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.
THIS IS AWESOME. Why didn't Delillo include this amazing tidbit?!?!?!?!? It would make sense if he had because he's obviously done a ton of research on the subject of the assassination. It only took you a couple google searches to find babushka, so why couldn't he find it? grrrr it would have at made his book a little more interesting. AAAH lets go write our own jfk novel
ReplyDeleteI agree that the Babushka lady is interesting, and that men and women definitely receive uneven treatment in Libra, but to some extent I think that's the point. At least in my mind, a lot of what DeLillo is actually talking about in the novel is the idea of masculine obsession, with conspiracy theories being only one extension of it. All of the male characters in the novel have some kind of overriding theory that defines all of their actions, and which they think is the most important thing in the world, and the women are mostly there to bring them down to earth and make the reader realize the mistakes the men are making. You can argue about whether or not writing a book with such explicit gender differences is fair, or whether the obsession DeLillo is writing about is really just a masculine trait, but I think there's at least some reason why he chose to do it this way.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if the Mexico stuff was available to DeLillo at the time he was writing. For a range of reasons (many having to do with the FBI and CIA's inability or unwillingness to fully share what they knew about Oswald in the weeks before the assassination, esp. the Mexico City trip), that was the least-known aspect of his story at the time the book was being put together. Much more has recently come to light about Oswald's socializing in Mexico City, and his involvement with a woman named Sylvia Duran (who is still alive), who had some connections to the Cuban embassy.
ReplyDeleteI've never even heard of the Babushka lady--this must be from the outer reaches of the conspiracy stories. It's somehow fitting for this whole affair that, even though, incredibly, footage of the actual shooting does exist, there's ALSO a mythic OTHER footage that would be even more revealing/incriminating . . . only no one knows what happened to it. (This is how people used to feel about the Zapruder footage--it would solve all mysteries.) The Babushka lady must have been known to DeLillo, but what could he do with her that would advance his plot in any way? Except maybe to raise questions about what happened to her footage, via Branch. Presumably he'd have access to the inside dope on this, via his unfettered access to CIA archives. (But what about the stuff the CIA itself destroys or alters? Even top-secret classified evidence is subject to skepticism.)