "this isn't nowhere near insipid enough" he said, about a sentence referencing the abstract qualities of the dust on Doritos® brand snacks
Well, that's kinder than Cormac Macarthy would have been. He'd have just set his dogs on you and then beat you with a log-chain. Petards and pikes - words only used in the context of a well-known saying. There's probably more of those but it's too early here for my brain to do anything resembling work.
I'm glad you mentioned BR Meyers in your review...since i first read his book, I've sampled or re-read some of the authors he criticizes, and I've been pleasantly surprised to say that I actually still enjoy David Guterson, Annie Proulx, and especially Cormac McCarthy...but Meyers nails DeLillo perfectly, in my opinion.
However, I know that I have gaps in my literary sensibilities, since the most well-read friend I have outside of Goodreads is a huge fan of David Foster Wallace and Infinte Jest, and I couldn't make it past page 20. So, like you, I would also like to hear what other readers see in this book.