November 22

I figured that one of the most detailed, vivid, and shocking chapters of both Libra and American history deserved its own blog post, so, I made one. Even before Mr. Mitchell mentioned it in class, all I could think of was how cinematic this chapter was. Like, it kept gliding smoothly from one point of view to another until we all collided as the climatic bullet left the chamber and entered the President's skull. Easily one of the most dramatic and powerful chapters but also very saddening. I know I appear somewhat cynical in terms of these books, but although I don't like Libra as a book, I really did like this chapter. 

The fictional yet possibly insight we get into one of the most debated upon hour of American history is so tantalizingly possible, yet completely unreal at the same time. That may seem somewhat confusing, but let me explain. What could Lee Harvey Oswald have been thinking moments before he was about to shoot one of the most powerful and influential people in the entire civilized world? Was he sweating bullets, violently shaking his hands, making the shot by a fluke? Was he the cold, calculating solider acting completely on orders, going through the motions and not letting emotions play any role at all? Or was he considering the color of the First Lady's dress and judging how well she looked, how excellently she would look on the magazines and news articles for years to come? I mean, it seems ridiculous and yet completely possible, based off of the picture of Lee DeLillo has painted for us, you know?

I address this earlier in one of my blog posts, but I got so irrationally frustrated with Lee, far more than I should have been. His confrontation with the cop on page 409--ARGH. I probably should have been rooting for the cop to get out the car and slap some cuffs on the jerk. He just shot the President and now he's complaining about the smell of cigarettes or bending over with documents--just comply with him and you'll probably go scott-free. Then later, you see him complaining about not getting a shower. So. stupid!

Anyway, I think I've made it pretty clear that this is a powerful, emotional chapter that acts as a perfect climax for the book, despite the fact that we already know what's going to happen (the President dies). It's sort of like Slaughterhouse Five when he gives away the climax right at the beginning, and yet manages to write a cohesive and compelling story that makes want to read all the way through to the end.

Lee

I previously mentioned that I was interested with Lee's character, but otherwise indifferent, not especially sympathetic but no sense of dislike was present either. I did like his mysterious smile. Anyway, as the book has progressed, Lee has become more and more complicated and an ever "rounder" character. I found myself gravitating towards his situation sometimes and other times, I just couldn't do anything but shake my head and marvel at his stupidity. 

For example, in the earlier sections of the readings, when Lee decided to defect to the Soviet Union with his "top secret" military information, you could tell that he put some serious thought and effort into his decisions and it wasn't a whimsical fancy. Later though, I really began to lose some sympathy for him--in my eyes, he viewed himself as a very important figure, but when he realized he wasn't getting the attention he felt he deserved, he reacted petulantly by slitting his writsts. I mean, the scene in which he shot himself was ridiculous almost to the point of hilarity but the only reaction slitting his wrists got from me was: idiot. 

During class, we had an interesting discussion about whether or not we felt sympathy for him. Well, to answer that question, I'd have to give my description of Lee's character as the story progressed. I certainly didn't hate him or wish him dead, but I didn't really like him either. I still believed he was a complete moron because.... well, there are simply too many examples. For instance, when he chooses to have a picture taken for his family, he chooses to pose with his guns. Why his guns of all things?! "Look, here's Daddy and here's his favorite gun!" I really just didn't understand him. Perhaps I'm just dense, but a lot of this book just had me scratching my head. 

Near the end of the novel, after the shooting of President, Lee shot a cop--in cold blood. As Iain pointed out, he had no real reason to do this. The cop had every right to be suspicious, and his suspicions were only fueled on further by Lee's absolute refusal to cooperate. Again and again: ughh, Lee, why are you stupid!? Still--I didn't really want to see him dead.

Later, following Jack Ruby's infamous public shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, I found myself thinking: that's sad... Lee was still so young. Which is totally strange, since I spent mostly the entire novel thinking how much of an idiot Lee was. Amazingly enough, DeLillo had managed to flesh out JFK's assassin to the point that I no longer thought, "Yeah, that son of a bitch got what he deserved!" I mean, this man killed the President of the United States, but DeLillo had manged to shape him into a very human, very real character that was not an animalistic, crazed killer... Well, maybe a little crazy...

Zapruder

After watching the Zapruder film in class for the first time, quite honestly, there wasn't too much going through my mind. Yes, it was disgusting, greatly saddening, incredibly literal, yet still so mystifying, but it was still just another person getting shot in the head. I'm nearly 18, I've seen my fair share of blood and gore movies. There shouldn't have been anything extremely special about seeing someone get shot in the head, even if it was the President of the United States--that could have just been an actor for all I know. 

However, as the loop began to replay, I found that my eyes were uncontrollably drawn to the screen again and again. It was the same thing from the same perspective with the same [crappy] quality shot and the same brief frames of Kennedy ducking out of the frame and then quickly reappearing. It was one of those things in which you just couldn't tear your eyes away, despite you being disgusted with yourself for doing so.

Mr. Mitchell mentioned that there were people who knew this ~90 second clip by heart, frame-by-frame. I've only seen it... maybe 5 or 6 times, and was already getting quite sick of it. How many times do you have to see something before it goes from a recorded clip of a living, breathing human being getting his brains blown out and his hysterical wife scrambling across the car to scoop up his brains and skull in a futile, desperation-fueled manner to a lifeless, analytical sequence of pixels and physics devoid of any emotion? 

It's not exactly a big secret to learn that the brain can alter the way we take in information from the physical world and change it to what it desire--after all, how else did LSD work? Yes, that is somewhat oversimplified, but the idea that occurred to me in class is based off of these principles. After seeing this film dozens upon dozens of times, how many people saw the driver shooting Kennedy, simply because they wanted to believe it? If it's possible, it certainly could add an interesting twist to the set of conspiracy theories. 

Project

I must admit, when Mr. Mitchell first handed out the assignment sheets for the end-of-the-semester creative writing project, I inwardly (and possibly outwardly) groaned with extreme displeasure. I’m a second semester senior and my work ethic has been dwindling since the calc AP I took last year. This seemed like just another piece of busywork that was destined to suck up my free time and sleep hours.

However, as I started to look into possible topics, I found a lot of interesting historical anomalies that I’ve heard about but never really looked into before such as the notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper or the Zodiac Killer. I ended up spending a lot more time than I intended reading into and researching these cases and thought about how fun it would be to create identities for these shadowy assassins. After all, who doesn’t want to write a good detective story? Later though, I found yet another topic that piqued my interest—American CIA intrigue. Everybody’s well aware of the poorly executed Bay of Pigs and most people have heard of United Fruit etc etc. That led to me thinking: could there have been any other cases of CIA influence, just like in Libra? 

After doing a bit more research, I discovered Operation Northwoods (a secretly planned CIA operation involving Reichstag-burning-like false flag events designed to incite national violence against Cuba) and sort of just built off of that from there. Eventually, I decided that a good interlocking topic for all these CIA intrigues would be the Cuban Missile Crisis and my story just sort of wrote itself from there. 

Turns out, I did end up losing a good amount of sleep but it was more or less worth it in the end.

Déjà Vu

When I first started reading Libra, I was definitely getting a Ragtime vibe. The erratic level of detail with seemingly random comments placed here or there that give depth to characters and settings we only see or read once was very characteristic of Doctorow. (At least, it was to me. Perhaps I'm just crazy.).

I also drew a parallel between Lee and Younger Brother through the whole riding the subways thing. Both characters seem rather aimless and just sort of wander around. The similarity doesn't get much further than that though, as we start to learn more about Lee. A peculiar kid, to be sure, reading things that are much above his level, chilling at the zoo because school doesn't teach what he wants to learn, and separated from others, yet unafraid to stand up for himself if need be. To be honest, I don't have an exact opinion formed of him yet.

Speaking of Lee's odd behavior, I was actually reading the exact portion Mr. Mitchell pointed out in class (I can't find the page number, but it was the one involving him reading Marxist theory while following the text with his index finger) and thought to myself, "Hey, I used to do that while thinking.... oh no wait. I used to do that while pretending to look like I knew what I was reading when I was trying to help tutor a friend..." I suppose I thought that physical action somehow intensifies any activity. Whatever happens, Lee's level of intelligence levels ought to be an interesting point to follow later on in the book.

At this point, I'm trying hard to wipe out what preconceptions I have about Lee Harvey Oswald and his assassination of Kennedy, but to be honest, that's pretty hard. My mind continually wanders back to "What will go wrong, what will snap, to cause him to commit the atrocious act of taking another human's life?" The author seems to intentionally create a very enigmatic character--I am unable to sympathize with him for being an outcast because DeLillo doesn't play the pity card, but neither am I able to cheer him on because (so far) he isn't a terribly attractive or charismatic character. He does, apparently, have that indecipherable smile though--something I've always wanted to have. Sadly, I do not have a indecipherable smile--in fact, they are quite transparent.

1976

Simeon brought up an interesting point last week, the whole idea of us going back in time now and living in 1976 to do a sort of double-Dana thing. Granted, the technological and social gap won't be as enormous as was 1976 compared to 1815, but it'll still be very interesting to see what sort of parallels we can draw between then and now.

I felt that the description given by Dana concerning the 1815 world was very apt--the world was just somehow harder. Same United States, different lifestyle. Nowadays, life for the middle class of America can be considered somewhat cushy, or soft. Oh sure, I like to complain that my life is difficult and stressful, full of college decisions and schoolwork, but there are loads of things I take for granted that simply weren't the case back in 1815 or even 1976. More research is necessary for me to make an accurate description, but transportation, communication, and the attainment of information is just a gazillion times faster and better than ever imagined back in 1976.

This could be a promising idea for the semester project. I don't know. I mean, it actually sounds like a very interesting topic, but I should probably check with Simeon first. Anyway, referencing the idea of a postmodernist fiction, this could potentially be a story based on another story who drew its from that of its ancestors. Doubly confusing and extra postmodern. The largest snag I can think of when it comes to writing about this topic would be the fact that I'd have to center it around a major conflicting social issue as widespread as slavery. Then again, perhaps it doesn't have to be as widespread, just equally significant and intense. I foresee a great deal of research ahead.

Rufus

Since I didn't get a chance to do an introductory reactions post about Kindred, I'm just going to go ahead and jump right in. It started off very strong and held my interest for quite a long time. As I progressed and I realized that the book was focusing more on her relationship with Rufus and her living in 1815 than the fact that she was traveling through time. It never did end up explaining how that happened. Personally, I think she took it rather well. I don't think I'd adjust terribly well to the time traveler's lifestyle. But back to Rufus.

At first, like everybody else, I accepted him for being a somewhat selfish and rather self-destructive child but essentially not a bad person, just a product of his environment. I was rooting for him, as a matter of fact. Every time he did something stupid or mean natured, I would be say, "He'll grow out of it" or "His passion got the better of him." However, as the story progressed, he would just get more and more out of control with his acts of violence and demonstrations of control. I guess the proverbial hair that broke the camel's back, for me, was the point in which he actually swung his gun out at Dana. At this point, I was really just plowing through the book to finish it. I enjoyed it up until that point almost entirely because I had hoped there would be a happy ending between their relationship but it didn't seem like it would happen. In fact, I might even go so far as to say that I agree with Nikita--after Hagar was born, I was just mentally telling Dana to gtfo. Perhaps not go so far as to kill Rufus herself, but once Hagar was born, she was secure and the whole time paradox idea was more or less safe.

Finally, the way Butler ended the whole story did not sit too well with me. I liked how she described Dana's personal torment when it came to literally ending the life she had worked so hard and spent so much effort in saving. However, I still just had this feeling of, "okay, so now what--wait, that's it?" As if Butler simply got bored with writing and decided to kill it off. I agreed (silently) with Juliana's point in class about how she left a part of her behind, quite literally, because she had invested so much of her time and life in 1815 and I suppose I could see how Butler wanted that to be a symbolic point... but I don't know. Although I can't come up with a particularly better ending, I still didn't really like this one.