It came up in discussion that Arch considered the Lee=Leon passage was redundant the second time around. He thought it was obvious the first time through that Leon was just Lee masquerading as Leon, and adding the second passage from Lee's point of view only confirmed what everyone already knew.
I think this is something authors have been struggling with forever. There is nothing more annoying as a reader than having the plot obviously dumbed down for you, but the second most annoying thing is incomprehensible gibberish-- what happens when the author overestimates intelligence. We are walking a balance rope with every reader, and honestly, no matter where you put it you're going to fall one way or the other for someone.
Personally, I was pretty sure Leon was Lee, but I wasn't going to be sure until confirmation and I'd spend the rest of the book wondering about it until confirmation was provided, so I didn't find the passage redundant, but others might. Delilo just can't win.
You can't please everybody. However maybe it's because of the displeasure that sparks controversy and talk that draw attention to the plot. Maybe the author counts on readers discussing it with others to make sure we all got his subtle but painstakingly important detail. I don't know. We can never know exactly what the intentions were, but we can always make conspiracy theories! :)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the case for me was also that the passage confirmed Lee=Leon. However, what I was questioning myself about was, what's with this constant changing of the name; naming himself after people he looked up to? Then I thought about some weird explanations that were out there.
I agree that Delillo can't win; especially when he wrote about a controversial topic. However I applaud him for making it seem so plausible and Lee's character consistent with other books about Lee. For me, Lee's character is still sketchy just because I don't understand him as a person (especially when he actually goes through with the shooting… For me, it was like who is this??? This isn't the character I've associated Lee with! Delillo can't win)
I still think there's more to the scene at the firing range from Lee's point of view apart from spelling out that Lee is Leon (and, for the record, a lot of people missed this connection, including discussion leaders, in both sections, so it's not all THAT obvious). It's a way of confirming what the attentive reader might have guessed, sure; but in the earlier scene, we get Mackey's point of view on the whole conspiracy and where "Leon" fits in, although he's mostly in the background. And we get to hear "Leon" depicting himself as a political prisoner, even though he's chatting with guys who are politically on the opposite side from him.
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