November 22 and the Zapruder film; the ending of the novel

All of us reading Libra were aware of where the web of conspiracy theories was leading to--the assassination of John Kennedy. This isn't a secret, and it honestly doesn't need to be. I think what made the chapter "November 22" really get to me as a reader was seeing the actual assassination footage, as shown in class.

Up until this chapter, I feel like I was always loosely aware of the fact that DeLillo was weaving and crafting a narrative of his own based on a few key facts, and that everything was obviously fictional. In retrospect, though, I don't think that the point DeLillo was trying to make was to convince everyone who read Libra to accept the events as a possible narrative, but to consider the nature of conspiracies and how it actually relates to what concrete information we have available to us. Seeing the Zapruder film had a significant effect on how I interpreted the chapter, definitely.

First of all, DeLillo's description of some of the events don't seem to stray from what is actually happening in the film. The moment that stuck out to me the most was when Jackie Kennedy was described as scrambling over the rear of the moving vehicle to grab an errant piece of her husband's skull. It seems nearly impossible to conjure up a depiction of that kind of haphazard action without referencing something that actually happened. Looking a little more closely at the film, it's easy to see the other small characters that he mentions--the person in the white sweater, caught mid-wave or mid-clap, the girl that appears to be running towards him.

This attention to detail and structure of sticking to what can be proven, at least in this specific chapter, helps to ground DeLillo's argument in something that us readers can accept. For me, it's kind of harrowing--being able to theoretically gain access into the mind of the actual Lee Harvey Oswald as this scene unfolds is very uncomfortable. Reading it the first time (yeah, I went back and read the chapter again after seeing the film) was striking enough, but having the added real-world context definitely added an extra layer to my experience as a reader of Libra.

I think the ending of the novel is something that the Lee of Libra (Lee-bra, ohhhhh my goodness) would have wanted. Despite the fact that he was, in his own words, a "patsy" in the whole plot, after realizing that there was another shot that was not his own towards the President, the ending somehow gives him redemption. On the very last page of the book, DeLillo describes as two boys come to "grab a clod of souvenir earth," and his mother reflects: 

"Lee Harvey Oswald. No matter what happened, how hard they schemed against her, this was the one thing they could not take away--the true and lasting power of his name. It belonged to her now, and to history."

It almost gives Lee... redemption? I wasn't really amongst the people that felt bad that Lee realized that everything that happened wasn't really because of him, especially since I believe he clearly had agency in going through with the assassination (no help from Ferrie, obviously), but I do admit that this is the ending that gives Lee peace, so to speak. His goal was to be remembered in history, with his name spoken with some sort of awe (note: not reverence), and he was shown to have achieved that. 

In the end, this was a wild ride of a novel, and if I were to recommend someone read it, I'd definitely suggest having them do some minimal research into the subject. Knowing that some of the parts of the novel were historically accurate (such as Lee getting his job in the infamous bookstore only a small while before the Kennedy's rolled down the adjacent street) actually enriched my experience of reading the book, and gave me that "wow--mind blown" feeling.

Father and Husband Oswald

Up until the middle of Libra, we had seen Lee Harvey Oswald only from the perspective of a rugged, lone teenager and a young man aspiring to become entangled in the dangerous world of politics. With this in mind, it's interesting to get a glimpse of Oswald as just... a "normal" person with modest desires, such as marrying a woman, Marina, and starting a family. As much as he would probably not like for this to be the case, one thing is clear--both of these worlds, that of politics and that of personal life, overlap, and it's evident in the way that he and Marina engage with one another after moving to America. (It also comes across in the way Lee treats his mother, but that's just somewhat related.)

Looking at their relationship before having a child, they seemed to have been "the same as anyone, completely ordinary," as DeLillo loosely claims on page 202 of the novel. The way he describes their relationship beginning to form is incredibly sweet, with Lee being amazed with facts about Marina, and the two being windswept into love and marriage. At this point, before other significant events happen in his personal life, Lee and Marina really do seem to be like any other couple in love, and having a good time with one another.

However, the frays in their relationship crept up on me. First, it was they were like anyone else in love, and soon, "they were like people anywhere ... if they quarreled it was only because he had a different nature in America and that was the only way he could love." Sure, there were speed bumps in any relationship, especially with such a move and culture shock, but this came across as a little sinister to me.

Marina doesn't understand Lee's hostility and dismissive nature geared towards his mother, and when she's only trying to gather more information about him, understand his life a little more: "He hit her in the face. A open-hand smash ... she stood there with her head tucked against her left shoulder, one hand raised in blank surprise." (230)

Though this moment concerned me just as much as it probably shocked Marina, I wasn't surprised when Lee began to turn violent. Or, was he even "turned" violent? I think at this point in the novel, it's clear that Lee's frame of mind is all over the place. He can't handle her questions, her inquiries, her really just trying to understand where Lee was coming from... and he couldn't handle that. It's not just the fact that Marina isn't taking what Lee is saying for word. It's the fact that he wants to keep any part of his life private from her, especially any part that leads to her finding out more about his involvement in the riskier side of politics.

We can see from the continuation of the novel that the domestic violence gets worse, and becomes more commonplace. Lee's frustration with Marina is evident when he mentions how she "[tells] those Russians how [they] live their lives ... [their] private lives." The biggest proponent to Lee's violence is that he's worried about the spheres of his life overlapping, which we know is futile, considering the characters that put themselves into contact with Lee towards the end of the novel. It's hard for me to empathize with Lee here, now that his dealings are not only affecting himself, but those around him that are unaware.