My criticism of Don Delillo would be tentative before Libra. His novels include randomness and tediousness, ordinariness magnified and also downplayed. I could read with a question mark hanging over almost every page, asking what is the point. I enjoy the scenes; I enjoy the subtle characterizations and seeing items disappear and usually reappear as bigger, more obvious pieces of a puzzle. With Libra, now Delillo has another strength that I suggest is beyond criticism. It now appears that the author knew the exact wording of the last page before he started page 1. He had an answer in every sequence.
The novel is as imperfect in its telling as the story of Lee Harvey Oswald is historically. I believe that to be intentional, having the ability to see Delillo’s technique in other works by contrast. The dialogue now is mature and focused, never random and window-dressing. Oswald almost has to be interesting no matter his treatment, but these other anonymous figures made famous only by the JFK movie flash and come back according to a well-timed pace. Although I knew Oswald would get to the point of going to the Soviet Union and working in Dallas, I was satisfied by the relationship he had with his mother and with the streets of New York, then New Orleans. It does invoke empathy. Oswald never becomes likable because he never learns how to spell and complete his own prophecy of intellectual revolt and short story writer. Although he is consistently a peon, he maintains the ability to surprise and to approach cult status; he’s never at the point of “loved to hate”. His relationship with Marina, sometimes violent but then very intimate and quiet, is a perfect example. The “patsy” claim is another and more famous one.
Jack Ruby was Jewish. His club was burlesque and the one in Dallas was not the only one. He did not belong at Oswald’s death, but in 1963 our security measures had a long way to go. Ruby killed himself in jail, he wished, by ramming his head into walls and by standing in water with his hand in a socket, but in reality he had to die more slowly by cancer in 1967. He was a perplexed Bob Ford-type figure. The biggest mystery is why Ruby killed Oswald. There was $40K involved, a loan that would be forgiven. He was also trying to be a Jewish hero, lamenting a few times how bad things would be had Kennedy’s killer been a Jew. Politically, he had no more allegiance than Oswald had clarity. The U-2 story is one to follow. I can remember the last name of the pilot, Powers, who had a strange death himself after the Soviets let him go. The real politics in this novel belongs to the radical right Oswald hated, a General Walker, whom Oswald failed to kill from just a few yards in his first attempt at being a sniper.
“Raymo eased the gun barrel over the fence” on page 397. Oswald fired first, and then there was this magic bullet.
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