Libra

Today in class we talked about how credible the various conspirators in Libra seem to us. I'd say that they all seem pretty realistic to me. I don't really have the psychological background to say what exactly is "wrong" with them, but I think it's pretty clear that the way these men think is not the norm. They literally lead double lives; they have false names, passports, back accounts, etc. and this, no doubt, affects them significantly. The most striking scene so far for me has been when Win is thinking about the plot but is then brought back to reality by an activity as mundane as unloading groceries:

"He respected the President for going to Miami. He was surprised and touched when the President's wife poke Spanish to brigade members. But the ceremony had not renewed the cause, the forceful devotion to a free Havana. He saw it now as pure public relations, the kind of gleaming imagery that marked every move the administration made. The car pulled up and he went down the steps to help Mary Frances take the groceries inside. He gripped the heavy bags. A wind sprang from the east, an idea of rain, sudden, pervading the air. He saw himself go inside, a fellow on a quiet street doing ordinary things, unafraid of being watched. (51)

The juxtaposition of the thinking behind an assassination attempt and the domesticity of the task of unloading groceries is a really sharp image. It's also pretty disturbing, though; it makes you wonder how well you can truly know a person. For example, Mary Frances, Win's wife, doesn't know very much about him and yet he still seems to function as a husband and father just fine. Neither Mary Frances, nor his daughter, Suzanne, question Win's "normalness." It just goes to remind us that it's really hard to recognize a deranged or mentally unsound person based on outward behaviors. This strengthens DeLilo's case in writing Libra because it adds plausibility to the fact that Oswald was the only one officially charged with Kennedy's assassination. The other conspirators were so good at leading their double lives that they were simply never caught. How convenient (yet plausible)!

Speaking of Mary Frances, Beryl, Parmenter's wife, is about the same in terms of character. We see her trying to elicit some information from Larry, but when he doesn't give many specifics, she sort of just drops the issue. This brings me to something else I've noticed: part of the reason I (and a lot of my classmates, from what I can tell) are having some trouble keeping plot elements straight is that the conspirators blur together. I couldn't tell much of a difference in character between Beryl and Mary Frances, for example, and their husbands treat them about the same as well. It's very easy to lose track of who is who, and I wonder if DeLilo did this on purpose or not.