Will We Get to See The Babushka Lady?

I'm getting kind of tired of how this is just a bunch of men in dark rooms. And then the women are pretty lame mostly, having seemingly little to do with the bigger picture and mostly just existing as accessories to their men who are the ones who actually do important things. Sure you could argue that women just had nothing to do with the JFK assassination but I just don't think that's true! First of all, DeLillo leaves out the woman Oswald was seen with in Mexico. That whole affair leaves serious room for conspiracy. And what about the BABUSHKA LADY? The Babushka Lady is fascinating because she had filmed the whole assassination from a great angle and then disappeared afterward even though the FBI thought her footage would have been really valuable to their investigation. She was conspicuous because of the headscarf she wore about her hair that was similar to the ones worn by elderly Russian women, hence the nickname, "the Babushka Lady."

It gets weirder.

In 1970, a woman named Beverly Oliver comes forward claiming to be the Babushka Lady. She says that she thought she had given the footage to the FBI. Who were the two men that contacted her at work and told her they wanted to develop her film and would return it within ten days? And they never did return the film to her, either.

But then none of this adds up either because Beverly Oliver would have only been 17 at the time of the assassination which does not match up with the reports of her being a stout, older woman. Also Oliver claimed to have used a camera which did not even exist at that time period.

Anyway, I definitely think DeLillo could have included more women in the conspiracy, and the Babushka Lady is just one great suggestion I have. And the mysterious woman Oswald was seen with in Mexico is another.

Pieces of the Puzzle

While reading Libra, I've begun to wonder about the details of my life that would be scrutinized if I were suddenly in Oswald's place. A million pieces of my existence holding very little significance would suddenly be considered "pieces of the puzzle," and my quirks and mannerisms would be analyzed over and over in an attempt to create a coherent narrative of my life up until that specific event that brought me into the public's attention. But the reality is, we don't necessarily live our lives with a particular fate in mind, every movement taking us one step closer to our defining moment. 

Nicholas Branch's notes on me might hone in on a number of "abnormalities" in my life, aiming to sketch the bigger picture. I spent three years living in the Middle East after 9/11, which is somewhat similar to how Oswald defected to Russia during the Cold War. It would be easy to shape this into something that might have developed in me "anti-American" perspective, or a multitude of other conspiracies which I couldn't possibly imagine. But Branch was even going through Oswald's floor plans, home movies, dreams, and photos, to name a few. How easy it would be to selectively arrange a few dreams and quotes and photos to create a person with whatever slant you have in mind. Everything DeLillo has said so far seems legit enough, but I have to remind myself how complicated every person's life is and that it can't be simply shaped into a specific character. Win Everett knows this and Nicholas Branch knows this, and so it's DeLillo himself who seems to plant the idea in our heads, confusing us all the more with his conspiracy theories.

A Little Oswald in Everyone

DeLillo tackles the project of humanizing Harvey Lee Oswald in a number of subtle ways that push his readers to second-guess their original presumptions, but something I've noticed to be particularly effective is the parallels he repeatedly draws between Oswald and the other characters in the book. These other characters we find it easier to like, and so by juxtaposing similar personality traits, we're startled into see a little bit of Oswald in all of us.

The first character I really noticed this with was Win Everett. He has this fervor, this need to make a difference in the world and be somebody despite the world betraying him. All of these characteristics could just as well be describing Oswald. "There was a burning faith in this man, a sense of cause," DeLillo writes in describing Everett. And yet with Everett, we're not as put off by this desire to be somebody. It seems right. Doesn't everyone want to know that their life means something?

There are also parallels with Castro. Even if not everyone wants to identify with Castro, it's clear that he's more appealing than Oswald. He's a leader, a great public speaker, and someone who can rile people up for his cause, all traits that are the exact opposite of Oswald. And yet DeLillo drops that Castro was constantly rewriting history even as he was living it. A kind of self-narration almost. This is something we see all the time with Oswald, whether it's the Historic Diary where he consciously self-edits or him losing his virginity and recounting the events in his head while he lives them.

There's even a connection between Nicholas Branch and Oswald. Branch realizes that he has become one of the "men in small rooms," studying insignificant details in order to come up with unlikely conspiracies. It's just like Oswald who took note of unimportant details such as the floor plan of the radio factory he worked in while in Russia, as if this would one day be of some grand importance.

All of these men share an exaggerated estimate of their own importance, revealing how this one little detail about Oswald that seems so bizarre is really rather commonplace. Walking the long walk home a couple days ago, I found myself narrating my life in a way that made me think of DeLillo's Oswald character. There was nothing particularly special about walking through Urbana and yet I found myself slipping into DeLillo's voice, slipping outside my body and visualizing myself from an aerial view. Of course this was partly intentional, a sort of experiment, but it also wasn't hard to do. The experience made DeLillo's Oswald character just a little bit more relatable, at least in that particular aspect.

Rohinton Mistry's Book A Fine Balance and 12 Years a Slave and How They Make Me Think Differently About Kindred

I just watched 12 Years a Slave and it really changed my perspective on Kindred. In many ways, Butler glosses over the most horrifying aspects of slavery by creating this complicated relationship between the main character and the slave master. In order for slavery to work, slaves had to be very dehumanized, but Butler mainly focusses on the relationship between Dana and Rufus in which Rufus cares about her underneath all of his selfishness and cruelty. The other relationship that Butler focusses on a lot is the one between Rufus and Alice, in which Rufus also deeply cares about her even if he is really terrible to her.  Most slave masters had to have thought of their slaves as animals to continue living the way they did, and Kindred really doesn't capture this. In 12 Years a Slave, the relationship between Edwin Epps, the slavemaster, and Pattsie, a slave girl, is interesting to contrast to the relationship between Rufus and Alice. Whereas Alice is at least awknowledged as a human and often says her opinions to Rufus's face, Pattsie never seems to be allowed to speak with Epps and he is so possessive of her that when she goes to another plantation to get some soap (because his wife has been depriving her of basic goods), he whips her senseless. 

I also just finished reading A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry which is a really long and depressing and eloquent and probably one of the best books I've ever read. It follows the lives of four different people and it's mostly set in the Emergency in India in the 70's when the prime minister of India declared a state of emergency after it was discovered that she'd rigged the elections. This was a a way for her to buy time so she could stay in office. What happened as a result was a series of projects such as clearing out the slums which meant throwing very poor people out of their homes and reclaiming the property for the government, and then "city beautification" which meant essentially kidnapping beggars off the street (many of them freshly beggared after being kicked out of the slums) and "employing" (really enslaving) them to do hard labor in exchange for minimal food and very poor living conditions (with many people forced to live in one small badly built tin house without running water or electricity). I learned so much history from reading this book, and it was especially powerful growing to love these characters that were undergoing such horrors. The previous example of people being forced to do slave labor is an example of very recent slavery, and there was nothing personal about it unlike the way Kindred depicts Dana's relationship with Rufus. These people were considered next to animals because of their low caste and were treated as such which allowed the higher powers to guiltlessly subject them to horrible conditions.  In many ways, I feel like Kindred glosses over the harsher aspects of slavery by creating these very complicated relationships with Rufus that many slaves probably did not experience. Slaves usually have to give up so much human dignity, and by making Rufus care about Dana and Alice, Butler erases the most horrifying aspect of slavery.

There must have been some instances of slave masters having very complicated personal relationships with their slaves, but they were probably exceptions, and I worry that focussing too much on these kinds of stories like Kindred does, glosses over the more realistic kinds of slavery that are extremely brutalizing and require a complete denial of the humanity of the slaves in order for people to accept that these people can be treated so horribly.

Rereading Octavia E. Butler's Kindred

OK, so I accidentally already read Kindred over Christmas Break or Thanksgiving Break or last summer or I don't remember when, and I realize that's a terrible thing to do because now I know how the whole book ends and I'll probably be tempted to blurt out spoilers during class discussions, BUT whatever. I really enjoyed reading it the first time around and it was hard to put down, but now that I'm reading it for a second time, I'm less captivated. With Slaughterhouse-Five, it was the opposite. The first time around, I missed a lot, and the second time around, I discovered all these layers of themes and sub-themes and Vonnegut genius. But Kindred feels so plot-driven, it's as if once the plot is revealed, there's not much left to discover upon rereading it. I'm trying not to be a pessimist about this, because I really do think it's a good book, so I'll just focus on the major part of the book that I think is pretty neat: Rufus's character development. But no spoilers!! So, I'll just start with what we have to work with in the first few chapters.

Prologue

Although we don't get much on Rufus's personality, the really important detail is how affectionately he interacts with his mother upon being rescued by Dana when he's drowning. He clearly really loves her and depends on her, and we can see why when our first glimpse of his dad is him pointing a huge rifle at Dana.

Chapter Two

Rufus is probably about eight or nine, and he's described as "curious and unafraid." He's easy to talk to and interacts agreeably enough with Dana. He uses the n-word but doesn't seem to mean any harm by it, simply repeating what he's heard his parents say. He tries to set the house on fire because his father beat him horribly for taking a dollar (which is also the kind of baseless punishment that slave masters were accustomed to inflicting upon their slaves).  He's good friends with Alice, a black girl born free, and he shows empathy towards Dana, concerned in particular that she'll get in trouble with his father if she doesn't follow the rules. Dana describes him as likable even if "his environment had left unlikable marks on him."And he helps her to safety, directing her towards Alice's house.

So, he seems agreeable enough, but does someone like Rufus who is raised to be slave owner really have a chance at growing up to be a decent person? Dana's influence seems like it could make a big difference, but will it be enough to dissuade him from going along with societal norms that tell him he is entitled to own other human beings and do what he wants with them like his father does?

Is Tralfamadore a metaphor for Billy Pilgrim's culture shock?

The first time I read Slaughterhouse-Five, I was convinced that the Tralfamadorians were some sort of metaphor for Billy Pilgrim coming into contact with a more European perspective. The reason I thought this is because the first time he sees the Tralfamadorians, it's when he's in Europe, and their ideas revolve around the interlocking themes of collectivism and predestination that are more European. For example, the Tralfamadores dismiss Pilgrim's individualism early on when he asks "Why me?" Why anyone?And their ideas about no one having free will stray from the American dream of individuals having the free will to create something of themselves. In contrast, a more European perspective might take on the collectivist attitude of seeking to uplift the masses rather than individuals, as has been accomplished with many of the social safety nets put in place in European countries. I thought Vonnegut was highlighting the culture shock of being in Europe for the first time by making aliens of the Europeans. (That could also be a commentary on how we distance ourselves from our enemies for the purposes of war, making them so foreign, so inhuman, and so easy to kill, as if to be almost alien.)

But reading this book for the second time around, I don't really think that. I feel like Vonnegut would have dropped more hints for the reader. At best, the Tralfamadorians are intended to slightly parallel the culture shock he is experiencing and has experienced (and always will experience), but I'm not sure Pilgrim really experiences much of the Germans and other Europeans he comes into contact with. There are the doctors who are appalled by the Americans' treatment of the horses after the bombing of Dresden, and there's the merciful German "mop-up" crew, but when would Pilgrim have had the chance to learn about them so intimately without having engaged in real conversations with them? On the other hand, being a prisoner of war of the Germans must have been very intimate in its own way.

IN CONCLUSION, I don't really have a conclusion. I'm still kind of captivated by the idea the the Tralfamadores might be metaphor for Pilgrim's culture shock because it presents a side of war that is often ignored. During wars, people are being thrust into completely different countries with different languages and customs, and this aspect of war is almost completely ignored. It would be so Vonnegut to focus on this neglected aspect of war, and the way it draws out a certain level of cultural awareness. Which is very ironic considering the idea of war is to obliterate the opposing culture.

Free Will And If You Have Any You Probably Won't Choose to Read Such a Long Post Or Maybe The Moment Is Just Structured This Way

This is my second time reading Slaughterhouse-Five and what has captivated me the most both times is Vonnegut's insights on social class, pointing out the injustices of the maldistribution of wealth in America. The overarching theme of no one really having free will undermines the argument that people who are rich deserve to rich, because they haven't really *earned* anything: everything gained is a multitude of structured moments. This also implies that people who are low income do not deserve to be poor. They are merely victims of fate.

An interesting passage where we see a discussion of America's maldistribution of wealth is an excerpt from the works of Howard W. Campbell Jr. Side note: Howard W. Campbell Jr. is trans-fictional because he was the protagonist of one of Vonnegut's other books, Mother Night.

America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, "It ain't no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be." It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: "If you're so smart, why ain't you rich?" There will also be an American flag no larger than a child's hand-- glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register. (Vonnegut 164)

Campbell Jr. then goes on to say "This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class, since, say, Napoleonic times." This is one of my favorite parts of Slaughterhouse-Five because of how spot-on this American-turned-Nazi's insights are on America's perceptions of the poor. First of all, Vonnegut's portrayal of an enemy being very logical supports his aims to make an anti-war book because a traditional story about war would make the enemy into an evil cartoonish character that sees no reason whatsoever. But what I really like about it is how well it fits in with Vonnegut's theme of people not really having free will. I take his meaning more as an acknowledgment of how the individual cannot be blamed or given credit for every moment of their life, and that we take for granted all the things that happen outside of our power. He even specifically addresses the problem with Americans believing in free will too fully, when Campbell Jr. writes, "Their (Americans') most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and therefore, those who have no money blame and blame themselves." He's right: money is very hard to come by, especially if you're born into dire poverty or your mentally disabled or a number of other things that are left entirely up to chance.

This is where the true insight lies in Vonnegut's discussion of free will. Even things that we do that clearly seem to be acts of free will can be traced back to things out of our control. For example, say you're proud that were accepted to Harvard and this clearly seems the result of Your Hard Work and Dedication, but would you have been accepted to Harvard if your parents hadn't been born to wealthy parents who gave you the best education, cultural capital, and paid for your mission trip to Senegal which inspired you to write that heart-melting college essay? And being born to those parents has nothing to do with free will. And say instead that your parents were dirt poor but you were just ridiculously smart, and sought out the works of Foucault and Nussbaum in your free time to feed your insatiable intellect. But you could just have easily not been born a genius, so where's the free will in that?

Of course there's a lot about the world that is obviously the result of free will. But I don't think that's Vonnegut's point. In juxtaposition with Campbell Jr.'s monograph, he presents the case (or maybe just leaves it up for grabs) that Americans give too much credit to free will and the idea that everything we do is a result of free will. Because really so much of our lives is based on the bodies and minds we're born with. It may seem like a depressing thought, but it actually could offer insight to a lot of Americans with so little empathy for the poor. I was just watching an interview with 'Fox Business' Commentator, Todd Wilemon, and he responded to comments about Tennessee's "third world healthcare" by saying, "IF YOU'RE POOR, STOP BEING POOR." I think this perfectly illustrates how Americans act like everyone has the free will to do anything. And believing this doesn't make it true. In fact it takes away a lot of free will from people who might have the free will to make more decisions for themselves if offered a little help instead of immediately being expected to miraculously exert their "free will" and as Wilemon proposed, "stop being poor." Maybe the American vision of free will is just too individualistic and doesn't sufficiently acknowledge the power of an entire system exerting its free will to make important changes. Now I've gone off on a tangent, and maybe I've strayed too far from Vonnegut, but at least he was my muse.