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A review by ilman
Libra by Don DeLillo
3.0
Libra (1988) deals with a tragic event of John F. Kennedy’s assassination and the episodes that led up to it. As I was reading this novel, I kept asking myself: “Where do the facts end and where does fiction begin?” DeLillo acknowledges in the end that this is a work of imagination, and he says that he “altered and embellished reality, extended real people into imagined space and time, invented incidents, dialogues, and characters.” Whatever the case may be, Libra is one of the saddest books I’ve read this year and the events described in this novel may have occurred.
The novel follows two narrative threads: one dealing with Lee Harvey Oswald’s life and the other dealing with the participants in the conspiracy to assassinate JFK. Both threads are loosely connected and they meet in the end. One thing that DeLillo does well is humanizing Lee Harvey Oswald. The reader gets to understand what events brought him to the ultimate decision to assassinate the President of the United States. I had no idea that he lived a portion of his life in Soviet Union where he met and married a woman named Marina. We also learn a lot about the conspiracy to assassinate JFK and its participants. This area of the novel is heavily debated due to its speculative plot elements. We may never know what occurred in the months, weeks, and days prior to the assassination, but DeLillo certainly doesn’t shy away from presenting his case to the reader. Again, DeLillo stated that this is NOT a non-fiction novel, so everything must be taken with a grain of salt.
This book is not for everyone, but I would recommend it to any fans of biographical fiction and literary fiction. The mood of this novel is bleak, suspenseful, and occasionally disturbing, so be prepared for that. If you feel like you don’t know enough about the assassination of John F. Kennedy but would like to learn more (that was me prior to picking up Libra), this novel would be perfect for you. My only complaint is that the prose felt dry at times, which kind of surprised me because I adored DeLillo’s prose in White Noise (1985). Occasionally, I felt like I was reading a Wikipedia article rather than a work of fiction. Other that that, I found this book to be intriguing, informative, and thought-provoking. 3.5 stars.
The novel follows two narrative threads: one dealing with Lee Harvey Oswald’s life and the other dealing with the participants in the conspiracy to assassinate JFK. Both threads are loosely connected and they meet in the end. One thing that DeLillo does well is humanizing Lee Harvey Oswald. The reader gets to understand what events brought him to the ultimate decision to assassinate the President of the United States. I had no idea that he lived a portion of his life in Soviet Union where he met and married a woman named Marina. We also learn a lot about the conspiracy to assassinate JFK and its participants. This area of the novel is heavily debated due to its speculative plot elements. We may never know what occurred in the months, weeks, and days prior to the assassination, but DeLillo certainly doesn’t shy away from presenting his case to the reader. Again, DeLillo stated that this is NOT a non-fiction novel, so everything must be taken with a grain of salt.
This book is not for everyone, but I would recommend it to any fans of biographical fiction and literary fiction. The mood of this novel is bleak, suspenseful, and occasionally disturbing, so be prepared for that. If you feel like you don’t know enough about the assassination of John F. Kennedy but would like to learn more (that was me prior to picking up Libra), this novel would be perfect for you. My only complaint is that the prose felt dry at times, which kind of surprised me because I adored DeLillo’s prose in White Noise (1985). Occasionally, I felt like I was reading a Wikipedia article rather than a work of fiction. Other that that, I found this book to be intriguing, informative, and thought-provoking. 3.5 stars.