Coming out of Kindred and into Libra, I wasn't too sure how Libra would strike me. However, over the past week I've come to really enjoy Libra. Theory crafting and conspiracies are my thing as I've come to realize. While I'm not intimately acquainted with the deepest parts of theories on the JFK assassination, I think that helps this novel and makes it more interesting. We are revealed information on the matter in an unpredictable way comparable to how the events unfold in the novel or even how they happened in the past. As interesting as it is to see DeLillo reconstruct Lee Harvey Oswald's life from what we know about him, I find it quite intriguing how DeLillo takes the unexplainable and makes a new theory that combines various other theories on the assassination and tries to connect them into a, still bizarre, but mildly coherent theory in itself. We're able to connect dots and make our own theories as DeLillo has Win, Parmenter, and Banister enact their devious plans.
In itself this isn't anything particularly special, but akin to Kindred, our knowledge of the end of the matter influences how we perceive the events happening in the moment. We understand that Lee Harvey Oswald will be heavily involved in the conspiracy, JFK will be killed, and the USA does not enact essentially another attempt at Castro's life after. This leaves us in a position similar to the conspirators, assuming it works but not knowing how the process will play out. They try to connect the dots towards a goal, gathering information as they come by it, start to finish. We try to connect the dots from the result, discovering the process, finish to start.
There's still plenty of the novel left for the plan to come together in one form or another, so we still have plenty of time to work it out for ourselves. I can only imagine just how deep the conspiracy goes.
Your comparison to Kindred is interesting. The knowledge of how the book is going to end certainly makes the book more about the development of the conspiracy than the ending and makes the way we read it different. However, I would say that it's quite different from Kindred; instead of wondering how the ending comes about in total confusion, in Libra, we have a good idea of what is coming in terms of the plot, and it gets clearer with each development.
ReplyDeleteI never thought about the ending that way before, but now that you say it it really stands out. Since we do know the ending, just from common knowledge about the real event, we are reading the book expecting what happened in real life to happen.
ReplyDeleteThat's a really interesting idea! I can see how it compares to Kindred in that we know what is going to happen, but we aren't totally sure about how people get there. I'm excited to read about what the characters think will happen in comparison to what we know actually happened.
ReplyDeleteThe connection to Kindred is really interesting. I think there is still some suspense surrounding the ending in both books though. In Kindred, the ending we found out about in the beginning didn't include the most climactic scene. In Libra, the reason the assassination is so interesting is because we only know some details of what happened.
ReplyDeleteNice Post! I definitely agree with your ideas. For me, it is almost like playing a video game. We are influenced only by what we know and what the main character experiences. As time progresses, the plot becomes more and more clear, and we have to helplessly watch as thing become set in motion.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think that Kindred relates to Libra in the way that we perceive the outcome of the book. As we read Kindred we know that eventually slavery will end and they will be freed but that doesn't help the slaves reality everyday. In a similar way, we know that Lee will end up shooting JFK but we are still able to see Lee as an individual separate from that in the earlier years
ReplyDeleteI’m super excited about this book as well. For me, I skip to the end of a lot of books I read, which kind of ruins the whole book. But with DeLillo, I’m forced to already know the ending, yet keep turning pages because I need to know how the ending came about. It’s not as easy to connect the dots as it may be in other books.
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