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A review by ohmyvisage
Libra by Don DeLillo
3.0
James Ellroy proudly stated that DeLilo's Libra is the source of American Tabloid, arguably his best work. Knowing that, I had to get to the book eventually and found a work that starts off fairly interesting and has real literary merit, even if it fizzles out rather suddenly
The setup and first 3/4s of the book are excellent, with a juicy conspiracy born out of the frustrations of Cuba desk CIA agents and Cuban exiles feeling betrayed after Playa Gíron. It's a thrilling setup for a book, and the intersection of embittered intelligence elements plotting to keep their jobs is almost Roman in it's simplicity and cynicism.
The main issue is that the back fourth of the book gets too "literary" and the pace evaporated. The quickly escalating conspiracy almost entirely disappears, and instead we get the Lee Harvey Oswald show where he complains about the quality of food in Dallas. Interesting characters vanish and are written off by the Curator character in clinical one paragraph epitaphs. The conspiracy never gets deeper or more interesting than in the setup. DeLilo himself seems to have lost interest in it, as all of the plotters drop off the story on the day of the killing.
The ending itself is serviceable, but lacking a real oomph to close out the narrative. Libra walked so American Tabloid could sprint.
3.5/5
The setup and first 3/4s of the book are excellent, with a juicy conspiracy born out of the frustrations of Cuba desk CIA agents and Cuban exiles feeling betrayed after Playa Gíron. It's a thrilling setup for a book, and the intersection of embittered intelligence elements plotting to keep their jobs is almost Roman in it's simplicity and cynicism.
The main issue is that the back fourth of the book gets too "literary" and the pace evaporated. The quickly escalating conspiracy almost entirely disappears, and instead we get the Lee Harvey Oswald show where he complains about the quality of food in Dallas. Interesting characters vanish and are written off by the Curator character in clinical one paragraph epitaphs. The conspiracy never gets deeper or more interesting than in the setup. DeLilo himself seems to have lost interest in it, as all of the plotters drop off the story on the day of the killing.
The ending itself is serviceable, but lacking a real oomph to close out the narrative. Libra walked so American Tabloid could sprint.
3.5/5