Red Terror
06-22-2016, 03:53 PM
I was looking through Harold Bloom's book The Western Canon and was pleasantly surprised that he included a novel of the Kennedy assassination --- Don DeLillo's Libra --- in his list of classics. Have any of you read it? I enjoyed it very much. Don DeLillo is a very dangerous writer to the establishment. I guess that is why conservative columnist George Will called Libra "literary vandalism and bad citizenship." George Will went on to conclude his review to say that DeLillo was "a good writer and a bad influence."
In this powerful, eerily convincing fictional speculation on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Don DeLillo chronicles Lee Harvey Oswald's odyssey from troubled teenager to a man of precarious stability who imagines himself an agent of history. When "history" presents itself in the form of two disgruntled CIA operatives who decide that an unsuccessful attempt on the life of the president will galvanize the nation against communism, the scales are irrevocably tipped.
Excerpts from Libra:
"When is your birthday?" [Clay] Shaw said first thing.
"October eighteen," Lee [Oswald] said.
"Libra. A Libran."
"The Scales," [Dave] Ferrie said.
"The Balance," Shaw said.
It seemed to tell them everything they had to know. Clay Shaw wore well-made casual clothes and had the easy manner of someone clearly educated to all the right things. When he smiled, a vein seemed to flash from the corner of his right eye to his hairline.
He [Shaw] said, "We have the positive Libran who has achieved self-mastery. He is well balanced, levelheaded, a sensible fellow respected by all. We have the negative Libran who is, let’s say, somewhat unsteady and impulsive. Easily, easily, easily influenced. Poised to make the dangerous leap. Either way, balance is the key."
__________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
Ferrie: "There’s something I know about you, Leon, that I find fascinating. It’s something almost no one else knows. Very few people know. You’re the night-rider who took a shot at General Ted Walker two and a half months ago in Dallas."
Lee’s mind went blank.
"I can’t tell you how I know," Ferrie said. "But there are men who are interested in you. At first I only played a hunch. I thought Leon and I, we have a psychic bond. I took your application to [Guy] Banister. I had an argument all set. I would say to Guy, ‘Here is a man who wants to spy on our operations. He wants to use us but we will end up using him. Not through manipulation or political conversion. He believes in his heart that he’s a dedicated leftist. But he is also a Libran. He is capable of seeing the other side. He is a man who harbors contradictions.’ I was ready to say to Guy, ‘Here’s a Marine recruit who reads Karl Marx.’ I was ready to say, ‘This boy is sitting on the scales, ready to be tilted either way.'’’
______________________________ ______________________________ ________________________________
Ferrie talked Lee into having a meal together. Raymo would drive him to Houston tomorrow if that’s what he wanted. Save the bus fare. Enjoy the comfort of the family car. They ate scrambled eggs in Ferrie’s apartment. There were explosives stored under the kitchen table. Ferrie kept his jacket on, wagged the fork as he spoke.
"I’ve seen the Fair Play [for Cuba Committee] material you keep at 544 [Camp Street]," he said. "I’ve noticed something you haven’t noticed. Librans never notice references to themselves. The official symbol of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee is a man’s hand holding aloft a pair of scales. Two
weighing pans hanging from a rigid beam. Everywhere you go. It’s all around you. Which way will Leon [Oswald] tilt?"
"I don’t know what they want me to do."
"Of course you know."
"Tell me where it happens."
"Miami."
"That means nothing to me."
"You’ve known for weeks."
"What happens in Miami?"
Ferrie took a while to finish chewing his food.
"Think of two parallel lines," he said. "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 causality, cuts across time. 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."
http://cache4.asset-cache.net/gc/50398675-membership-card-to-the-fair-play-for-cuba-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=OCUJ5gVf7YdJQI2Xhkc2QJX4pD98Ax2jecSqvZjSrhlkLY55 co1L7vR0ZOjQiYAh695JXIxr%2BSIOuNdSIHCJIPeC8oBie5Co 259wM9ycK08%3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDbodTKnTjc
In this powerful, eerily convincing fictional speculation on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Don DeLillo chronicles Lee Harvey Oswald's odyssey from troubled teenager to a man of precarious stability who imagines himself an agent of history. When "history" presents itself in the form of two disgruntled CIA operatives who decide that an unsuccessful attempt on the life of the president will galvanize the nation against communism, the scales are irrevocably tipped.
Excerpts from Libra:
"When is your birthday?" [Clay] Shaw said first thing.
"October eighteen," Lee [Oswald] said.
"Libra. A Libran."
"The Scales," [Dave] Ferrie said.
"The Balance," Shaw said.
It seemed to tell them everything they had to know. Clay Shaw wore well-made casual clothes and had the easy manner of someone clearly educated to all the right things. When he smiled, a vein seemed to flash from the corner of his right eye to his hairline.
He [Shaw] said, "We have the positive Libran who has achieved self-mastery. He is well balanced, levelheaded, a sensible fellow respected by all. We have the negative Libran who is, let’s say, somewhat unsteady and impulsive. Easily, easily, easily influenced. Poised to make the dangerous leap. Either way, balance is the key."
__________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
Ferrie: "There’s something I know about you, Leon, that I find fascinating. It’s something almost no one else knows. Very few people know. You’re the night-rider who took a shot at General Ted Walker two and a half months ago in Dallas."
Lee’s mind went blank.
"I can’t tell you how I know," Ferrie said. "But there are men who are interested in you. At first I only played a hunch. I thought Leon and I, we have a psychic bond. I took your application to [Guy] Banister. I had an argument all set. I would say to Guy, ‘Here is a man who wants to spy on our operations. He wants to use us but we will end up using him. Not through manipulation or political conversion. He believes in his heart that he’s a dedicated leftist. But he is also a Libran. He is capable of seeing the other side. He is a man who harbors contradictions.’ I was ready to say to Guy, ‘Here’s a Marine recruit who reads Karl Marx.’ I was ready to say, ‘This boy is sitting on the scales, ready to be tilted either way.'’’
______________________________ ______________________________ ________________________________
Ferrie talked Lee into having a meal together. Raymo would drive him to Houston tomorrow if that’s what he wanted. Save the bus fare. Enjoy the comfort of the family car. They ate scrambled eggs in Ferrie’s apartment. There were explosives stored under the kitchen table. Ferrie kept his jacket on, wagged the fork as he spoke.
"I’ve seen the Fair Play [for Cuba Committee] material you keep at 544 [Camp Street]," he said. "I’ve noticed something you haven’t noticed. Librans never notice references to themselves. The official symbol of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee is a man’s hand holding aloft a pair of scales. Two
weighing pans hanging from a rigid beam. Everywhere you go. It’s all around you. Which way will Leon [Oswald] tilt?"
"I don’t know what they want me to do."
"Of course you know."
"Tell me where it happens."
"Miami."
"That means nothing to me."
"You’ve known for weeks."
"What happens in Miami?"
Ferrie took a while to finish chewing his food.
"Think of two parallel lines," he said. "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 causality, cuts across time. 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."
http://cache4.asset-cache.net/gc/50398675-membership-card-to-the-fair-play-for-cuba-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=OCUJ5gVf7YdJQI2Xhkc2QJX4pD98Ax2jecSqvZjSrhlkLY55 co1L7vR0ZOjQiYAh695JXIxr%2BSIOuNdSIHCJIPeC8oBie5Co 259wM9ycK08%3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDbodTKnTjc