Libra- the Scales

After reading through the ending of Libra, I'm not sure how I feel about the book as a whole. I definitely didn't expect to ever feel sympathy for someone like Lee Harvey Oswald before I picked up this book, but then again I didn't expect to be immersing myself into one of the most popularized (supposed) conspiracy's ever when I first signed up for this class. 

One thing that we touched on in class but didn't go into depth on was the title and the small section of the book that it refers to. I can think of many different titles that would fit very well to this novel, but Delillo specifically chose "Libra." For a while I was confused as to why Delillo would pick such a seemingly unrelated title and then we came to the section "In New Orleans" where David Ferrie is talking to Lee about being a "Libran." 

 

"Libra. A Libran"

"The Scales," Ferrie said.

"The Balance," Shaw said. 

It seemed to tell them everything they had to know.

(...)

He said, "We have the positive Libran, who has achieved self mastery. He is well balanced, levelheaded and a sensible fellow respected by all. We have the negative Libran, who is, let's say, somewhat unsteady and impulsive. Easily, easily influenced. Poised to make the dangerous leap. Either way balance is key."

At first, this seems like it's just David Ferrie trying to convince Lee to take a "dangerous leap," to go along with the plans of the plot. But if you step back a bit, this can be seen as a metaphor that fits the entire narrative. The Scales. The Balance.

Lee is a Libran. He has the positive Libran who just wants to be a part of history and be relevant. He is a harmless communist who couldn't even shoot himself correctly. He has the negative Libran who had a childhood in a broken home and is bitter at the West and at capitalism. As readers we can sympathize with Positive Libran Lee while still hating the Negative Libran.

Jack Ruby is a Libran. Positive Jack just wants to make an honest living working his club. He is a patriot and cares for his country and for standing up for what is right. Negative Jack takes this to extremes, he throws guys down stairs and beats them in the street. 

Even Kennedy can be seen as a Libran. Positive Kennedy has the best interests of the American people front and foremost in his mind. Negative Kennedy abandoned the Cuban expatriates to die on the shores of Cuba in the Bay of Pigs debacle.

In the end everything seems to be a balance. Events can tip the scales in either direction, but it's never truly clear what motivates the decisions and acts of the Librans in the novel.

Characterizations in Libra

One of the most compelling things about Libra thus far for me has been the rich characterizations of the different people in the novel. It's clear to me that DeLillo really did his research on these people and I find myself having a hard time picking out the fictional characters from the people who were actually involved in the events surrounding the assassination of JFK.

The prime example of these characterizations is the myriad of individuals that make up the CIA team who are plotting to have a shooter take a shot at the president (but miss) and the people that they are working with to further this plot. Win Everett and Lawrence Parmenter are the chief conspirators of this plot and they each have their own finely detailed backstories and motives. Everett is a CIA agent who, after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, was "exiled" to teach at Texas Women's University. He is a "true believer" and really hates Fidel Castro and his Communist revolutionaries. Parmenter is also an ex-CIA agent and Bay of Pigs veteran who shares some of Everett's feelings on the Cubans. But these characters are the fictional ones!

The real characters are even more outlandish and difficult to believe. For example David Ferrie is a crazy maximally skilled mercenary airplane pilot (he is described as being able to "fly the plane backwards"). Not only that he was arrested for "crimes against nature" (referring to his homosexuality) but he is also apparently a little bit of a pedophile. To top it all off he has a strange condition that prevents him from growing hair on his body and as a result he wears a bad toupee and pasted on eyebrows.

Besides just the the depth of their characterization and the amount of detail provided about these people, DeLillo's focus on these other players in the assassination really helped me put aside my existent knowledge of the events that occurred and become absorbed in the plot of the novel. Because of this focus on other characters being paralleled with a depiction of Lee Harvey Oswald in his youth, I almost missed the scene where he was mentioned as a promising prospect for the shooter. Parmenter is having a conversation with George de Mohrenschildt (another unbelievable character who actually existed and played a role in the actual events of JFK's assassination) and George offhandedly mentions a young man by the name of Lee that could work for the plot. Juxtaposed with the "In [location]..." chapters I knew it referred to the Lee we were seeing as a child. But because of the spotlight being turned away from the Lee Harvey Oswald that I recognize as "the man who shot JFK" I almost didn't make the connection that this was the same man.

I came into this book with a bit of apprehension about reading a story that I thought I already knew a bit about. But DeLillo's detailed and in depth characterizations and focus on seemingly everyone but the adult Lee Harvey Oswald, allowed me to get past what I knew and become absorbed in the storyline that he presents. I'm excited to see what happens next.

Time Travel in Kindred

Reading Kindred right after Slaughterhouse Five creates easy comparisons between the two forms of time travel that we see in these novels. SF takes us through Billy Pilgrim's journey as he is "unstuck in time" and showcases a very different form of time travel in "schizophrenic" episodes that throw Billy to different scenes in his life, randomly and without warning. Time travel in Kindred  has a more "conventional" depiction and shows us Dana, who is thrown back in time when her ancestor is in danger of dying and returns when her own life is threatened. I'm not yet sure which style I prefer, both are very interesting and make for different plot dynamic in the novels. 

One thing that is a really apparent to me as I continue to make my way through Kindred is that Dana doesn't seem to fully comprehend the fact that time passes much, much faster in Antebellum South while she is in the present. For example, the initial period of Dana being gone for a few minutes in the present, lasted weeks in the past. This large stretch of time that passes in the past makes for a disparity in what Dana perceives about the characters of the past and what has actually happened to them. 

This is especially true of Rufus, Dana's ancestor. When Dana first travels back in time to save Rufus, he is a small child and Dana tries to create some good influences so that he has the chance to grow up a little different from the stereotypical slave owner people around him. When she returns, after about a week in the present, 10 years have passed in the past and Rufus is a very different person then. Dana doesn't quite realize this and is a bit put off as to why she seemed to have no effect on him despite the best of her efforts. Then after she leaves Kevin behind and returns (3 days later in the present) 5 more years have passed in the past. This naïveté and lack of comprehension of the true passage of time in the past really us represented by the scene where Rufus pulls a gun on her to prevent her from leaving. 

All of this influence on Rufus that has happened in the time that Dana is gone makes me wonder what has happened to Kevin in the 5 years that she left him in the past and what influences have changed his character.

Billy's Tralfamadorian Perspective

When I first encountered Billy Pilgrim and his strange life of jumping between past experiences, I was a little confused and it took me a bit to get oriented with the way that Billy lives his life. Once I had a better grasp for Billy's "schizophrenic" jumps throughout history, I noticed that, although Billy experiences the events the same way every time, the narration that occurs sort of "in his mind" is very passive about everything nearly to the point of being apathetic.

I was surprised at first that Billy could experience such horrors as the firebombing of Dresden, the prisoner of war marches, and even simply living, or perhaps more aptly put, surviving, in the German prisoner of war camps, with so little emotion attached. He must have felt something right? But today's discussion about the Tralfamadorian perspective on life, made me think that perhaps he had adopted some of their philosophy.

The Tralfamadorians seem to know possess the ability to see the passage of time from an outside perspective, as they are "4th-dimensional." As a result they know how the Universe ends (by their own hand) but do nothing to deter this event from happening. As one of the aliens tells Billy (referring to their own pilot who ignites the Universe), "He has always pressed [the button], and he always will. We always let him and we always will let him. The moment is structured that way." Knowing how it all ends, the aliens have adopted a very peaceful, passive mindset. Whatever happens, happens. No matter what you do, it will always happen.

If Billy has indeed adopted this mindset, this would explain his perceived "lack of emotion" is really just Billy's passivity to all of the events in his life, since he already knows how it all ends. I believe that Billy calls attention to this fact when he uses the phrase "So it goes," which often follows an event in which someone dies, or some tragedy occurs.

This whole new mindset that Vonnegut presents, begs the question of whether or not it can be applied to everyday human life. Obviously the average person hasn't become "unstuck in time" like Billy Pilgrim has, but is there a place for a more passive way of thinking about things. In Billy's case he seems to apply this especially to situations of suffering or hardship, and I wonder if there is an application for this in someone's everyday life. Now, I'm not saying that we should be reacting to wars, deaths, and tragedies with "so it goes," but perhaps a more relaxed mindset would foster new ideas and maybe even help create different ways of approaching issues. Or maybe I'm reading too much into the fictional alien race that lives on Tralfamadore.

Jes Grew's Resurgence and "Cyclic" Nature of History

After I read the last few chapters of Mumbo Jumbo, everything seemed to be coming to a nice simple conclusion, all of the ends of the story were wrapping up in a (admittedly long-winded) convenient ending. But the epilogue kinda threw me for a loop, with Jes Grew dying out and then the jump to the future with PaPa LaBas' speech at the university (and the Jes Grew holiday).

I went back and re-read the epilogue and the ending and after a bit of thought, it makes a little more sense to me now. Jonah mentioned in his latest blog post some stuff about "cyclic" history and I think that's what really made it click for me. The fact that Jes Grew comes and goes in waves can be seen as a metaphor for a number of different things throughout history. Think of the quote "those who do not learn from history, are doomed to repeat it." While this doesn't deal with social trends such as Jes Grew, it talks about how things seem to repeat themselves throughout history.

Another aspect of this is the different manifestations of Jes Grew. We are told in LaBas' ending narration that when Hinkle Von Vampton first brought the text to America, Jew Grew appeared in the manifestation of Ragtime music and culture. Then the main setting of the story has Jes Grew appear during the birth of Jazz and the era of the Blues. 

In class today we talked about modern aspects of Jes Grew, and a big one that came up was Rap and Hip Hop culture. It seemed to definitely follow the pattern of an "underground" origin story in the "low brow" African American neighborhoods, before breaking into the mainstream music scene. One thing that also came up in this discussion was whether or not rap is "dead" (Dr. Dre is in his 60's right now!).  Although we saw the beginning of what seemed to be a "takeover" of rap by white rappers with groups like the Beastie Boys and Vanilla Ice, in the present day rap is still almost exclusively dominated by African American artists and groups.

This cyclic "resurgence" of Jes Grew throughout history helped me have a framework for the history that Ishmael Reed is presenting in Mumbo Jumbo. In addition to Jes Grew, the cyclic view of history seems to be (as Jonah pointed) more straightforward and seems to explain most things. 

The things we can never know

 In our discussion of history being told as a fictional narrative, one of the main points that came up (or at least one of the points that I picked up on) was that since we can never know whether or not a supposedly fictional event happened, technically we can't differentiate between some of the fiction that Doctorow writes and the actual events that took place at that time.

One big example of this is the encounter between Houdini and Harry Thaw. In the story, Houdini is escaping from a cell on the same block that Harry Thaw is being kept in the Tombs. He is cuffed naked in the cell and must break free and put on his clothes as part of his act. As he completes this he sees Thaw across the gantry watching intently. When he begins putting his clothes on, Thaw begins taking his own clothes off until finally he is naked and Houdini is fully dressed. At this point, "The prisoner came up to the front of his cell and raised his arms in a shockingly obscene manner he thrust his hips forward and flapped his penis between the bars...Houdini was to tell no one of this strange confrontation" (34). This example depicts an event that while very strange, cannot completely be proven to be untrue. Because Doctorow says that Houdini never told anyone about this, there is a chance that this is all completely true and Houdini just never told anyone. This is an example of this blurred line between fiction and history that adds to the question of whether or not history is all just a fictional narrative. 

The argument for history being fiction is largely dependent on the fact that most of our history comes in the forms of anecdotes or personal accounts that have been verified by any number of means. This "human aspect" of our history is a crucial piece in this puzzle because there is a chance (although statistically minuscule) that every personal account we have is wrong and doesn't tell us what actually happened. While this is very, very unlikely, a result of this is that much of our history is clouded by perspectives, which only give one side of the event. 

As a result of this potentially unstable "human element" in history we tend to gravitate towards hard facts and "proof" of events when trying to verify things in history. Facts such as recorded statistics or hard evidence like video recordings from surveillance cameras. But even these things can be susceptible to perspective or not telling the whole story. One example that we discussed briefly in class was the assassination of John F. Kennedy. This is a very controversial example because although we had seemed to have "hard evidence" supporting the presumption that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assailant, video footage has emerged that seems to show a second shooter. 

These examples seem to serve only to complicate the question, as there is not one definitive answer. Personally, I was skeptical towards history being a fictional narrative, but after this discussion I have become more open to the idea and I now agree that the line between is definitely more blurred than I had previously thought. What do you guys think?

The Paradox of Coalhouse Walker Jr.

In class a few days ago we were discussing the character of Coalhouse Walker Jr. and is effect on the family of main characters that we are following in Ragtime.

In our discussion we talked about how the way Coalhouse carries himself and acts and the way that the members of the family view this. From an outside perspective he seems to act as a perfectly respectable gentleman: he speaks polite, polished English and is very kind and courteous to everyone in the family. But from the families' perspective he is a bit of a paradox: A black man that carries himself the same way a white gentleman would.

Mother is a bit put off at first and is wary and confused about him but to her credit she soon comes around and treats him with the same respect he treats her with. Father is more annoyed, caught up in his own ignorance he has never experience this phenomenon of a black man that has some sense of esteem and doesn't ingratiate himself before white people. Mother's Younger Brother is a bit surprised that he is in their house, but he has met people like Coalhouse before in his "nightlife in New York." 

In addition to the paradox in the eyes of the characters, the Coalhouse that we see in the most recent chapters is a bit of a paradox to me, looking on as a modern reader in a modern context. When he is faced with the racist firefighters he begins by seeking the respectable approach with the policemen but then becomes frustrated when that doesn't work. But the paradox for me is when he suddenly turns to extreme violence as his next plan. He blows up the firehouse and threatens to do the same to other ones if his demands aren't met. In my eyes he flips from being a gentleman to embodying the modern day racial stereotype of the "black thug" who responds violently. 

To be fair he is faced with extreme racism and the terrible death of his wife and has run up against a wall when seeking conventional justice methods. However it surprised me that he reacted so violently and so suddenly. When before he was presented as a hyper rationale respectable character. 

I suppose it was his grief and anger that caused him to lash out in this way, what do you guy think?