Libro definitivo sulla madre di tutti i complotti e di come Mafia/Cia/FBI/Anticastristi portino quasi per sbaglio un ragazzo di ventitre anni che non aveva il motivo, le capacità e nemmeno la volontà, ad uccidere Kennedy.
Impareggiabile DeLillo fa di Oswald un Forrest Gump in negativo che attraversa l'universo - America, detrito fra i detriti.
Meraviglioso poi lo Stabat mater finale.

DeLillo and I are friends now!!
We had started off on the wrong foot, but Libra has patched things up. I too share Paul's suspicions about Libra and White Noise having been written by the same person. Had I been handed these two books without the cover, I wouldn't have known those words had flown out of the same figurative pen.

Libra is a terrific piece of work. It has a huge cast of characters and a very complex web of events, all handled neatly and elegantly. While DeLillo's characters never really open up to the readers, they can still be haunting and memorable. The writing is very dense and can have a lot of sub-textual meaning. Instead of directly telling the readers what the mood of a scene is or how a character feels, he creates the atmosphere with his words and conveys the feeling quite effectively. Among other things, I liked the way he would give one the sense of slowly or rapidly passing time without saying as much (I have lost my copy, otherwise I could have pulled out a few quotes to show you what I mean. Oh well.) Oswald's mother's neurotic behavior, his wife Marina's feelings of helplessness, dilemmas of many characters are portrayed so well that even minor characters carve a niche for themselves and stay with the reader.

Unlike typical thrillers where characters are mere caricatures blindly running after power/money ***, DeLillo's characters are quite real. They do stop long enough to breathe and think. The reader is privy to their objectives, their motivations, their hesitations and dilemmas. Despite knowing how the story is going to end, it is never uninteresting.

For me, the most outstanding part of Libra is the realization of the character Lee Harvey Oswald. He is terrifyingly real and complex. He doesn't conform to either hero or anti-hero stencil. I neither like him nor dislike him, but I feel great sympathy for him. His whole life seems to be something of an accident (I mean more accidental than most lives are). It is as if one day he closed his eyes, spun around and then started walking in the direction that he had ended up facing. As a very young teenager, Marxism and communism caught his fancy, without anyone directing him that way. And this very passion acted as his guiding light. What if something else had caught his eye at that stage? He would have been an altogether different person. Though his behavior is far from ideal, he has so many great qualities that could have led him to an exemplary life. He is man of great commitment. He stands by what he believes in and would go to any lengths to support his beliefs. How painstakingly he kept at writing and reading despite his dyslexia is mentioned often in the book. If only....

Like Lee's life, the theme of accidental happenings is something DeLillo highlights too. Agent branch trying to solve the confusing maze of the events leading upto JFK assassination finds it impossible to know how much of the history was planned and how much of it was coincidences and destiny. For any scheme to be pulled off, lot of things do need to fall into the right place.

I am holding off the fifth star only because political thrillers and conspiracy theories don't hold much interest for me. But Libra really is very impressive.


*** I am looking at you American Tabloid. I loved Ellroy's stacatto writing, but it was 600 pages of pretty much the same thing.


__________________________________________

UPDATE:

Libra has been on a long hiatus as I have been occupied with a hundred other things. While I have not been reading this book about JFK's assassination, I did recently happen to drive by the actual location of Kennedy's assassination and the sixth floor museum.

_____________________________________


Second and last chance for DeLillo to impress me. All my GR friends have rated this either 4 or 5 stars (mostly 5). So I am setting my expectations high.
If it begins to sound anything like White Noise, it is going straight out of my window.

Mr. DeLillo there is a lot of pressure on you. Pull up your socks.

A conspiracy is everything that ordinary life is not. It's the inside game, cold, sure, undistracted, forever closed off to us. We are the flawed ones, the innocents, trying to make some rough sense of the daily jostle. Conspirators have a logic and daring beyond our reach.

I barely remember the year 1991. There were serial missteps of which I was slowly then suddenly recovering. I also went to see the film JFK with my best friend Joel. It was either before then or afterwards that Joel bought a weighty stack of documents from some self-styled researcher and analyst from Texas. The documents pushed the blame for the Kennedy Assassination from the Cuba/Mafia nexus to the corridors of power in the Beltway. There was an exhilaration in the audacity of that thesis. I was in awe and then a little afraid. Shortly thereafter I read Umberto Eco and such matters became more of intellectual exercise than a means of understanding history and the world. I outgrew it.

I believe like much else I simply became agnostic.

I had thus been leery for over twenty years of reading Libra. I was likely mistaken. I am glad I finally did.

DeLillo has never been a favorite novelist of mine, but one I would read on occasion The Names was likely my last encounter, when I was first infected back in 2020. I liked that one for the same reasons I loved this: Libra finds the sublime in the collection of data, the unwieldy and the coincidental lapse into meter and refrain, no need for the authorial push. DeLillo finds the audit a sufficient flex and where there's silence, there's a secret.

Πέρυσι και πρόπερσι έφαγα αρκετή πίκρα διαβάζοντας Ντον Ντελίλο, αφού τα "Η σιωπή" και "Zero K" δυστυχώς με είχαν απογοητεύσει, έχοντας γενικά μια πολύ καλή εικόνα για τον συγγραφέα από τη στιγμή που πριν καμιά δεκαριά χρόνια είχα διαβάσει το πάρα πολύ καλό "Λευκός θόρυβος" (πρέπει να το ξαναδιαβάσω αυτό!). Όμως είπα, έλεος, ας πιάσω κάποιο από τα πραγματικά καλά του, και έτσι αποφάσισα να διαβάσω το "Ζυγός", που τόσα και τόσα χρόνια με περίμενε υπομονετικά: Λοιπόν, αυτό πραγματικά με ενθουσίασε. Γενικά, περίμενα ότι θα μου αρέσει λόγω θεματολογίας, μιας και ό,τι έχει να κάνει με τη δολοφονία του Τζον Κένεντι και τις θεωρίες συνωμοσίας γύρω από αυτήν, είναι κάτι που πάντα θα με ιντριγκάρει, αλλά αυτό πραγματικά με ξετρέλανε. Ο Ντελίλο κατάφερε να με καθηλώσει από την πρώτη μέχρι κυριολεκτικά την τελευταία σελίδα, χάρη στη χειμαρρώδη αφήγηση, την καθηλωτική ατμόσφαιρα και τις πολλές δυνατές εικόνες που δημιούργησε με τις περιγραφές του, αν και οφείλω να πω ότι σαν ανάγνωσμα δεν είναι και το ευκολότερο ή, για να είμαι πιο σωστός, το πιο χαλαρό που υπάρχει εκεί έξω, σίγουρα χρειάζεται μια κάποια προσήλωση, μια κάποια υπομονή, είναι ένα βιβλίο που θέλει το χρόνο του, που απαιτεί την ανάλογη προσοχή εκ μέρους του αναγνώστη. Προσωπικά το διάβασα με τις καλύτερες αναγνωστικές συνθήκες, και μάλιστα έτυχε να το ξεκινήσω ανήμερα της πεντηκοστής όγδοης επετείου από τη δολοφονία του Κένεντι και να το τελειώσω ανήμερα της δολοφονίας του Λι Χάρβεϊ Όσβαλντ (χθες το τελείωσα, σήμερα βρήκα χρόνο για να γράψω την κριτική). Η γραφή είναι το δυνατό χαρτί του βιβλίου, έτσι δυνατή, πυκνή και καθηλωτική όπως είναι, ενώ από την άλλη οι χαρακτήρες δεν είναι και τόσο στιβαροί -η αλήθεια είναι-, αν και ο συγγραφέας δίνει αρκετό βάρος στον χαρακτήρα του Λι Χάρβεϊ Όσβαλντ, προσπαθώντας ίσως να τον κατανοήσει, να τον καταλάβει. Προσωπικά η οπτική του συγγραφέα σχετικά με τους ανθρώπους και τα γεγονότα που οδήγησαν στη δολοφονία του Κένεντι μου φάνηκε πολύ ενδιαφέρουσα και πειστική, γενικά το βιβλίο το ευχαριστήθηκα στον απόλυτο βαθμό, αν και οφείλω να πω ότι δεν είναι καθόλου για όλα τα γούστα, ούτε για όλες τις ορέξεις.

"Un giorno qualche dritto avrebbe inventato una religione basata sulla coincidenza"

Recentemente vedo Jackie di Pablo Larrain. Ci trascino mia figlia, scelta inopportuna. Lascio a casa la Madre, scelta parimenti inopportuna. La figlia mi infama perché si è rotta i maroni a più infinito, la Madre mi rompe i maroni perché dovevo portarci lei. Insomma, come fai sbagli.

Comunque. Il film è molto diverso dalle aspettative che nutrivo su esso, pensavo che ci fosse più Storia. Mentre risulta essere tutt'altro che polpettone, molto intimista. Tutto centrato su Jackie, personaggio quanto mai ambiguo. Conoscevo poco della storia del delitto Kennedy e da questa visione non sono stata aiutata. Ma a me, che son fatta strana, non solo non ha annoiato, ma addirittura mi ha messo tanta curiosità.

Finita la visione, torno a casa e googolo. Intrippata.

Finito Perutz, ho idee confuse su quella che potrebbe essere la mia prossima lettura. Casualmente, sfogliando una lista di libri imprescindibili, con titoli curiosi, noto Libra. Delitto Kennedy. De Lillo. Ce la farò? So cosa vuol dire affrontare De Lillo, so che quell'uomo sembra sia pagato per non rendere la vita facile al lettore. Però l'argomento mi intriga. Ho adorato Underworld. Mi lancio.

De Lillo, nelle sembianze del curatore Branch che deve ricostruire i fatti per l'Effebi, si chiude nella sua stanzetta per 3 anni. E col romanzo, prova a fare una ricostruzione di ciò che accadde. Raccontando la storia non dei Kennedy ma di Oswald, uomo incolpato della morte di JFK. È un libro non semplice (ci mancherebbe), le prime cento pagine si sviluppano senza presentazioni. Personaggi sempre nuovi che compaiono e che dire scarsamente presentati, sarebbe non solo improprio ma un facile eufemismo. E li si va di Google. Non c'è verso. O bisogna conoscere l'argomento.

Ma. Ad un certo punto, la storia prende. Eccome se prende. E l'ordito immaginato da De Lillo appare al lettore una possibilità non solo ammissibile ma proprio verosimile. I fatti, le persone, che si stringono intorno ad un uomo, che appare essere suo malgrado, la persona giusta per interpretare una parte. E tutto si mette sulla sua strada affinché il 22/11/63 lui imbracci un fucile e spari tre colpi. Le trame hanno la curiosa tendenza di convergere sempre verso la morte.

"La prova che Lee Oswald corrisponde alla sagoma di cartone che hanno ritagliato fin qui. Tu sei un capriccio della storia. Sei una coincidenza. Loro architettano un piano e tu ci rientri alla perfezione. A un certo punto ti perdono, e rieccoti qui. C’è un disegno negli avvenimenti."

Coincidenze. Parola che ricorre in Libra per ben 21 volte.

"Branch è diventato sospettoso nei confronti di queste coincidenze da quattro soldi. Comincia a credere che qualcuno tenti di deviarlo verso la superstizione. Lui vuole che una cosa sia quello che è. Non può, un uomo, morire senza scatenare la solita, rituale, ricerca di collegamenti e disegni?"

Oswald. Un uomo. Una nota stonata. Jack Ruby, uccisore di Oswald, altro uomo, altra nota stonata.

"Una stonatura nell’aria."

Intro. Primo pezzo della colonna sonora di Jackie: tema su nota stonata.[Tra l'altro colonna sonora, per me, bellissima]

Le sinfonie si costruiscono anche su note stonate. E Oswald Ruby, se l'idea del complotto è sostenibile, hanno suonato nella stessa orchestra.

Coincidenze. Che portano a scoprire che esiste pure un De Lillo ironico.

"La coincidenza è una scienza in attesa di venire scoperta".

Molto interessante la rappresentazione dello stesso fatto da due punti di vista non solo diversi, ma diametralmente opposti.

The best Delillo work I have read to date (White Noise, Zero K). Conspiracy theories are fun, but the JFK assasination is in a league of its own and Delillo brings it to life beautifully.

In his other novels I have noticed that Delillo spends an unusual amount of time inside his characters’ minds, and this is again the case in Libra. This approach might not work for most writers, but it is Dellilo’s calling card and I love it. Nobody can pry open the mind of his characters quite like Delillo. I found myself nodding in appreciation once Delillo reveals the source of the novels title as well: just another example of his brilliance in character study. The writing is not at all elegant but smooth and effective nonetheless. Guess I loved a lot of things about this one, so I reserve the right to upgrade this to five stars once I have chewed on it a little longer.

Typically challenging offering from DeLillo, dramatizing the Kennedy Assassination and the life of Lee Harvey Oswald. The narrative forms three parallel strands: Oswald's misadventures as a failed student, Marine washout, Communist defector and aimless, angry young man; a convoluted CIA plot against John F. Kennedy that conscripts Oswald as a fall guy; a modern historian researching Kennedy's death who's overwhelmed by contradictory evidence, doubts he can't dispel and the sheer amount of data to digest. As historical fiction, it's occasionally shaky; written in DeLillo's opaque style, the novel often confuses more than it explains, with the anachronic plot strands requiring patience from the reader. DeLillo's theory about JFK's death (a false flag, designed to galvanized Kennedy into invading Cuba, that morphs into a real murder) is implausible even by the dubious standards of conspiracy lore, utilitizing many of the same weirdos (David Ferrie, Guy Banister, Clay Shaw) whom Oliver Stone fingered in his movie JFK. The historian's subplot offers DeLillo a chance to reflect, as usual, on the frustrating unknowability of reality, which here is more thematically interesting than dramatically cohesive. But the meat of the novel, and what makes it worthwhile even for conspiracy skeptics, is DeLillo's fascinating portrait of Oswald as All-American Loser. A man with a miserable childhood, a violent, unhappy marriage with a Russian woman, fanatical (if muddled) politics, and an ever-changing identity driven by his twisted desire to Be Somebody. Ultimately, Oswald's roped into something bigger than he understands, by men with far more power but little more idea than he about what they want, and pays the ultimate price. Tough, evasive but worthwhile postmodern historical fiction.

I unintentionally finished this days before the 50th anniversary of JFK's death, which made the whole thing even more enjoyable, if that's the right word. Aside from a bit of the good ole American prose (and its general fear of syntax more complex than subject-verb-object), and brief moments of postmodern angst (can we know anything???), this is an excellent, excellent book. It's easy to read but doesn't ignore the possibility that writing may (I'd go as far as 'should') be noticeable. But most importantly, it's very, very smart.

What is an historical novel* meant to do? One character in 'Libra' suggests that history just is the sum total of what we don't know--presumably what we do know being either 'present' or, perhaps, knowing history makes it less likely to have unpleasant effects: if I know x has a history of beating his girlfriends, I'd warn my friend against dating him. Another character suggests that Oswald, who thinks that he wants to enter history, really wants *out* of history: he doesn't want to be a concrete thing, he wants to be a symbol. And of course he has become just that.

Most of us know nothing about LHO except the image of him being shot, and despite this ignorance, we also feel that he's the image of America's shift (massive generalization alert) from confidence to neurosis. What we know, in this case at least, is just the symbol. But the symbol is not 'in' history; symbols float free of history. So yes, LHO wanted to get out of history, and he did. He's known. But only as a symbol. What we don't know is the real history.

And that's what the historical novel, and narrative art more generally, offers us: some way to understand the messiness of 'history', to burrow under the symbols and decontextualized factoids. Art suggests and plays with what we don't know--here, LHO's personality, wishes and dreams on the one hand, and a possible conspiracy on the other. In other words, the historical novel and conspiracy theories do much the same thing: they try to contextualize symbols, to ground them in history, in the things we don't know. Libra achieves the almost impossible: it confers dignity on LHO and his family by paying attention to history.

Conspiracy theories, on the other hand, dignify nobody, except perhaps the theorist in her own eyes. That's not to say that the urge to produce conspiracy theories is blameworthy. They're attempts to understand and get behind the symbols, just like DeLillo's novel. And the novel itself makes it hard to see what difference there might be between art and theory (aside from intelligence and style). I'm sure there is one, but how can I describe it? Right now, I just don't know.


*: McCarthy's 'Blood Meridian' was published in 1985, three years before 'Libra'... and both feature a villainous, pederastic man who suffers from Alopecia universalis. Conspiracy?

The facet DeLillo investigates in this historical crime (the murder of President Kennedy) is the power of plot. Lee Oswald did not work alone. There is a whole facet of the crime that keeps jabbing at the ‘lonesome’ aspect of the murder. Lee did not work alone. He is one piece of the puzzle which was shut down to paralyze investigation.
This novel does not only concentrate on the crime. We are introduced to his family, to the CIA, to Lee’s mistakes and to twists of all sorts. DeLillo wants the reader to sympathize with Lee, as he is himself a victim in a sense, a victim of poverty, bad luck, and the lack of a paternal figure to set him straight. Of course, these are not reasons to forgive him for killing the president (if he is the one who delivered the final blow). He knew what he was doing; if he is a victim, he is also a murderer; he could have worked harder for a better life rather than be dragged in a context he thought was his. But the thought remains… to what extent was he at fault?

This one took about a month to read so I should respect that time turning its pages and write a few commemorative words. All I can really say is that on every page the writing reeks of literature, but rarely is it literary. What I mean is that DeLillo's sentences always seem to have an eye on a subtextual prize, that is, they always seem like an updated, abstract response to that question posed long ago by some cavedweller about the meaning of life, as opposed to turns of phrase for the sake of well-crafted whateverness. Any given paragraph is obviously DeLillo. His style is absolutely particularly his, but also it's readable and clear, with lyrical potential, too, but never romantic, or sensory solely for the sake of activating the reader's senses. All characters are part of the whole (society, history, the universe), and all characters have been brought to life solely to speak DeLillo's words. This would annoy if DeLillo had nothing to say, but he has some serious things to say, and so his characters say them, then conspire to kill the president. A particular brand of American anxiety is represented here. This is a difficult review to write. What I should just say is that several times while reading this while walking to work I would laugh out loud at awesome language or a turn or development or insight (rarely at something funny, though humor exists if not necessarily abounds) and sometimes I'd even say out loud that this dude is a freakin' great writer. I should be better able to articulate why I'd say this aloud while walking/reading, but I think it has to do with his authority, ambition, dry-eyed humanity, intelligence/wisdom, scope/range, humor, boldness, the beautifully honed/hefty sentences of course, and also something to do with the structure, how scenes emerge and dissolve ("boldly" as Ethan says) without much helpful orientation from the author, and it all seems held together loosely, artfully, in a way that seems like it wants to very carefully, very gently create in the reader a state similar to what's being experienced by the characters? Something like that? It's real good. Maybe his masterpiece, even more so than "Underworld"? -- it definitely feels longer (maybe 'cause it's denser?) and goes slower than "Underworld" . . . Also, plot-wise, the whole time you know how this one ends, but such knowledge is hardly an annoyance, the opposite in fact, same as with re-reading Hamlet etc.

There's a special element to DeLillo's writing where you go along reading and suddenly, unexpectedly, there's a passage that sends forth a couple tentacles that squeeze you tightly--unsettle you from your comfortable reading spot. You're in awe, gripped with epiphany--stunned, really. Moments that only come at the hands of a master. But then sometimes there's a crippling mediocrity that punishes you. Maybe it's DeLillo's game with the reader--holding you so distant and cold that when the magnitude of the message hits, it's amplified by the surrounding noise.

Anyway, and unfortunately, Libra exists on the plane of mediocrity with a remarkable sparsity of the above. Perhaps this is an issue with these kinds of literary what ifs--I think specifically of Roth's The Plot Against America where Lindbergh beats FDR in a pre-WW2 presidential race and averts America entering the war. These books tend to be a fun thought experiment, but not much else. Here, we have LHO as victim of a false flag conspiracy orchestrated by clandestine CIA agents who seek 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, maybe in an attempt to avoid sounding like a sympathizer, takes an emotional distance to LHO (and virtually every character within) that allows no strong reader engagement. Even in a scene depicting LHO slapping around his Russian wife, Marina, it's so even-handed that the horror of the scene and the judgements a reader should be making on LHO are subverted. This may 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 expectation, he will leave the book fulfilled.

Στο Ζυγός, ο σπουδαίος DeLillo γράφει μια πολυεπίπεδη και πολυδιάστατη μυθοπλαστική εκδοχή της δολοφονίας που συντάραξε τις ΗΠΑ.

Οι παράλληλες ιστορίες κι η πληθώρα προσώπων και χαρακτήρων, μοιάζει σαν ένα μπλεγμένο κουβάρι. Μην ξεκινήσετε αυτό το βιβλίο προσδοκώντας απαντήσεις - πέραν της εκδοχής του χαρακτήρα του Όσβαλντ που χτίζει εδώ ο συγγραφέας και που θα μπορούσε να ισχύει, οι θεωρίες συνομωσίας είναι πολλές - κι όλες πιθανές θα έλεγα.

Διαβάστε λοιπόν το Ζυγό για να θαυμάσετε την εξαιρετική γραφή του μεγάλου Αμερικανού συγγραφέα!


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«Αν είμαστε απ’έξω, υποθέτουμε ότι μια συνομωσια είναι η τέλεια εφαρμογή ενός σχεδίου. Σιωπηλοί ανώνυμοι άνδρες με σκληρές καρδιές. Μια συνομωσία είναι όλα όσα δεν είναι η κανονική ζωή. Είναι το εσωτερικό παιχνίδι, κρύο, σίγουρο, απερίσπαστο, αποκλεισμένο για πάντα από μας. Εμείς είμαστε αυτοί που κάνουν λάθη, οι αθώοι, που προσπαθούν να βγάλουν κάποιο αδρό νόημα. Οι συνομωσίες έχουν λογική και τόλμη πέρα από την εμβέλεια μας. Όλες οι συνομωσίες είναι η ίδια τεταμένη ιστορία αντρών που βρίσκουν συνοχή σε κάποια εγκληματική πράξη.»
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3,5 αστέρια