Chapter 1 Don DeLillo Letter to the Translator
Dear Zhu Ye:
Just received your comments on and the questions you asked, and I fully understand that such a novel does cause some problems for translators.I would like to thank you for the time and effort you have put into translating this book.I am also amusing the little story you tell about the word Clorets.I have looked up the source of Lao Tzu's words quoted in the novel, and I think it should give you some understanding, even if you have already found the original text that can be used as the corresponding translation.English quotations from The Oxford Book of the Dead, edited by DJ Enright (Oxford University Press, 1983).Page 223 of the book contains the following excerpt translated by Witt Beena:
Governing a big country is like cooking small fish.Use the Tao to reach the world, and its ghosts are not gods.It's not that the ghosts are not gods, the gods don't hurt people.It's not that gods don't hurt people, and saints don't hurt people either.Husband and wife do not hurt each other, so virtue returns to Yan.Life and death are one thing, but can it be consistent.
Regarding the title of the novel: Here is a device that produces white noise, a humming sound at all frequencies, to protect one from distracting and annoying sounds such as loud streets and roaring airplanes.These voices, as the characters of the novel say, are "consistent and white".Jack, and others, relate this phenomenon to the experience of death.Perhaps this is a state in which all things are in perfect balance. "White noise" also refers broadly to all inaudible (or "white") noise and other kinds of sounds that drown out the characters in everyday life—noise from radio, television, microwaves, ultrasonic devices, and so on.
Finally, I would like to thank you again for your many efforts and hope that my explanation is useful to you.
Best Regards!
Notes: The brand of chewing gum (see page 248 of this book), the jump of this scene really makes readers confused for a while.The author’s way of writing is not the traditional Aristotle or Plato’s “imitation” (mimesis), but the “postmodernism” Baudrillard’s “simulation” (simulacrum), which expresses modernity and confuses " Reality" or "real" "hyper-reality".Therefore, if we follow the reading method of traditional novels—"according to the context" to understand the words and scenes of postmodernist novels, we will miss the point and even make a joke. Chapter 60, obviously, Witt Beena’s English translation comes from this passage, but the English translator also interprets the “Tao” and “De” in the text according to Lao Tzu’s thoughts, and thus extends Lao Tzu’s Regarding the viewpoints of "life" and "death", the two sentences "life and death are one thing, can it be consistent" were added.See the note on page 165 of Chapter 21 of this book for details.
Notes: The brand of chewing gum (see page 248 of this book), the jump of this scene really makes readers confused for a while.The author’s way of writing is not the traditional Aristotle or Plato’s “imitation” (mimesis), but the “postmodernism” Baudrillard’s “simulation” (simulacrum), which expresses modernity and confuses " Reality" or "real" "hyper-reality".Therefore, if we follow the reading method of traditional novels—"according to the context" to understand the words and scenes of postmodernist novels, we will miss the point and even make a joke. Chapter 60, obviously, Witt Beena’s English translation comes from this passage, but the English translator also interprets the “Tao” and “De” in the text according to Lao Tzu’s thoughts, and thus extends Lao Tzu’s Regarding the viewpoints of "life" and "death", the two sentences "life and death are one thing, can it be consistent" were added.See the note on page 165 of Chapter 21 of this book for details.