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     The overall narration of Don DeLillo's Libra  can be simply described as cold. However, it is a surgically precise tone somehow manages to interweave a linguistic style that can feel creepily poetic. This oxymoronic tension is especially evident in the climax in the chapter "November 22." The juxtaposition of the beginning of "November 22" against the explosive sensory overload of the shooting of John F. Kennedy creates a disturbing experience that gives even more weight to the assassination.     The buildup to the shooting is read with a clarity that feels detached. It progresses as usual, continuing to narrate monotonously as if November 22nd doesn't actually have any weight. Like the previous chapters, it is mostly set into paragraphs of an almost bureaucratic tone. For example, "... the miscellaneous train of rented convertibles, station wagons, touring sedans, Secret Service follow-up cars, communications cars, buses, motorcycles, spare Chevys...

    Of the characters in Octavia Butler's Kindred,  one stands out as it forces readers into a particularly uncomfortable moral dilemma. From a zoomed out perspective, Rufus Weylin is just evil. He is a slave-owning Southern man who actively engages in brutal violence including the rape of Alice and the constant threats to beat Dana. However, Butler's narrative constantly provides the smallest slivers of redemption, making Rufus a controversially sympathetic villain that causes clearcut interpretations of him to be completely inadequate in describing him. To call him a one-dimensional monster would be reductive, as he is certainly capable of what seems like genuine affection and kindness (at least, in his time period). He loves Dana in his own twisted way, as she acts as his confidante and supernatural guardian angel, constantly saving him from danger. In some cases, Rufus even shows a desire to be a better person than his father Tom Weylin. But his actions are still obje...

    Historiography sucks. It's one of the most annoying subjects to discuss because of its abstract nature, but Ishmael Reed has created a very compelling study of this that I can't help but explore. However (I just need to complain about this real quick), not only is it very confusing to piece together the big picture, but the book also reads like a bomb went off in a library and the whole mess about its stylistic decisions—not following standard conventions, settings jumping from chapter to chapter, footnotes for some reason, etc.—is the debris. This debris has to exist, though, because trying to tell this chaotic cultural narrative in a straight line makes it even worse.      Like many of its contemporary works, Reed's Mumbo Jumbo  has a very distinct method in how it narrates history. While history is usually read as a passive linear record, Reed uses it as an active battlefield of cultures. The novel puts two fundamentally opposing versions of the...

"Atque aliquis [inquit]... 'exitus acta probat.' Careat successibus, opto, quisquis ab eventu facta notanda putat!" -Phyllis, written to Demophoon (Ovid,  Heroides  2.83-86) Doctorow’s Ragtime is a difficult read because of the many plot points that it strings together so freely. Of these narratives, the most significant is most likely Coalhouse Walker’s transformation from a well-spoken ragtime pianist to a revenge-seeking terrorist. This metamorphosis is outlined by a journey that drags Coalhouse through a corrupt legal system (Doctorow 178, 185) after he encounters the Emerald Isle volunteer firefighting division and his Ford Model T is vandalized by a mob (Doctorow 177). He then resorts to arson, killing 4 random firefighters (Doctorow, 205). Usually, an agitation of this scale isn’t warranted by this background, especially for someone as articulate as Coalhouse, but there are two major points that can semi-rationalize this provoked response: Sarah’s death, and th...