Oh man, I'm dying...

I was talking with one of my friends, and being the nerdy people we were, we got to the topic of death. Now, it does seem like a morbid topic, and it most definitely is, but there's more to death than just that. What constitutes death? That's a very important question, in my opinion. DeLillo portrayed the death of Lee rather stereotypically, in my opinion. There's the usual idea that they're just slowly losing their consciousness and noticing little things all around them. Is that what death really is like though? To be fair, nobody alive can really know what death is like because they haven't died. So again, what constitutes death? Loss of a heartbeat? No breathing? The inability to respond to anything after a set amount of time? It seems like that's always what is used to classify death. For Lee, his heart stopped beating, his eyes were unfocused, his senses were leaving him, and he seemed to be remembering things from his past, such as his Marine training, how a pilot looked, and watching a jet take off. Can that really be counted as what a person experiences when they're dying?

Related to that, what about when a person is completely unresponsive, has no pulse, and isn't breathing is able to be revived? Do you count them as having been dead? Would you be able to call them a zombie? I remember reading before about a man who had suffered from a heart attack at a grocery store and wasn't breathing, had no pulse, and wasn't responsive. The people around him refused to give up on him and everybody took turns giving the man CPR and chest compressions until the paramedics were able to come. Thanks to all the people refusing to give up on the man, the paramedics were able to revive him and he continued to live a happy life. But this does raise some questions. Could he have been considered dead? I think so. But then he wasn't dead. What can you say about that other than the simple, 'he was brought back to life'?

Death is such a complex topic and I feel that it's become very simplified from being used repeatedly in movies and books. When I think of the concept of death (not in a bad way, just in a curious way!), all that comes to my head are images of the overdramatic movie/book deaths where the characters is slowly losing consciousness and saying their last words. Death is so much more than that, and I feel it's quite sad that it's been simplified to somebody saying their last words and closing their eyes while their head rolls to the side. Who even decided that was how death was to be portrayed? Maybe one day death will be portrayed in a different way, but either way, nobody can ever know what death is like unless they've actually died. And if they've died, unfortunately they probably won't be able to communicate with us to tell us what it's like.

Poor Lee...?

Having read all of Libra, I'm still very conflicted on what to think of Lee. When he was trying to kill Kennedy, I was both rooting for him to take the shot and also angry that he would try to do that. His life was quite unfortunate, and the day before he failed to reconcile with his wife, leaving behind most of his money and his wedding ring. I just can't help but pity this poor man who was manipulated into being the scapegoat for this large operation of killing JFK. Lee also seems to fail at everything he does, no matter how serious it is. It's shown when Lee decides to shoot himself, which is a serious thing to do, but ends up using a little gun to shoot himself in the arm. It's similar to when Oswald tries to kill JFK. It's one of the most, if not the most, serious thing he could possibly do, but he misses and Raymo kills JFK. Throughout the whole part in Oswald's perspective, I was rooting for Oswald to take the shot and kill JFK, as dark and terrible as that sounds. Throughout the book it seems that Oswald was experiencing one failure after another. He couldn't avoid being court martialed for having an unauthorized gun, and after the court martial was suspended, he gets a second one for 'wrongful use of provoking words to a staff noncommissioned officer.' Then Lee has the brilliant plan to kill General Walker which fails in multiple aspects. First off, Lee planned to kill Walker on April 17th and ends up doing it on April 10th, which is funny that Lee manages to mess up, but I wasn't too surprised he couldn't carry out his goal on the right day. Secondly, he shoots a bullet, which only barely grazes Walker's right forearm, then runs away and decides to listen to the radio to see if he hit Walker. This is something that seems to make Lee seem like a genius and an idiot. I mean, he manages to plan out a decently elaborate plan, but manages to botch it up in almost every single way possible. Lee gets the date wrong and misses the target horribly.

Then there's the assassination of JFK. He plans out everything seemingly perfectly and is completely prepared. But he doesn't even think to wonder if he's being used. I'm not sure why the thought never crossed his mind (until he sees JFK being shot by somebody else), though maybe that's because I've never been in a situation like what Lee was in. It seems like Lee's a dedicated and careful planner but also a complete idiot. His actions don't always seem to have any sort of solid logic behind it. He sees JFK get shot and he immediately starts thinking about what story he's going to follow. This is one of the many reasons I'm conflicted on what to think of Lee. I was (in a twisted way) proud of Lee for deciding to try to assassinate JFK because it seemed he was completely serious about doing it and everything about the moment seemed to be in Lee's favor (ignoring the part where he had to wait for Raymo to have a clear shot if he were to miss). It makes me really wish that Ruby hadn't killed Lee so we could possibly know more about Lee. I'm sure that Lee surviving would have created more questions still because he's the type of person who you can never know if he's telling the truth or not.

So overall, I'm as sure that Lee's one of the most complicated people/characters I've ever read/learned about as I am that my name is Eric (so that means I'm completely sure that Lee's a complicated person, if my sentence was too confusing). He was confusing to the end, but I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Libra wouldn't be the same without it.