One of the things that really stuck with me
from Libra is how DeLillo depicts
death in such simple, but graphically real
terms. We already discussed
in class how DeLillo narrates Kennedy’s assassination from so many different
angles, brain spewing on almost all parties involved. The scene that really
stands out in my mind is when Lee is shot by Jack (this was also the last scene
I read before falling asleep last-last night, so many haunting dreams ensued so I had to write a blog post.)
Lee
didn’t feel real good. First they shot
him, then they tried to give him artificial respiration. He learned in Marine training this is the
last thing you do for a man with abdominal injuries.
He could see himself shot as the
camera caught it. Through the pain he watched TV. The siren made that panicky sound of high
speed in the streets, although he had no sense of movement. A man spoke close to him, saying if he had
anything he wanted to say he was going to have to say it now. Through the pain, through the losing
sensation except where it hurt, Lee watched himself react to the augering heat
of the bullet.
[…]
Everything
was leaving him, all sensation at the edges breaking up in space. He knew he was still in the ambulance but couldn’t
hear the siren any longer or the voice of the man who wanted him to speak. A
friendly type Texan by the sound of him.
The only thing left was the mocking pain, the picture of the twisted
face on TV. Die and hell in Hidell. He watched in a darkish room, someone’s TV
den.
The
falling away of things we carry around with us, twilight and chimney
smoke. What is metal doing in his body?
He was in pain. He knew what it meant to be in pain. All you had to do was see TV. Arm over his chest, mouth in a knowing
oh. The pain obliterated words, then
thought. There was nothing left to him but
the pathway of the bullet. Penetration
of the spleen, stomach, aorta, kidney, liver, diaphragm. There was nothing left
but the barest consciousness of bullet. Then the bullet itself, the copper,
lead and antimony. They’d introduced
metal into his body. This is what caused
the pain.
[…]
They logged him in at Parkland at
11:42. Chief complaint, gunshot wound.
The
heart was seen to be flabby and not beating at all. No effective heartbeat could be
instituted. The pupils were fixed and
dilated. There was no retinal blood
flow. There was no respiratory
effort. No effective pulse could be
maintained. Expired: 13:07. Two sponges were missing when body closed.
Lee even narrates his DEATH as if he
were telling it to someone/viewing is as if watching it on TV in the future. (This is also foreshadowing/referencing later
in the chapter when Parameter’s wife watching Lee’s death over and over while
weeping.) Also, Lee’s views of pain seem to be completely different than what
we would expect. To say that watching TV
prepared you for taking a bullet to the stomach is absolutely ridiculous. “All you had to do was see TV” is COMPLETELY
opposite of what I think “knowing pain” feels like – We see people shot and
murdered all the time on TV but, just like in Kindred, it makes us even less
prepared for the “reality” of death.
DeLillo’s
description of the bullet’s effect on his body is in purely physical terms and
Lees’s reaction to it is such a “typical Lee” response: The first thing Lee
tries to do is to “figure out” why he
is pain – the “metal in his body is what caused the pain”. Why is this the last thing Lee is thinking
about? There are many more “profound” thoughts DeLillo could’ve planted in his
head, but instead Lee views his death in the most literal terms possible.
It is
always hard for us to understand “this is what it feels like to die”, but the
way DeLillo narrates the destructive path of the bullet through each of his
organs makes us really have to contemplate a) the extreme power just one
bullet/gun has and b) how easy it is for us to die. 150,000 people die every day -- why do we care so much about the .0000044
of people who died between Nov 22-25? This specific passage in Libra really impacted the way I view death, especially in the
power of one bullet.
