Status Updates From Libra

the cheek of this uni professors wanting me to read this long ass book in a week ? i have a life actually. and it’s dead

Finally actually reading this book and it slaps. Ok fine. Tim was right. I like it.

“He never thought of her by name. He thought of her being somewhere very vague, in a room with curtains, never moving from the chair. This is what happens to loved ones who go away. We make them sit in a room forever.”

Will not be finishing this. While I can respect the authors dedication to style, that style is not for me. Cold, factual, without lyric, rhythmically rigid and clippy.

So far, so good. Scratches the JFK conspiracy itch in a great way. Could be one of Delillo’s more engaging books? We’ll see!

poor, poor lee/oswaldovich/hidell. trapped by a history being constructed by men in small rooms (with his collaboration). destined for the cell - to be a man in a small room himself. "in atsugi" made me cry while describing the spread of a puddle of piss. impressive in a book full of impressive feats.

This rules, I wanna hangout with lee harvey oswald

The last 100 pages were gripping. I recommend watching the documentary "Delillo's Libra" on YouTube after finishing this to gain additional context about the ideas being played with in this book, straight from Delillo himself.

"Some people don't believe in God but they color end at Easter just to change the pattern of their days." p.204

At twenty years old, all you know is that you're twenty. p165.

"... it's just a matter of time before the material comes pouring in. Every bit and piece and whisper in the world that doesn't have a life until someone comes along to collect it. It's all been waiting just for you." p143

Superb

“I would say a hardworking, sincere, honest fellow has found himself in a position where he is being crushed by the pressure exerted from opposite directions. That makes him typical, I guess.”

I don’t even know what I want from a book right now, but Libra laid all of its cards down in the first 100 pages and for the last 100 hasn’t said anything new or interesting. I still have 250 to go.

I’m already a fairly paranoid individual and my Pynchon/80s DeLillo double-feature is making it worse

Some people don’t believe in God but they color eggs at Easter just to change the pattern of their days.

Had to re-read this book from the beginning because of my time away (dang you, Shelley; dang you, Pynchon). Banger book. Sometimes I hate my reading brain because I was hyperfixating today on the hints at Lee Harvey Oswald’s reading disability. Like bro, Zack, you can’t fix him. It’s not a case study. Not the point.

It has no history that we can recognize or understand. But it forces a connection. It puts a man on the path of his destiny."

"Think of two parallel likes...One is the life of Lee H. Oswald. One is the conspiracy to kill the President. What bridges the space between them? What makes a connection inevitable? There is a third line. It comes out of dreams, visions, intuitions, prayers, out of the deepest levels of the self. It's not generated by cause and effect like the other two lines. It's a line that cuts across casualty, cuts across time.

You have to understand that there are things that run deeper than politics. Our political skin is just the thinnest outer crust.

Even after you think you've seen all the ways violence can surprise a man, along comes something you never imagined. How much force do bullets have to exert if they can hit a man in the chest and make his hat fly four feet in the air, straight up? It was a lesson in the laws of motion and a reminder to all men that nothing is assured.

just about to finish. kinda disappointed, he spent 3/4ths the book going on about random shit then takes 20 pages to pivot to JFK assassination and when he does he dosnt even describe the assassination as it actually happened. in real life buddy got his brains blown all over the floorboard

so good. love books that have two adjacent plots then get intertwined

this book makes me feel like i'm watching a movie

good book but needs to pick up the pace. a bit too much scene setting but should be good in a bit bro

It did not seem odd to him that the subway held more compelling things than the famous city above. There was nothing important out there, in the broad afternoon, that he could not find in purer form in these tunnels beneath the street.

Perpetually looking for Political DeLillo.

Anyway so far this treats reading Capital like law & order treats playing video games.

late to the party but i'm finally hopping on the don delillo train 🚂

so sick. i like the way delillo sets the scene. total atmosphere book, random thoughts and phrases from whatever character that lets you see into their frame of mind / worldview. James ellroy totally got inspo from this book.

Gifted journal. A challenge tucked inside: read a book from the year you were born. 1988. Don DeLillo’s Libra. An opportunity to read this oft talked about author. An author whose name I’d hear pass the lips, more often than not, of the left-winged, conspiratorial kind.

When I read White Noise, I thought DeLillo wrote dialogue in an unnatural way to fit the absurdity of that novel. Now though, it seems like that's just how he writes dialogue. Even in a story steeped in so much history and grounded in real world events, his characters speak like a clunky modernist internal dialogue. I'm not really sure how I feel about it yet. It works sometimes and other times, I'm not so sure.