Airborne Toxic Event

I read White Noise a couple of weeks ago and I think it's pretty damn great -- I recall last time this came up in a thread there were a lot of haters out there, but y'all don't know what you're talking about. Followed up with Mao II, which I thought was somewhat worse. At any rate, as a consequence of the above, I'm now obsessed with the phrase "airborne toxic event." Relatedly, Belle reports"I was talking to a Singaporean friend today and she said the haze might persist until--February?!" The haze? What haze? This haze, which doesn't really seem to have been covered in the American press, but which seems pretty interesting. The Deutsche Press Agency reports:

Singapore has suffered an estimated loss of 50 million US dollars since the onset of the haze in early September, said an economist Thursday. "Some of the various losses arising from forest fires and haze include threat to public health, rise in respiratory illness, hospitalization and treatment costs," said Associate Professor Euston Quah, Head, Division of Economics, Nanyang Technological University.

There was apparently a major haze event back in 1997 that, likewise, had serious economic consequences. I gather from this story that the primary source of haze is fires in Indonesia, and not actually anything under Singapore's control. Singapore's National Environmental Agency maintains an air quality index that allows you to track the extent of haziness. As long as the PSI stays below 100, allegedly, healthy people can go about their business as usual, though it may be a problem for those suffering from respiratory ailments.

Comments

I was in Singapore in '97 during that and ironically am going there in a couple weeks for the first time in years, I must be a curse.

Bakc on Dellillo, I just finished reading End Zone and had the same reaction to it as I did to White Noise and most of his stuff that I have read. There is like 3/4ths of a really great book in there but he somehow doesn't quite take it to the level it should reach, if that makes sense. It is like his stuff adds up to less than the sum of its parts.

Posted by Eric K | October 18, 2006 2:39 PM

Mao II sucks, as does his novel about Lee Harvey, but if you like DD you have to read Americana and Great Jones Street, particularly the latter, which is his best novel in my opinion.

Posted by Jeff | October 18, 2006 3:13 PM

DeLillo is pretty binary -- either amazing or lousy. White Noise, Libra, Great Jones Street, The Players, about 1/2 of Ratner's Star -- all incredible. Mao II, the other 1/2 of Ratner's Star, most of that big doorstop he published a couple of years back -- crap. His best stuff rules, his other stuff is painful.

Posted by IP Guy | October 18, 2006 3:16 PM

End Zone is really the great DeLillo novel -- same futuro-cultural heft as White Noise, but much lighter on its feet. As for the Big Books, I say Libra > White Noise > Underworld > Mao II but my understanding is that others differ.

Posted by J. Ellenberg | October 18, 2006 3:18 PM

I've always thought The Names was DeLillo's best but White Noise, End Zone, that book about the female hockey player he wrote under a fake name (and whose title escapes me) and bits of Underworld all have their merits. And I think Mao II is alright and has some of his more interesting notions, though my thinking that perhaps is largely a result of being about halfway through the book as of September 11.

Posted by Andrew | October 18, 2006 3:25 PM

Funny how opinions differ. The three DeLillo novels I've read are White Noise, Libra, and Mao II, and I read them in that order. I hated Libra, loved Mao II, and White Noise is a contender for my favorite novel. Like Andrew, I read Mao II after 9/11, which probably affected my experience, but I thought that conceptually it was equal to if not superior to White Noise, just not quite as successful as an actual novel.

Posted by Quarterican | October 18, 2006 3:30 PM

I haven't read any DeLillo. How to they compare to the Dude novels?

I'm sorry, I just could *not* stop myself.

Posted by stand | October 18, 2006 3:32 PM

Actually, there's a weird connection in my mind between the Dune novels and DeLillo. Especially the first Dune book and God Emperor of Dune -- they have this strange abstract quality to them (espcially since they're -- like DeLillo -- novels of Big Ideas) that is quite powerful. White Noise and Frank Herbert's The White Plague share more than just a color, after all...

Posted by IP Guy | October 18, 2006 3:42 PM

My wife goaded me into reading White Noise after I was complaining about DeLillo's post-Underworld superstardom (the shorts of his I'd read were hugely underwhelming). And sure enough, it was better than I'd expected, but larded down with so much Great Writer crap (those supposedly evocative strings of words - it was like Lovitz ACTING!!1!) that I just don't understand how people fall for that nonsense.

I might add that I feel exactly the same way about Frank Gehry, who achieved stardom at the same time. Something cultural? Are we now impressed by flashy moves, but unable to see fundamental unsoundness (like the Gehry building in Cleveland that makes huge icicles in the snow, requiring caution tape around it all winter)?

Posted by JRoth | October 18, 2006 3:53 PM

Libra.

Posted by Petey | October 18, 2006 4:18 PM

Funny, I thought about DeLillo's "airborne toxic event" a few weeks ago during North Carolina's chemical incident.

Posted by Tobias | October 18, 2006 4:34 PM

Yes, yes: White Noise evokes modern American life perfectly. The problem is, of course, that modern American life is a bit blank and banal to carry a story for 200 pages, and sure enough, White Noise doesn't do so well at that.

Posted by dj moonbat | October 18, 2006 4:58 PM

actually, the haze shows up in singapore and malaysia pretty much every year in varying degrees of severity. it's caused by indonesian farmers slashing and burning their crops to clear the land and use the charred leftovers as soil fertilizer. it usually hangs around until the onset of the monsoon which is between late november and early february. why do i know this? i lived there for many years.

Posted by ccorday | October 18, 2006 5:31 PM

There is like 3/4ths of a really great book in there but he somehow doesn't quite take it to the level it should reach, if that makes sense. It is like his stuff adds up to less than the sum of its parts.

I think this is exactly right. I was one of the haters MY refers to, but I actually respect the book quite a bit and thinks it does a lot of interesting things. "Airborne toxic event" is indeed a great phrase.

I agree with moonbat's point about banality as well, although I'd add that DeLillo tries to evoke the banality of modern life by deliberately writing a banal story, which certainly gets the point across but isn't really zippy reading. Especially towards the end (last third or so), when it stops being funny and just becomes increasingly morbid and repetetive.

Posted by right | October 18, 2006 6:58 PM

I really, really want to like DeLillo, and I often fake like I do to impress people, cause I'm a scumbag like that. I read White Noise, and thought it was okay, but not great. Then I went to tackle Underworld, since I had recently completed Infinite Jest, which turned out to be my favorite book ever, and was ready for another epic. I was really, really disappointed. On every page I could find at least one beautifully written sentence, but they just didn't add up into something that grabbed me. It took me two years off and on to finish it, and I felt let down when I did. But I want to be arty farty and like DeLillo, so what should I try next? Keep in mind my favorite authors right now are Cormac McCarthy, George Saunders, and Wallace (yeah, yeah, I know, backlash all you want).

Posted by xjerryx | October 18, 2006 8:32 PM

I'd add that DeLillo tries to evoke the banality of modern life by deliberately writing a banal story, which certainly gets the point across but isn't really zippy reading.

Exactly. DeLillo is clearly talented; it's not like the flatness, the blankness, etc. are accidental. But in the process of making those choices, I think he shortchanges the story.

If you're so po-mo you don't even care about whether a story keeps you interested, then White Noise is for you. If, however, you still harbor old-school hangups about narrative at all, it will probably seem a little flat. Whether DeLillo intended that flatness is entirely beside the point, as far as I'm concerned.

Posted by dj moonbat | October 18, 2006 9:05 PM

As I recall, I really enjoyed White Noise until it reached the the whole Dlyar subplot. From that point on, it struck me as clumsy slapstick/bad metaphor. It's too bad Delillo marred what was otherwise a marvelous satire.

Posted by blah | October 18, 2006 9:38 PM

I'll strongly second Great Jones Street, which suffers from some of the usual flaws but is powerfully evocative of the era of Rock Superstar from, say, Jim Morrison to Lou Reed and sets a perfect atmosphere for reading just as the weather turns dreary (I'm very seasonal in my reading habits). I've read it twice, a decade or so apart, and it held up pretty well.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Running Dog, which seems less interested in being a Great American Novel than much of DeLillo but is great fun to read--and revolves around a protagonist who's a reporter for the eponymous lefty rag.

Posted by Rah | October 18, 2006 10:19 PM

I couldn't read past those first, smug couple of pages of White Noise about the station wagons and the college students moving in.

Posted by Julie | October 19, 2006 12:55 AM

Julie,
Should there be a comma between first and smug? Probably you're right.

Posted by Tom | October 19, 2006 1:28 AM

The Names will rock you.

Posted by Processed Cheese Eating Quagmire Monkey | October 19, 2006 2:30 AM

we get haze every year here in singapore but it's much worse this year. I just had to keep the kids in and not let them go to the playground again, and I'm running out of cool craft ideas. also, I stand by my white noise hating. I will say in its favor that although I read it quite a while ago, and didn't enjoy it at the time, I remember many, many details from it. I think part of the problem was that I hated all the characters.

Posted by belle waring | October 19, 2006 6:43 AM

Fck po mo..he's just a good writer. If you've ever been in a band you'd realize that Great Jones Street really misses the mark. The opening of Underworld is one of the best passages about baseball I have ever read..and then it gets all dready. His best is coming. Pynchon has a new one coming out..'Against the Day'

Posted by judson | October 19, 2006 11:38 AM

Best quote from White Noise: "Better you than me, Jack."

Posted by brendan | October 19, 2006 12:08 PM

I read White Noise about 8-10 years ago, at the recommendation of a couple I know. Was OK, but really didn't do much for me.

Posted by RT | October 19, 2006 8:45 PM

Best quote from White Noise:

"Look past the violence. There's a wonderful, brimming spirit of innocence and fun."

America in a nutshell.

Posted by moriarty | October 19, 2006 10:44 PM

The especially severe haze in Singapore this year (and in 1997) is a rather more prosaic story: El Nino. During these events, the rainfall typical of the west Pacific/Indonesian region shifts east, leaving drought and forest fires, with corresponding flooding in Peru. This is a classic effect of El Nino; read about it at http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/elnino/nino-home.html.

Posted by Billy K | October 21, 2006 2:43 AM