The dialogue in Libra is pretty distinctive. It is often short
snippets between two characters going back and forth for a while without a lot
of dialogue tags. The real meaning of what the characters are saying is hardly
ever on the surface.
Take Wayne and Raymo in the car on the way to Dallas as an
example:
“I’m still absorbing this thing,” Wayne said, looking across
at Raymo. “You read science fiction?”
“Fucking crazy, Wayne?”
“There’s a quality I used to feel before a night jump. Like
is this actually happening?”
“We’re talking this is real.”
“I know it’s real.”
“First they cancel Chicago right out. Then they do Miami
without the motorcade. They know it’s
real.”
Wayne kept studying Raymo, occasionally darting a look at
the road. The car was tight and quiet, beautifully behaved.
“Like we’re racing across the night,” he said,
mock-hysterical.
“They’re paying some nice money. Think of you’re doing a day’s
work.”
“Like we’re hand-picked men on the biggest mission of our
lives.” (380)
This conversation is mostly a front for the real
conversation implied by their words.
They don’t name this in “this thing,” “this actually
happening,” “this is real” or they in “They
know it’s real” or “They’re paying” or it in “it’s real.”
They don’t respond to things directly. Wayne asks Raymo a
yes or no question and he responds “Fucking crazy, Wayne?” I assume here he’s
answering an unspoken question (what do you think of science fiction?) with a
shortened version of “it’s fucking crazy” but at a surface level he isn’t
really responding. At the surface level “it’s real” doesn’t relate to Chicago
or Miami and “racing across the night” doesn’t relate to “nice money.” It’s all
about the angst they’re feeling before the assassination.
All conversations involve outside knowledge of the situation
and in a novel about a complex and secret plot, talking around things increases
the mystery. But it’s also somewhat obtuse. And it’s not just Raymo and Wayne
who do this in conversations, it’s everyone.
I find it pretty frustrating.
As do I. It really is frustrating when they skirt around the main topic like that, though it is fulfilling when I can actually understand a conversation in Libra (which is not often). This was one that I didn't understand, so thank you for laying it out for us!
ReplyDeleteThis kind of conversation sort of feels like a real one. I feel like if I were them, I'd probably not want to talk about what I was doing because that would sort of make it feel weird. Also, the whole idea of having Raymo answer a question Wayne isn't asking seems real and like something someone may actually say, which adds to the "credibility" of Libra.
ReplyDeleteI would agree, it is really frustrating. On the one hand, I can see how this could be a real conversation because the two are talking about killing someone. On the other hand, I could see where DeLillo really enjoys writing confusing situations for the reader. If I had heard that dialogue without the context of the JFK assassination, I would be confused, but DeLillo wrote this knowing that we would know about the assassination.
ReplyDeleteIt took me a while to enjoy DeLillo's dialogue, but it's kind of grown on me, and I love it now. He does do dialogue like this in all his novels, and I can definitely see how it's "annoying" when you're just trying to follow a plot and see who's saying what. But it is well suited to these contexts, where the conspirators are saying things without quite saying them, communicating indirectly, almost in code. It's a lot like how gangsters talk about organized crime activities on the telephone, worried it might be bugged: "Did you get word about that thing?" "Does our guy know about it?" etc.
ReplyDeleteAnd here, these guys are in the car on their way to do a very big thing, and there's almost a pre-game or pre-battle kind of nervousness in the air. Wayne kind of wants to reflect on the weirdness and surreality of the whole experience, while Raymo and Frank want to chat in Spanish about their own concerns.
(And in this exchange, I read Raymo's "Fucking crazy, Wayne?" with an implicit "What are you," right before the first word--like, What the hell are you talking about, science fiction? What does that have to do with anything?)
I definitely agree - the lack of dialogue tags in Libra was pretty confusing and frustrating. On the other hand I also totally agree with you that it's part of the whole mystery and secrecy thing which the book is all about. nice post!
ReplyDeleteI agree that it can be really hard to understand what's happening in the plot when a lot of the conversations are shortened or avoiding the topic they're actually discussing. I think that it also brings a realistic element to the conversation, though. It reminds me of the way that people who know each other really well might talk to each other, because they don't need to say some things out loud.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that some of the dialogues are hard to understand at first. I recall rereading Libra chapters multiple times and sometimes I still don't understand the dialogues that omit certain information. I like to pretend that when the CIA are taping this particular conversation, their recording devices are faulty, leaving the CIA transcript Branch is analyzing incomplete.
ReplyDelete