This was a truly magnificent novel. In my opinion, it is far superior to the other books of DeLillo that I have had the pleasure of reading. It stands as the best piece of contemporary historical fiction that comes to my mind, even though this genre may not be as thriving as some others. It is an absolute wonderful read. It is both savvy and cynical, with well-researched content and peppered with incisive humor and moments of brilliant writing. DeLillo has clearly learned from Hemingway. He is terse and direct in his descriptions of both the inner and outer worlds, making his phrases truly tell. He has an astute eye for the convincing detail and the passing thought that reveals a complex character. Amazingly, after reading this book, I felt that I had a better understanding of Oswald, perhaps the murkiest and most baffling character in American history. DeLillo does a marvelous job of delving into the mind of this quirky and subversive young man, exploring what his dreams and ideas might have been like, as well as his inner demeanor and approach to the world.

This is the fictionalized story of Lee Harvey Oswald, starting from his teenage years. However, there are significant gaps, and the book does not follow a neat chronological pattern. Intercut with the main narrative are vignettes of the supposed conspiracy leading up to the assassination. These are told through a mixture of historical characters like Guy Bannister and David Ferrie, as well as fictional CIA and mafia operatives. DeLillo's take on it is that a disgruntled CIA bigshot sets in motion an operation to take a bogus shot at the president in order to generate support for a second assault on Cuba. The sub-commander of the operation decides to go for a kill and, using his network of right-wing nuts and Cuban exiles, sets up the attempt with Oswald as the patsy. This is as plausible an explanation of the assassination as any, and there is a colorful cast of characters and a coldly humorous portrayal of the spook business to back it up. Oswald's life, from his stint in the marines to his defection to Russia and return, is starkly but interestingly delineated. DeLillo's tight, imaginative style, with its cool edge, is particularly well-suited for the story of this oddball, this twisted idealist and game player. Libra richly deserves the popularity it has achieved.

If you're a fan of DeLillo, then this work is an absolute must-read. It presents a disturbingly plausible fabrication that is filled with elements of conspiracy, celebrity, and philosophy. However, I must admit that some of the stylistic aspects that initially drew me to DeLillo have now transformed into irritating idiosyncrasies.

His characters often have a propensity to expound philosophy in an erudite and seemingly well-considered manner, yet this doesn't truly align with their character traits. This is especially evident in the case of real historical personages.

Moreover, they have a tendency to simply walk into rooms, pick up objects, and turn them over in their hands. They then speculate on the significance of the things they are holding, as if everything holds some profound meaning, whether we are privy to it or not. I find this repetitive and rather tedious.

Nonetheless, despite these flaws, the overall concept and the way DeLillo weaves together the various elements still manage to engage and intrigue the reader.

My initial encounter with the JFK Assassination was through the outstanding Oliver Stone film. I watched it without any prior understanding of the conspiracy and was immediately captivated. After that, I read "Plausible Denial" by Mark Lane. At the time, I was in awe of it, but I've since realized it might be a bit fanatical. Moreover, Mark Lane's reputation has plummeted in my eyes since I learned of his involvement in Jonestown.

"Libra" is a speculative fiction/non-fiction novel that chronicles Lee Harvey Oswald's short life, from his school days to his murder by Jack Ruby. I call it non-fiction because the majority of it, such as his time in Russia, various associations, and political beliefs, are likely quite accurate. However, the shooting itself is pure speculation as nobody (except the super secretive government) truly knows the truth. The main player was killed shortly afterwards, and most of the other alleged conspirators also died. So, unless LHO holds a Q+A session in the afterlife, we'll remain in the dark. This is probably a good thing as the speculation and the who/what/where are always more interesting than the truth, which is why "Libra" is such a great book.

If you've read other works by Don DeLillo, you'll know he has a distinct writing style that takes a couple of chapters to adapt to. I had previously read the brilliant "Underworld," so I was able to quickly settle into his unique and mesmerizing prose. Running parallel to the LHO chapters is the hypothetical story of where the JFK assassination idea originated. In this case, it's a couple of disgruntled FBI agents who are holding a grudge over the Bay of Pigs fiasco. It's a brilliant book about an intriguing moment in history. I would also recommend "11/22/63" by Stephen King.

Imminent Impact

A ball on a billiard table collides with another. It comes from a relatively distant point. The impact is nothing but the evolution of a path started earlier in time, the effect on the cue, the deviations of the banks, the player's skill and strategy, the initial position of the balls. The observed impact is the conclusion.
How did we get to that impact?

This is the question that DeLillo asked with this intriguing book.

The time is November 22, 1963. The place is Dallas, on the presidential convertible. The impact is between the head of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and a projectile fired from a precision rifle.

Who fired? Lee Oswald, the investigations say. Maybe.

Helped by someone? Maybe.

How did a man like Lee Oswald get there? How did he come to embrace a rifle and fire? Was it his personal path? Or was he led there? Was there someone who selected him for his inclinations? Or someone who plotted in the shadows to shape his mind and push him in this direction with no turning back? Was this man skillfully maneuvered, perhaps fascinated by the idea of being remembered in school books as the man who killed the President of the United States of America?

De Lillo asks the question. And in this beautiful book, he starts from afar and hypothesizes reasons, development, and unfolding of the action, starting from the perspective of Oswald himself, a man not mentally stable, lonely, rather weak, inclined to violence, pushed by ideals (he will ask for asylum in Russia) not even too clear to him.

Who is Oswald? An assassin, a subversive, a madman, a wretch at the mercy of events, a puppet being manipulated? Or a victim?

The book begins long before the Dallas shooting and ends immediately after. It was not immediate for me to get into the plot because many of the characters are not introduced and not knowing what role they then have in the story, it is necessary to look them up on Google. But after a few pages, the book starts to soar high and becomes extremely interesting (one of the best books of DeLillo read so far).

DeLillo has meticulously researched to write the book and present his vision of the facts. Conspiracy? Coincidences? Who knows, maybe no one can now tell us how it really happened. Although I do not deny that I have trouble imagining that an apparatus, the CIA, commanded by the President, could come to (make) kill the President himself.

I often wondered, during the reading, how much JFK owes his notoriety to what he did as President of the United States of America and how much instead to his private affairs (women...) and to his violent death, about which, I read, about 40,000 (forty thousand!) books have been written.

Anyway, this is a great book by DeLillo. Interesting for the absolutely innovative perspective and for the writing, really beautiful and engaging.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy's era was a time when America was filled with the American Dream. It was a myth, a source of glorious hope.

It wasn't just Kennedy as a person; it was what others saw in him. It was the dazzling reflection they continued to receive. In almost all the photographs, he shone in the true sense of the word. We should believe that he was the hero of our time. Have we ever seen a man in such a hurry to be great? He was convinced that he could transform all of us into a different society. He was trying to bring about a total change. And compared to him, we are too sluggish. We are not full of energy like him, not Harvard graduates, cosmopolitan, rich, beautiful, fortunate, or athletic. With perfect white teeth. Damn it, just looking at him annoys me!

The America described in literature, the America of that time and the one that came after. And Kennedy, his assassination, like a watershed, delimiting, marking a failure, the collapse of a hope.

“...trying to understand that moment in Dallas, the seven seconds that broke the back of the American century.”

Anomie, anonymity, loss of meaning, death of hope... Violence and celebrity, false and fleeting visibility, a civilization of the image and the look. “After Oswald in America, people no longer ask men to live in the silence of despair. Ask for a credit card, buy a gun, travel through cities, suburbs, and shopping malls, anonymous, anonymous in search of the opportunity to shoot at the first blatant celebrity face, just to let people know that out there there is someone who reads the newspapers...” Bowling for Columbine...

The post-Kennedy era, “The Warren Report” on the assassination, 26 bulky volumes that add nothing to historical truth. “It's all one thing, a city in ruins of banality where people feel true pain. This is the Joycean book of America, remember that... it's too important a document of human anxiety and confusion to be despised or ignored.”

Is America Dallas? “Do you want me to tell you what Dallas is? Dallas is the city that proves that God is really dead. You look at this people, wonderful people, for the most part, really, but then they choose the pneumatic void of this reactionary squalor.”

Yes, the pneumatic void of reactionary squalor, in which, perhaps, we also live.

The original article is not provided, so I can't rewrite and expand it specifically. However, I can give you a general example of how to expand an article.

Let's assume the original article is: "The new movie is very interesting. It has a great story and wonderful special effects."

Here is the expanded version:

The new movie that has recently hit the theaters is truly very interesting.

It presents a captivating story that keeps the audience engaged from start to finish. The plot is filled with twists and turns, making it impossible to predict what will happen next.

In addition to the great story, the movie also features wonderful special effects. The visual effects are so realistic that they bring the fictional world of the movie to life.

Overall, this new movie is a must-see for movie lovers.

https://youtu.be/4BxUwzQ4IVU

You can provide the original article, and I will rewrite and expand it according to your requirements.

"One day someone would invent a religion based on coincidence."

Recently, I watched "Jackie" by Pablo Larrain. I brought my daughter along, which was an inappropriate choice. I left my mother at home, also an inappropriate choice. My daughter blames me because she's been through a lot of trouble, and my mother gives me a hard time because I should have taken her. In short, you can't win.

Anyway. The film is very different from what I expected. I thought there would be more history. Instead, it turns out to be quite the opposite, very intimate. Everything is centered around Jackie, an extremely ambiguous character. I knew little about the Kennedy assassination, and this viewing didn't help. But for me, who is strange, it not only didn't bore me, but actually made me very curious.

After watching, I went home and googled. I was intrigued.

After reading Perutz, I have some confused ideas about what my next reading might be. Coincidentally, flipping through a list of essential books with curious titles, I noticed "Libra" by Don DeLillo. Will I give it a try? I know what it means to take on DeLillo, I know that man seems to be paid to make life difficult for the reader. But the subject intrigues me. I loved "Underworld". I'll give it a shot.

DeLillo, in the guise of Branch, the curator who has to reconstruct the facts for the FBI, shuts himself in his little room for 3 years. And with the novel, he tries to reconstruct what happened. Telling the story not of the Kennedys but of Oswald, the man accused of JFK's death. It's not an easy book (as if we needed that). The first hundred pages unfold without introductions. New characters keep appearing, and it would be not only inappropriate but also an easy euphemism to say they are poorly presented. And you have to go to Google. There's no other way. Either you have to know the subject.

But. At a certain point, the story takes hold. Boy, does it take hold. And the plot imagined by DeLillo appears to the reader as not only a permissible but also a very plausible possibility. The facts, the people, that gather around a man who seems, against his will, to be the right person to play a part. And everything comes together on his path so that on 11/22/63 he embraces a rifle and fires three shots. The plots have the curious tendency to always converge towards death.

"The proof that Lee Oswald corresponds to the cardboard silhouette they've cut out so far. You're a caprice of history. You're a coincidence. They architect a plan and you fit in perfectly. At a certain point they lose you, and here you are again. There's a design in the events."

Coincidences. A word that appears 21 times in "Libra".

"Branch has become suspicious of these four-dollar coincidences. He starts to believe that someone is trying to lead him towards superstition. He wants a thing to be what it is. Can't a man die without setting off the usual, ritual, search for connections and designs?"

Oswald. A man. A dissonant note. Jack Ruby, Oswald's killer, another man, another dissonant note.

"A dissonance in the air."

Intro. The first piece of the soundtrack of "Jackie": a theme on a dissonant note. [By the way, the soundtrack, for me, is very beautiful]

Symphonies are also built on dissonant notes. And if the idea of a conspiracy is sustainable, Oswald and Ruby played in the same orchestra.

Coincidences. That lead to the discovery that there's also an ironic DeLillo.

"Coincidence is a science waiting to be discovered."

It's very interesting to see the representation of the same fact from two not only different but diametrically opposed points of view.

**"Libra" by Don DeLillo: A Fascinating Exploration of a Historic Mystery**

The assassination of JFK is undoubtedly one of the most captivating mysteries of the 20th century. It gave rise to numerous conspiracy theories, and Don DeLillo delves deep into this enigma with his novel "Libra." The story isn't just about Kennedy but what people see in him. As the text states, "No se trata del propio Kennedy sino de lo que la gente ve en él."

DeLillo masterfully constructs a narrative that centers around Lee Harvey Oswald. He understands that there is a gap between the official history and the conspiracy theories that have emerged since 1963. By using real and historical characters and blending them with his imagination, he rebuilds the story, with Oswald as the focal point. The novel is divided into two narrative threads. One follows Oswald's life from childhood to the moment of the assassination and his subsequent death. We see a complex, flesh-and-blood character, full of insecurities and contradictions. The other thread focuses on the actions of the conspiracy's participants, including CIA agents like Win Everett, who devises a plan to frame the Cubans for an attempted assassination.

In the middle of these two parallel storylines, there is a third, transitional thread that follows Nicholas Branch, a CIA archivist tasked with reconstructing the assassination plot. Branch is like DeLillo's alter ego, trying to find the truth hidden among a mass of information. The structure of the novel is revealing and engaging, as the reader is confronted with real historical data that seems almost too fictional. "Libra" is a remarkable novel that not only presents a well-known historical event but also humanizes the characters involved, especially Oswald. It shows the power of a story to bring to life the complexity and vulnerability of human nature.

This fucking book, man! It truly leaves me utterly speechless.

I've heard people undermine the outstanding work DeLillo did in塑造Oswald as a captivating and complex character. Maybe they claim that since Don was dealing with a real person and thus had an abundance of raw material, it wasn't that difficult. But I firmly believe that it takes just as much talent to shape what is known of Oswald (his upbringing, his politics, his war experiences) into a genuine and strangely relatable anti-hero. DeLillo lifts him out of the realm of history and makes a damn real person out of him, all through a perhaps implausible - but undeniably, a whole lot of fun to read about - conspiracy.

DeLillo uses that conspiracy as a springboard for an in-depth exploration of Oswald's motivations. His determination to make a mark on history is pitted against the plot he finds himself ensnared in, a plot that leaves Oswald puppet-like with the strings clearly visible. This is precisely what they mean when they talk about "character-driven writing."

So, what does that make Libra? Is it proof that DeLillo can handle character and write in a more traditional style? Well, it's still DeLillo, so that's not entirely the case. Libra may be a character-driven novel, but it's also a thriller, and a thriller in the DeLillo vein. This means he spoofs some thriller conventions (notably the sudden escalations and ridiculously convoluted webs of players against players), affirms others (the fast pace, the violence, the political undertones), and remains in the DeLillo-space for still others (the paranoia and conspiracies).

DeLillo is a smart guy, so it's hard to dismiss this as some YouTube crackpot ranting about the Grassy Knoll and the flaws in the Warren Commission. Yet, it's equally hard for me to fully embrace DeLillo's disclaimer at the beginning that insists Libra is meant to be pure speculation and isn't supposed to offer any answers.

I'm sure this is the intention, and it could even be a bit of a joke on DeLillo's part, considering he's surely aware that he's seen as existing on the fine line between brilliant and crazy by both his fans and detractors. But it's difficult for me to know what to make of this novel. Was it intended as a straightforward yet sophisticated historical thriller (I feel Running Dog is more clearly a parody, but this isn't Running Dog), perhaps even an attempt to legitimize the genre, or an Eco-style parody of our obsession with the currents of history? It's also hard for me to tell if DeLillo truly believes what he presents here. I know Kennedy had his enemies and I'm not so naive as to think politicians don't betray each other on a daily basis, but I still wonder if this is the ravings of an exceptionally talented madman. I know it's an in-depth analysis of the historical currents surrounding a fascinating and often demonized figure, but it could also be completely nuts. Or dead-on accurate. Either way, DeLillo's prose is at its best, the portrayal of Oswald is masterful, and the montage-style climax is out of this world good. Definitely due for a reread.

I admit that the spy genre is not among my favorites, and the Kennedy assassination story fails to arouse any curiosity within me. Reading this novel was indeed an exercise, but the outcome has been rather disappointing for me.

For 300 pages, I had to endure the story of an amorphous and spineless character, a mere puppet in the hands of greater powers that lurk in the shadows and determine her fate, perhaps even that of the world, from some control room. This failed to engage me even for a single page.

The story twists and turns, curls up and deviates, jumps around, and rolls up again, all between the tedious figure of the protagonist, who is tossed about like a leaf in the wind, and the overly imaginative machinations of ultra-secret state bodies.

The writer's flights of fancy do show a certain proficiency in style, but it seems to be an end in itself. A good story, apart from being well-written, should also have the power to engage me emotionally, but unfortunately, this is not the case here.

And let's not even start talking about the dialogues. I have never read worse. They are truly embarrassing.

"Libra" is a fictional work that posits a theory about the assassination of President Kennedy and tirelessly attempts to answer the question - Who was Lee Harvey Oswald? We thus encounter this dual narrative strand throughout a fragmented text by design, rife with voices, some more interesting than others, all converging towards the figure of Lee Harvey Oswald.

It seems that "Libra" is also an attempt to counter the numerous incoherencies of the Warren Commission Report, especially regarding Oswald, presenting to the reader a man with seemingly fierce convictions but who shrinks in the face of opposition and seeks a new, less uncomfortable objective. The Russian winter was painful, so why not support sunny Cuba?
DeLillo further follows the trail of coincidences in Oswald's life, coincidences that he himself regarded as a kind of sign of destiny, a kind of consent to the actions he would undertake. Oswald, the unbalanced scale, easily influenced but sensitive to the noblest cause: himself.
During the reading and as situations that actually occurred were being related, I consulted photos, videos, and other documents about the case. An interview of Oswald on the radio, the photo that Marina takes of him with the weapon in the Paine's backyard, the photos of Oswald and Marina looking disheveled, the photos of Oswald in the Dallas Police Department after the attack, the images of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald two days after Kennedy's death, the images of the outcast's funeral, the gravestone with his name stolen in 1967. I observe, read, reflect, and the doubt remains: Who was this man? Someone always disadvantaged who once in his life wanted to stand out? Elevate the name Oswald to a dimension superior to any ideal? Or a puppet in the hands of the powerful, a victim of something he couldn't achieve?
Lee Harvey Oswald, the library rat who couldn't write two sentences without making a spelling error, remains to this day an unsolved mystery. He managed to fix himself in History as a mystery greater than that which surrounds Kennedy's death.

There is a unique aspect to DeLillo's writing. As you are reading along, suddenly and unexpectedly, a passage emerges that extends a couple of tentacles and紧紧squeezes you - unsettling you from your comfortable reading position. You are in awe, gripped by an epiphany - truly stunned. These are moments that only a master can deliver.

However, sometimes there is a crippling mediocrity that punishes you. Maybe it's DeLillo's game with the reader - keeping you so distant and cold that when the magnitude of the message strikes, it is amplified by the surrounding noise.

Anyway, and unfortunately, "Libra" exists on the plane of mediocrity with a remarkable scarcity of the above. Perhaps this is an issue with these kinds of literary what-ifs. I specifically think of Roth's "The Plot Against America" where Lindbergh defeats FDR in a pre-WW2 presidential race and averts America's entry into the war. These books tend to be a fun thought experiment, but not much more. Here, we have LHO as the victim of a false flag conspiracy orchestrated by clandestine CIA agents who aim to rally the nation against communism in the face of the Bay of Pigs blunder.

But even as the pulp novel "Libra" is, it doesn't satisfy. DeLillo, perhaps in an attempt to avoid sounding like a sympathizer, takes an emotional distance from LHO (and virtually every character within), which allows for no strong reader engagement. Even in a scene depicting LHO slapping around his Russian wife, Marina, it is so even-handed that the horror of the scene and the judgments a reader should be making on LHO are subverted. This might be a clever trick if there were some character play here, but it seems like DeLillo is as indifferent to all of the cast as the reader feels, with no real meta-fictional pranks here.

But, as stated above, it is a fun thought experiment - creating a cohesive and whole conspiracy around a man who is kind of an American myth in his own right. To that end, it's a decent excursion from the sometimes daunting pile of books that matter. If one enters with medium expectations, he will leave the book fulfilled.