Thirty years after its initial publication, Don DeLillo’s White Noise is still every bit the hilarious, uncannily prescient classic that everyone believed it was. White nailed the whole “America poisoned by reality and the humming glow of computer screens” angle better than almost anyone. For more DeLillo, here’s what its like to re-read White Noise.
Like a Prayer
Venice by Couch
You can skip the intrusive cruise ship (and please the city’s residents in the process) by taking a tour of Venice’s canal system from the comfort of your own home. Thanks, Google.
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The $31K Photocopy
With the actual manuscript still missing, what was thought to be a worthless photocopy may be our best link to John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. The UL Lafayette Foundation agreed, paying $31,000 in an auction.
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“She’s such a Hermione”
You probably knew a Lothario was a character before his name grew into a generic euphemism for “Guy You Don’t Want Your Daughter Dating,” but what about “brainiac,” “mentor,” and “pamphlet”? It turns out character names have been making their way into everyday vocabulary for thousands of years.
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Longreads.edu
The Longreads team has teamed up with Syracuse assistant professor Aileen Gallagher in order to “search for and share outstanding student work.” If you’ve read (or written) something fantastic this past school year, they encourage you to tag it #college #longreads on Twitter or Tumblr.
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Tuesday New Release Day: McBride; Scott; Chariandy; Kendal; Erpenbeck
Out this week: Five-Carat Soul by James McBride; Unforgivable Love by Sophfronia Scott; Brother by David Chariandy; The Second Sister by Claire Kendal; and Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck. For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
Death and Taxes
Souvankham Thammavongsa's new fiction is required reading for anyone who's ever had a meltdown in an accountant's office.
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Not What You Said Before
A couple weeks ago, Matt Ashby and Brendan Carroll argued in a Salon piece that David Foster Wallace, who wrote an essay about the television and irony back in the early ‘90s, presciently diagnosed the danger of snark in our own age. Now Peter Finocchiaro, a senior editor at Salon, argues instead that we need irony more than we ever have. You could also read A-J Aronstein’s notes from the DFW Symposium.
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