The Theatricality of Libra: Violence vs Spectacle
When I started to read Libra, one of the most prominent thoughts in my head was something along the lines of “this reminds me of a theater play.” Lee Harvey Oswald (and many of the characters) were depicted as very dramatic and intense characters who seemed to be acting and writing for a larger audience ( evidenced by fake historian Nicolas Branch). All the people in the book, Lee especially, seem to be garishly acting for a bigger cause; the scene where I was most reminded of this was when Win Everett was making materials for the murder, like a backstage techie, and how the trio of “planners” meticulously set everything up so everyone could be prepared to act– characters like Raymo and TJ Mackey are very two–dimensional and typical of like a mobster movie, creating a compelling and interesting backplot that could or could not be true, because DeLillo doesn’t exactly say. It reminds me of theater, where actors have to act more enthusiastically or emotionally in order to express emotion...