Chapter 3 "Murder and Time of Creation" - Going to the Difficult Place

Recently, a new financial magazine that sold out as soon as it went public used a similar slogan: "With knowledge, there will be wealth; with wealth, there will be freedom." These two beautiful warnings, like gold and stones, shocked people. Myself and a group of friends who are not well-to-do around me have beaten us back from the self-absorbed protection excuse of "poverty and happiness". Being scolded as "no knowledge". Because we were still not willing to be scolded, we developed a bunch of more rogue jokes, including, on the pay day at the beginning of the month, we started to complain to the boss: "Recently, the value of freedom in Asia has depreciated, can you give me more freedom?" , we further made freedom a monetary unit of measurement: "Your new clothes look good." "It's very cheap, one piece is only 250 Taiwan freedoms." The newspaper run by Rongsan clearly follows the top of the world in everything, so why is it so shameless to name it "Liberty Times"? Including, we think we have unraveled the true meaning of the historical adage "Give me liberty or give me death": there is no freedom , Anyway, sooner or later you will die of pain and starvation, it is better to have done it earlier.

Free and free, sure enough, many crimes have been committed in your name—— But to be serious, these two sentences cannot be said to be completely wrong. In fact, no matter in terms of historical experience or theoretical deduction, the accumulation of wealth is indeed conducive to the liberation of mankind. For example, the creation of early human civilization, From laborers who have no breath all day long, and from idlers who possess wealth, this "leisure class creation theory" even Marx himself agrees, and it has long been a conclusion; The author once believed that the last obstacle to human freedom was economic issues, just like the dazzling array of commodities in department stores, according to the law, everyone from the princes and nobles to the traffickers can freely buy them-the obstacle is that you have no money.

It's just that wealth and freedom are not conjoined twins, and they won't keep pace with each other so sweetly forever.When the pursuit and accumulation of wealth reaches a certain critical point, its marginal benefit to freedom may not only be reduced to zero, but may even show a negative value. At this stage, wealth is no longer a great liberator of freedom, but becomes shackles.This effect is almost common sense, especially in a society with highly developed capital and a large amount of wealth accumulation. Taiwan in front of us has almost reached such a stage. There is a saying that "stomach ulcer is a symbol of a successful career", which is exactly what it says. thing.

The way to untie this shackle is not difficult in theory. From the perspective of marginal benefits, we only need to use rational calculations and know how to stop chasing when the marginal benefits of wealth fall to a certain point of "not worthwhile".But it is difficult in fact, because money is not a transparent and silent exchange tool, it will directly become the purpose itself: when chasing and accumulating wealth directly becomes its own purpose, it will be divorced from rational and substantive utility, and become abstract digital growth, becoming A quasi-religion that cannot be stopped, cannot be completed, and is practiced for life.So we will see that Cai Wanlin has to make more money, Gu Zhenfu has to apply for a subsidy of "a few million" even if he votes for a bad show, and Lien Chan has to run a foundation for the election of leaders. Institutions allocate hundreds of millions of dollars—these people already have hundreds of thousands of wealth that can’t be used up in a lifetime, and the extra money is at best zero in terms of marginal benefit, but it doesn’t stop them from “preferring to take the wrong money.” , can not let go of the true nature of money.

Knowing the current situation in Taiwan, we know that although there is no crime in making money, it is full of motivation. We really don't need to fan the flames and buy indulgences for it. Present the crown of freedom (isn't it good to reserve this honor for others who are hardworking in the belief that money cannot be exchanged?), if you want to earn it, please don't be polite and ashamed to earn it! Speaking of this, I miss our good friend in New York, Mr. Matthew Scudder, who has no money, no car, no house, but is chic and free. , this novel has knowledge and freedom, but instead of teaching you how to make money, it tells you that it's time to stop.

, purely as far as detective novels are concerned, it is not only wasteful but also risky for Bullock to write this book in this way-in the novel, Scudder's client "Spinning Top" this time is a self-aware, As expected, the blackmailer who was slaughtered at the beginning had three scandals in his hands, so the murderer most likely came from one of these three. The reason why I say wasteful is that, as a genre novelist who earns money by writing books, Bullock’s subject matter is money. A more reasonable way is that he should find a way to write these three crimes into three books (or even three books). more than one book), sell it three times for money, instead of using up all of one book with such generosity.

As for the risk, it means that Bullock made Scudder live up to the commission of the dead man, and determined to catch the murderer. However, while solving the case, two other scandals were inevitable and had to be exposed.We know that the occurrence of scandals is sometimes purely caused by the crimes of the parties involved, but it also often comes from the misfortune and helplessness of the parties concerned. ?Is it in line with justice and humanity?In this way, Scudder has to walk on the blade of faith and conscience all the time, making painful choices between generously solving the case and hurting the innocent.

Hurting the innocent, this will violate the simple expectations of type readers for substantive justice. Violation of readers’ expectations exceeds a certain critical point, and punishment will follow—the punishment of type readers is simple, effective and easy to do, that is, not to buy you Written book, this must be a fatal blow for genre novelists. Thus, we understand why the ideology and plot content of genre novels are always simple and conservative—they can’t just take risks, they can’t “test their master” readers, and novelists have to suffer the loss of wealth if they want to maintain the freedom of writing danger.

It's just that if you get used to the convenient way, people will become lazy; if you do too many easy things, you will become stupid; if you write only simple and conservative things, your works will become bad and boring. Therefore, it is no wonder that the genre A novelist's best work often appears in the first three books, or even the first. Choose one between wealth and the level of works. Of course, most genre writers may not care so much about whether their writing is getting worse and worse, but the world is not so gloomy after all, and some people still care. Bullock obviously is one of them.

Those who are familiar with Matthew Scudder's series can easily find that Bullock is always unwilling to "smartly" avoid difficult problems, citing the simple formula "solve the case = justice" allowed and commonly used in genre novels. He can't stop walking into difficulties or even deep in the mud, asking some seemingly futile questions that he himself is unable to answer, including questions about life and death, questions about ultimate justice, questions about various human situations, and so on. In one book, Bullock wrote a very interesting dialogue roughly like this: At that time, Scudder’s investigation was in trouble, and he had a kind of regret that he took people’s money but was unable to solve the disaster for others. His girlfriend Vera, a former member of the Communist Party, comforted him: "You've done your work." (You&ve done your work.) Scudder used a pun on the word work to answer, work, we call it "work" in physics , the formula is the product of force and distance. For example, if an object weighs 20 pounds and you push it forward six feet, you have done 120 feet of "work".What he did, Scudder said, was like pushing against a wall, pushing it all day and not getting it to move, so despite your best efforts, you just didn't do any "work." ".

This reminds me of an interesting thought in another great novelist, Graham Greene, in his novel "Loser Takes All" (Loser Takes All, or translated "Casino Fate"): the protagonist in the book wanders When I went to the casino, I occasionally got a gamble that was sure to win money from an old man, but this gamble that was sure to win a lot in the end was very weird and annoying. Knowing that it’s a loss, you can’t save even one step—I remember that Zhu Tianxin, who is also a Grimm fan when writing novels, quoted this example. It is said that before her new novel can be successfully written, she always has to go through the same short period of days or weeks. Thinking (with the subject of the novel already locked), knowing that she has nothing to gain, she still has to report to the coffee shop where she writes with books, drafts and pens every day. Her mantra is: "Go lose money." The interesting examples of these two interesting novelists have one thing in common: that is, the staged unevenness of solving the dilemma, it is not a "no pain, no gain" type of "every time you put in, there is a point of progress", on the contrary. Yes, in the process you seem to be immersed in the seemingly endless dilemma, with nothing but confusion and futility, and then one day the walls start to move, and the gambling roulette wheel starts to jump out of the numbers you bet on. The difference between the two examples is that Green let us see the bright end at the end of the long and hard road. You can win big in an instant after losing enough money, while Bullock does not give us any definite answer. What you push is most likely A wall that doesn't move at all. The absolute unevenness of the process and the highly uncertain outcome of the predicament make it difficult to manage and make effective assessments and step-by-step plans. In other words, it is extremely easy to conflict with our "rationalization" requirements. When talking about the lofty ambitions of Sagittarius, the old lady Goodman, the late American constellation star, once said: "...aim at the goal that no one in the sky can see—or even a little bit of rational people don't think it exists—" A person who is reasonable in everything will not know that there are tigers in the mountains but must take this road, he will detour; he will not expose himself to the scorching sun and poverty in the south of France like Van Gogh in the past, painting like a madman. He will give up if he sees the image in the center of his eyes; he will not spend three to five years working hard on a novel that cannot be sold for two dollars or even published. He will change his career or simply go to an ideological advertising company Go get a job and make easy money... Therefore, the difficulty of the predicament is not that it is difficult to bear and overcome, but that it is always "smartly" ignored and discarded, and "strategic" and "technical" are bypassed. Of course, for the vast majority of people in a society, knowing how to avoid it should be considered a good thing.Life is hard enough, and every society has a considerable mechanism, including religion, psychological counseling, free economic market, etc., which directly and indirectly lead us to avoid this quagmire, so that people can live happily. However, If everyone in the whole society is so smart, it would be a pity or a pity. Such a society can easily become lazy, lose the thickness and depth of thinking, and cannot expand the boundaries and vision of the soul. Lost due imagination. Therefore, we have to have stricter expectations for some intelligent and talented people, especially those who are engaged in some kind of "expanding the boundaries of thinking and spiritual boundaries", and hope that they will never return or avoid them. If it can be more severe, we not only hope that they will not dodge, but also take the initiative to go where there are difficulties. When talking about the filming experience, the famous Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien once said "make trouble for yourself", which means , he often reminds himself to slow down, stop, and even take the initiative to throw a few obstacles to himself when the filming is running smoothly, trying some difficult angles and techniques. His creative experience tells him that too slippery is too smooth. Proceeding without resistance often makes the work monotonous and thin, and when you edit the film, you will find that there is no other possibility and flexibility like a one-way street. If people want to ask for trouble, we seem to have the responsibility to make some necessary and boring reminders here-in the field of humanistic thinking that creation focuses on, just like the questions of justice, life and death that Bullock asked again and again, Questions and various situations of people are often not accompanied by a proper final answer. It is neither like the inevitable result of winning money promised by Green's prescription, nor is it as tragic and moving as Bullock's Wall. Rather, it is more like an old boring metaphor: the horizon.You may feel that your push has progressed, but paradoxically, your distance from the ultimate answer, which is the most basic concept of infinity in mathematics, does not seem to change. So, "only pay attention to the process and not the result", right?No, of course it is not such a pretentious and sweet atmosphere. On the contrary, you must ask the result and try your best to approach the result, even if you are facing an insurmountable fortified city, and what you have in your hand is just a thin horse , a rusty spear, and a patchwork of armor, you still have to fight, so that the process is magnificent and revealing. We can't thank someone who asks for trouble like this, so let's take off our hats to him!