Following the life of Lee in Libra gives us a unique insight into his life. Rarely do we read a book that gives us someone’s entire story, from their early childhood until their death. For me, this changed how I view Lee Harvey Oswald as a person.
As I’m sure many of you have as well, I found myself comparing events in my life to Lee’s throughout the book. DeLillo did a really good job of humanizing him and making him into someone I could relate to. Even when I couldn’t personally relate to something Lee went through, I often felt sorry for him. Take, for instance, his childhood. DeLillo described how his father was dead, how he and his mother constantly moved around, and how he had lived in orphanages for parts of his life.
Another way DeLillo made me sympathize for Lee was through the portrayal of Lee never fitting in. This is exemplified both in his childhood and in his adulthood as he travels to Russia and Japan. For instance, in the Bronx when he runs into two kids from his school, one says “But what kind of name is Lee? That’s a girl’s name or what?” (7). Other kids made fun of his accent. Lee never seeming to fit in no matter where he went made me feel bad for him, and I could somewhat relate. Everyone, including me has felt excluded at some point in their life.
Although I mostly sympathized with Lee through the beginning of the book, the end of the book reminded me of all the bad things he did. First, there was hitting Marina. And the big one, of course, was shooting the president. On the way to the movie theatre, he shot a policeman, too. I agree with what James said today in class: shooting the policeman made me lose all sympathy for Lee at the end of the book. Even if you could somewhat justify shooting the president with his confusion and the rest of the conspiracy as we discussed in class, shooting the policeman was something he did on his own and there is no excuse for it.
Though I still think Lee Harvey Oswald did many bad things, reading Libra did teach me more about his life and how he had legitimate struggles. I have not changed my mind about him, but DeLillo has made me see a depth to his character. DeLillo reminds us that he is a person who went through hardships in life, which we often forget when we know him as the man who shot JFK.
I think DeLillo having us follow Lee for basically his entire life was an interesting choice. I started reading this story with a more black and white view of what happened, but the way DeLillo presents Lee changed my views. I don't think this book necessarily changed my views of Lee in a strictly positive or negative way, but it's certainly given more depth to Lee.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't say I sympathized with Lee at the end of the book, but I did feel sorry for him in a way. It kinda sucked that he was so taken advantage of by the conspirators, framed for the assassination in which he missed every shot. However, at some point you have to step back from the book and realize that Lee is Lee Harvey Oswald, the criminal who most likely killed an american president in real life.
ReplyDeleteLike you, throughout the beginning of the novel, I felt sympathy for Lee. Living without a father figure in your life definitely changes your childhood and your life. I mean hell, just look at how many "problem childs" arise from the population of children without fathers. However, at the same time, I think that it is a flimsy excuse because so many children who don't have a father figure still make it in the real world. It is interesting to me though Delillo chooses to portray Lee's entire life from his childhood. At first, I thought that his scope would be too large to fit all into one book. But, I thought Delillo choose wisely which portions he would go in depth about and which portions he would "summarize". I put the word summarize in quotes because even though he summarizes some of the parts, they are all still quite in depth, which makes the book, in one way, complete to me.
ReplyDeleteYou put this very well: it's easy to misconstrue efforts to provide a fuller context for the life of a person who does a very bad thing as offering "excuses" for their behavior, or justifying it in some way, or painting them as a "victim." That's not what DeLillo is after, in my view. Lee is a flawed individual (like all of us, in our own ways) who makes some bad decisions for sort of good reasons, and bad decisions for bad reasons, and probably good decisions for bad reasons. He's complex, not a one-dimensional monster or misfit.
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