A Very Believable Conspiracy
Recently I asked my parents what they thought about the government report on the JFK assassination. Neither of them think that it tells the whole story and I was interested to hear that my dad’s speculations lined up pretty well with what seems to be the current plan in Libra to try to kill JFK. My dad thinks a couple things could be possible including that Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t work alone, was probably supposed to die before being taken into custody, and that Jack Ruby was sent by whatever group planned the assassination in order to kill Lee Harvey Oswald before he talked. Hearing him say what many other Americans believe, that the government report isn’t the whole story, and some of these pretty common conspiracy theories was interesting because they aren’t far from the conspiracies that DeLillo is putting forth.
The difference is that when most people say these things they just are speculating and don’t put forth any facts but DeLillo frames the situation with what seems like evidence (which is possibly true? But also this is fiction so it’s hard to know what is real and fake) that lays out an idea and sort of lets the reader interpret the strange circumstances as they please. DeLillo also shows the way that things could have gotten sort of mixed up between all the layers of hierarchy of government and different people tied into this, that it’s possible that no one person knows the whole story. In Libra, we see someone charged with the task after the assassination of drawing connections between all these different viewpoints and papers, which raises the question: is there some real document out there that has the truth about the JFK assassination?
DeLillo gives the conspiracies in his book more basis by showing Lee growing up and giving us more background on him as a human being before he became infamous. We see that Lee is weird and sort of disliked but not really an outcast. At one point one of his army buddies says that Lee might be smarter than all of them, but he’s also dumber. Lee loves the idea of being in a secret organization and we’ve already seen him try to kill a political figure and miss. This idea that Lee is smart but also doesn’t think anything through sums up his character a bit and also helps the reader to believe that Lee could possibly be convinced to take part in the assassination of JFK by Win and his fellow conspirators. So far in Libra, DeLillo is taking the conspiracies that we are all familiar with and giving them a strong basis that makes it hard to believe that nothing shady was going on.
I think it is interesting that as I compare the novels we have read, this is the only one (so far) that has stuck to the realm of plausibility (except for Slaughterhouse Five, but that depends on how you see Tralfamadore as a possibly real or not real experience for Billy). That is, Ragtime, Mumbo Jumbo, Slaughterhouse five, and Kindred each diverge from the possibility that the events depicted within the book is real, given our knowledge and evidence. Libra, however, tries to set up a fiction-like conspiracy that is what many see as possible history and which fits within the pieces given by the forensic evidence.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, Libra is almost the least believable—as it uses the narrative perspective of a major historical figure, giving deep insight into his psyche throughout his live, which is unlike anything we’ve covered in class.
DeleteLibra is postmodern, but there is so much about the JFK assassination itself and its aftermath that also reflects ideas of postmodernism. There is so much information out there, and so many possible narratives: the official government narrative, DeLillo's narrative, your dad's speculations, and any number of other conspiracy theories. It is impossible to identify an objective truth, and there is evidence that could support almost any theory.
ReplyDeleteYour question about a real document that has the truth about the JFK assassination is interesting, because while reading Libra we see how the information that the government had about the assassination got into their hands. Win and the other CIA guys forged so many of the papers that would later (presumably) lead the government to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was the killer, so it poses another question: Even if we find a paper that presumably has the real story about JFK's assassination there is always the possibility that it isn't actually real.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I especially like the combined ideas of your dad thinking Lee was likely not working alone and the discussion of Lee's failure. It does seem that DeLillo, along with standard conspiracy ideas, is pointing toward that conclusion and it is very unfortunate that we will never be able to say for sure whether or not the theory is even somewhat accurate.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I love how DeLillo is mixing together all these theories and facts, but it is really confusing my brain and I hope someday they will somehow prove he was right (even though it will never happen), just so that I won't be hoarding a lot of partially fictional characters and stories in my head.
(Also, you might want to fix the words on the post)