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3.99 AVERAGE
3.99 AVERAGE
I'm writing this quite a bit after I finished it but it was a really interesting read.
Really interesting take on a historical event which I didn't know much about. Very convincing interepretation of something that could've happened. There is clearly a lot of room for justified conspiratorial thinking around the whole thing and this takes the accepted facts and weaves a very plausible narrative around em. Great Delillo shit.
Really interesting take on a historical event which I didn't know much about. Very convincing interepretation of something that could've happened. There is clearly a lot of room for justified conspiratorial thinking around the whole thing and this takes the accepted facts and weaves a very plausible narrative around em. Great Delillo shit.
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
"I can't give facts point blank. It takes stories to fill out a person's life"
I guess I found this interesting. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm not really the sort of guy who likes conspiracy theories and really I don't give a shit who killed JFK, but I got a copy of this somewhere, and aside things getting a bit ho-hum with the dry reportage tone, there were a few moments I did honestly like.
While marvelous, this turned out not to reach the level among my favorite Delillo books. It might have been how I also found simultaneous books to read next to it, but I think the slow pace of Libra contributed to how I found other books almost continually more interesting.
The premise and the plot, however, are absolutely fantastic. Delillo studies deep into the murk surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy, and weaves this narrative into it, the story of Lee Oswald, who never really liked his middle name anyways and was surprised when the media leapt on it as they did. It had me scrambling across wikipedia, knowing full well that I'd find the relevant facts I'd just read in a passage, knowing also that this depiction and synthesis of the facts was entirely fictional. The book accelerated until the end, cracking like a gunshot as the words put me behind and inside the eyes of mister oswald, crumpling over in that famous picture with a bullet in his gut, the only one who really knew what was happening in that moment. Chilling and stunning, this is fine work by Don Delillo. I just wish it started out more swiftly.
The premise and the plot, however, are absolutely fantastic. Delillo studies deep into the murk surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy, and weaves this narrative into it, the story of Lee Oswald, who never really liked his middle name anyways and was surprised when the media leapt on it as they did. It had me scrambling across wikipedia, knowing full well that I'd find the relevant facts I'd just read in a passage, knowing also that this depiction and synthesis of the facts was entirely fictional. The book accelerated until the end, cracking like a gunshot as the words put me behind and inside the eyes of mister oswald, crumpling over in that famous picture with a bullet in his gut, the only one who really knew what was happening in that moment. Chilling and stunning, this is fine work by Don Delillo. I just wish it started out more swiftly.
My favorite DeLillo novel. Totally engrossing. Regardless of how interested you think you are in the JFK assassination, Libra will suck you in with its drum-tight prose and methodical pacing. Highly recommended.
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
DeLillo is one of the great prose writers and Libra is no exception. Narration that assumes an almost dreamlike quality, underscoring the murky waters between deliberate plotting and trains of happenstance. capital G capital S Good Shit™️
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The story of the end of truth, of the unspooling of life in America, a fracture point after which it became common assumption that there is a terrible and unknowable power that can never be seen directly or even confirmed to exist, but which nonethless stands, dark and frightening and indistinct and always in the corners of our vision. Whether or not this is actually the case is, terrifyingly, completely irrelevant. The possibility is the same as the monster’s existence. Oswald is Hidell is Alek is perhaps Oswald and perhaps never went to Mexico City or never went to Russia and perhaps was in Dallas that day and perhaps pulled the trigger and perhaps never made it back to the US and everything is white noise and motion blur and assumptions and our own fears and desperate imaginings, gazing back at us.