In the second chapter of the novel Background NoiseOriginally published in 1984, Don DeLillo describes a conversation between the protagonist, Jack Glaney, a professor who has specialized in Hitler studies, and his fourth wife, Babette, who reads to the blind and teaches retirees how to sit. He has just seen the arrival of the students after spending a family summer, a ritual that he does not share with her, although she has always told him that she would like to see what the arrival of the cars is like, and the relaxation of the young people unloading their suitcases and other items. Jack tells Babette that, in her opinion, “Money has made them comfortable…and somehow that conviction makes them totally healthy.” From that observation, Babette comments that she has a hard time imagining death with those levels of income. And Jack comments: “Perhaps death does not exist as we know it. Perhaps it is just a few documents that change owners.” DeLillo’s novel is considered one of the masterpieces of 20th century literature.
A farce about the American life of the average: that middle class that lives aspiring for their income to be higher because they understand that it is money that makes one person better than another, and that this is the means to achieve everything that is wanted. in the United States of the Reagan era. So when an accident involving a train carrying a dangerous chemical compound ends up forming a toxic cloud that the winds blow to their small town, Jack first tries to minimize the fact to his family, claiming that: “These things happen to people.” poor living in unprotected areas.
Society is organized in such a way that it is the poor and illiterate who bear the brunt of natural and man-made disasters. It is the inhabitants of the depressed areas who suffer the floods; it is those who live in shanty towns who endure hurricanes and tornadoes.” The idea of the “modern” death like an electric noise, uniform, eternal, omnipresent, in the background. That which is always there, filling the gaps in everyday life. Leading everyone to rethink their idea of mortality. In ancient times, those in which academics like Jack live, death was something that was known to be inevitable, but there was no terror to face it.
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In fact, life consisted of doing something valuable with the time that we populated the earth. Hence classical art is the memorial of all those whose actions need to be remembered. DeLillo’s vision is that the modern epic consists of spending less time shopping in a supermarket or knowing how to take advantage of the discount coupons we find stuck on our doors. Noise in the Background is more pervasive in this post-pandemic time in which another certainty is fulfilled: “Perhaps it was embarrassing to cite statistics in the presence of powerful beliefs, fears and desires.” Noah Baumbach decided to make a movie based on Don DeLillo’s Noise in the Background. And we’ll know how he turned out in 13 days.
#nature #modern #death