Rating: 
Summary: A BRILLIANTLY WRITTEN CLASSIC
Review: From the poetic opening to the climatic ending, Don Delillo doesn't fail to deliver what is promised; a dark piece of history on paper. Character's are expertly crafted and there is rarely the sentence lacking in ingenius observances and irony. Dialogue is extremely provocative and difficult events are pictured with masterful eloquence. The plot itself is very well-crafted if not neccessarily executed to the fullest. The ever-present cynicism is also very welcome and blesses the novel with a unique feel. If there is a flaw with the book, it must be said that there is a lack of consistent progression. You ca devour a hundred or more pages without having a sense of a developing plot. This factor is why I haven't recommended this book any higher. I still believe White Noise is has yet to be toppled over its lofty perch. However, despite this shortcoming, this book is testimony to Delillo's position in comtemporary literature: a master for lesser's to see.
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Summary: A disturbing portrait
Review: Don DeLillo's Libra is by far the most interesting of the several fictional portraits of Lee Harvey Oswald that have been produced. While Norman Mailer's book Oswald is more immediately accesable, DeLillo's portrait of the reputed assasin is more interesting. In neither book is any real credible motive offered for the killing of JFK, other than Oswald's strange (perhaps pathological) sense of his own place in the great scheme of things. Not to be viewed as contributing to any conspiracy theory, this story is an effort to get inside the head of a clearly demented soul. I found it rather fascinating. It didn't offer any explanations, but it did manage to make Lee Harvey Oswald a real felsh and blood human being to me. Quite an imaginative achievement. A really remarkable book.
Rating: 
Summary: Subtle criticism
Review: Don DeLillo's "Libra" does not center on the JFK assassination itself but rather on its prehistory and aftermath. Libra is a masterpiece of criticism. DeLillo criticizes hierarchies and power relations that are getting out of hands as does the orginal plan, i.e. the conspiracy, of Win Everett, eventually developing a self-dynamic which kills President Kennedy. The JFK assassination is not the only significant historical happening in Libra. Besides depicting Cold-War History, DeLillo demonstrates how historical events (the Bay of Pigs Invasion) can leap into the present,bearing negative, even lethal, consequences: President Kennedy is finally killed by an ex-Cuban who was with Castro in the movement of the 26th of July, being a member of "the starved army of beards". Additional to this rather unpronounced critique of past events (and the failure of dealing with them in an adequate way), there is a critique of manipulation on various levels. First, there are the conspirators who are constructing the future assassin of JFK, "putting together a man with scissors and tape". Then, there is the omnipresent world of the media that more and more invades our private life, to an extent where we can no longer differentiate between what is real and what is not.This feeling of insecurity is even reinforced by the proliferation of systems and soctieties' fragmentation and brutality that Lee Harvey Oswald is a victim of. The character of Lee Harvey Oswald seems to stand for any individual who does not find its place within society, being pushed from one side to the other, manipulated and abused, aquiring "foolish different characters" that can not prevent the ultimate failure. DeLillo leaves the reader with more questions that she/he had before: with questions about identity, reality and positionality. Who am I, what is my perception of the world, and what is ultimately true? A very inspring book.
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Summary: New Point of View
Review: As pointed out in some of the other reviews included here, Delillo's way of dealing with the events around the assasination of JFK mixes historical facts with fictional story-telling. He produces some very ellaborate and strong characters, among which -as the main protagonist- Lee Harvey Oswald stands out: Oswald is shown as a real person with his own life (instead of simply reducing him to the empty stereotype of the assasin of JFK). This leads to what I find most stunning about LIBRA: you'll end up finding yourself on the side of Oswald, who turns out to be a naive but endearing object of manipulation. You'll read the book, mourn for Oswald, and understand that JFK was only one of two victims of the assasination.
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Summary: The Scales preside over a trauma center of American mythos
Review: The so-called "secret diaries" of Lee Harvey Oswald show him to be a half-educated man struggling with some of the most profound political problems of his era. DeLillo himself was early on inspired by recordings of Oswald's radio appearances, where he defended his faux-Marxist fantasies to a no-doubt baffled Texan audience, achieving a powerful oratorial performance, especially in light of his age (23) and educational background (dyslexic high-school dropout, followed by a Marine tour-of-duty in the Pacific). Throughout LIBRA the shadowy palimpsest of Oswald is granted a complex human dignity far beyond the usual dismissals as a sociopathic, alienated loser. He is presented as both victim and victimizer, a brutal hypocrite and charlatan (let's not forget the actual assassination), but also a dejected idealist who was trashed, bastardized, and buried alive by the American mass socius of the 50s and 60s. DeLillo's working title was *An American Murder*, but he changed it to LIBRA (Oswald's sign in the zodiac) to indicate the arbitrary scales of justice presiding over a personality seemingly made of pure contradiction. A Marxist who joined the Marines as soon as he came of age only to defect to Russia and then repent two years later? Indeed, Oswald's scatterbrain identity-confusion has made him a dingy, well-worn avatar in the annals of our postmodern geek show. Most startlingly, DeLillo's genius is able to evoke the now-familiar media-consciousness expressed by Oswald in his writings and behavior, arguing that Oswald *knew* how he would be perceived by the public, that in the depths of his isolation the Panopticon of the televisual was at work dramatizing his every move, tasting every dreg of his perplexed and cryptozoic existence, securing for him a perverse nook in our collective nerve and trauma centers, a world-historical Sin against the future. This novel comes with my highest recommendations.
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Summary: history
Review: This book isn't so much about coming up with a conspiracy theory about the Kennedy assasination, but about how history itself is fluid, constantly evolving and changing with each new piece of scrap paper. Each of the characters and events in the novel are redefined and reinterpreted as the story progresses, their meanings and implications changing. Oswald and the plot are certainly an interesting enough starting point, but DeLillo's fabrication of the lives of the people in the book and the events leading to the assasination mirror the fabrications that occur within the novel itself. A wonderful concept for a novel and a fun read if your expectations are where they should be (do not expect a historically accurate novel).
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Summary: Great book, but some loose threads . . .
Review: Like most of the reviewers, I loved Libra. However, I had a nagging feeling that the last forty or so pages were not as "tight" and solid as the rest of the book. Although it may have been a function of my own sense of the book's end, and a desire for a fantastic finale, and not the writing itself, but there were many questions and plotpoints left unaddressed. Basically - great build-up, disappointing finish. Maybe a follow-up novel built around the plotters' reaction to the Ruby assassination of Oswald or SOMETHING . . . or is this Delillo's point - everyone has a feeling of something left quite unanswered and unfinished.
Rating:
Summary: The best American novel in ages
Review: This book is a masterpiece. Read it. It is the most chilling, precise, well observed, magnificently written book about America I've ever read.
Rating:
Summary: There is a world inside the world
Review: I put off reading this novel for years despite rave reviews from several literarily astute friends. I simply did not want to read a novel about Lee Harvey Oswald. But last fall I read UNDERWORLD, which I consider one of the 4 or 5 greatest American novels of the past 50 years. As a result, I decided finally to give LIBRA a chance. The bad news is that it doesn't come anywhere near the level of UNDERWORLD, which is an astonishing tour de force. Fortunately, it is still better than the vast majority of English languague novels of the past couple of decades. Any serious reader will be doing him or herself a favor by picking up this novel.
Rating:
Summary: One of Most Favorite Books
Review: To say this book is about the assasination of JFK is to miss the point of the book. JFK's death is merely a pallette for an absolutely brillant work. DeLillo prose is both haunting and fitting. This is possibly my favorite book.
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