Saltzman and Bonca suggest a new slant in DeLillo criticism. Both LeClair and Lentricchia noted how DeLillo's work leaves a place for "the poetry of mystery, awe, and commitment" (Lentricchia, New Essays, 7), and recent criticism has swerved more decidedly toward reading DeLillo in religious or mystical terms. Paul Maltby sees in DeLillo's faith in the redemptive power of language a reaffirmation of the visionary metaphysics of Romantics such as Wordsworth (see page 498 of this volume). Against postmodernist readings of DeLillo, Maltby describes a humanist seeker of the sublime; thus, although Maltby again focuses on Steffie's chanting of "Toyota Celica," he finds in it not Saltzman's "synthetic and deadly" consumer drug, but a potential for sublimity within banality that nonetheless exposes the emptiness and superficiality of contemporary culture.

Clearly White Noise is rich enough to provoke contradictory responses, and it will continue to intrigue us because it eludes full explanation. Its conclusion is particularly noteworthy in this regard. How should we interpret Wilder's tricycle ride across the interstate? Is he divinely protected or just lucky? What does it imply about Jack's faith in the wisdom and innocence of children? What is Jack's-and DeLillo's – attitude toward those "postmodern sunsets" to which the residents of Blacksmith flock? And what is the tone of Jack's final description of the supermarket, with its tabloids offering "Everything that is not food or love" (326)? Is he voicing a dazed acceptance? Issuing a sardonic warning? Declaring a numbed neutrality? The author neither judges, spells out his message, nor provides a tidy conclusion.