Death the Sound of Static

While reading White Noise, I've been thinking of what the book is about, what its primary concern is. I began to think that, along with its concern with how mass media and consumerism have changed our social landscape, the novel centered mainly around the issue of death, our fear of it, and the fact that all of our technological advances have not made a dent in either our fear of death and its inevitability. Then I came along the title passage:

"I do want to die first," she said, "but that doesn't mean I'm not afraid. I'm terribly afraid. I'm afraid all the time."
"I've been afraid for more than half my life."
"What do you want me to say? Your fear is older and wiser than mine?"
"I wake up sweating. I break out in killer sweats."
"I chew gum because my throat constricts."
"I have no body. I'm only a mind or a self, alone in a vast space."
"I seize up," she said.
"I'm too weak to move. I lack all sense of resolve, determination."
"I thought about my mother dying. Then she died."
"I think about everyone dying. Not just myself. I lapse into terrible reveries."
"I feel so guilty. I thought her death was connected to my thinking about it. I feel the same way about my own death. The more I think about it, the sooner it will happen."
"How strange it is. We have these deep terrible lingering fears about ourselves and the people we love. Yet we walk around, talk to people, eat and drink. We manage to function. The feelings are deep and real. Shouldn't they paralyze us? How is it we can survive them, at least for a while? We drive a car, we teach a class. How is it no one sees how deeply afraid we were, last night, this morning? Is it something we all hide from each other, by mutual consent? Or do we share the same secret without knowing it? Wear the same disguise."
"What if death is nothing but sound?"
"Electrical noise."
"You hear it forever. Sound all around. How awful."
"Uniform, white."

I just finished the novel, and I would have to say that I recommend it. One of the things that I enjoy most about reading a book by a new author is being startled by the writing style. Delillo's writing really is distinct. He gives you the sense that he is saying something new.