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.
I definitely agree that Delillo did an excellent job crafting his narrative to fit the key facts especially the Zapruder film. The chapter 22 November almost makes it seem like the Zapruder film is a film adaptation of this section of Libra. Also I do agree that the ending gives him a sort of redemption, but I think that mostly stems from the fact that he is able to paint himself as the lone shooter, like he always wanted.
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