Chapter 11 "The Devil Predicts Death" - Not Free, Flee

The famous director Herzog filmed the vampire Dracula in a small town called Delft in the Netherlands. I have been there, which is different from New York.It is a typical Dutch-style clean and beautiful town—according to the Dutch people, their housekeeping standard is that people outside the house can directly pass through the French windows at the back of the house through the French windows in front of the house—however, when you sit Drinking coffee under the warm awnings in Delft, looking at the bright street scenes and people in action under the sun, you will still think of the injured Count Drogule in the movie who turned into a bat and stumbled into the eternal night. The sad picture in.

You know very well that he still won't die, because it's more sad that way. Earl Zhuojiule (I don’t like the translation of Dracula into Dracula in recent years in Taiwan, he looks like a fat nobleman who eats chocolate candy), it is said that he betrayed God and was cursed with immortality——eternal life Was it a curse? Very likely.Especially if we are a little older and have experienced more deaths because of this, we are likely to find that the threat of death mainly comes from fear, some unknown fear of walking into a dark tunnel, rather than representing pain itself; on the contrary Yes, under certain special circumstances, the pain is often not due to death, but "not to die" - Foucault talked about torture in his book "Discipline and Punish", pointing out that torture is actually a kind of "delayed death". "The precise technique, the executioner uses his rich experience and precise calculations to skillfully avoid death in order to maximize the pain of the prisoner.

Of course, the elegant and graceful Zhuojiule generally only exists in movies, books and fantasies, while torture, as Foucault pointed out, has retreated into the dark corners of history.But if we don't stick to the narrow literal meaning, ask from another angle: Is there something we really like, or even, what we really love, that is destined to leave without waiting for us?If we knew this inevitability in advance, would we still be willing, dare, and able to like and love? In this way, we bring this trouble back to the daily experience as far as we can see, and find that although we live in the era of disenchantment at the end of the twentieth century, as human beings with finite lives, we are often still not exempt from it. Similar to the sad situation of Earl Djogul.Let me give you a slightly nondescript example: As far as I know, many people don’t want to keep dogs and cats as pets because of this reason. Compared with humans, their natural life span is much shorter, and we have to play that role. Earl Zhuojiule who sent them away one by one.

This time Bullock's is actually the love story of Mr. Matthew Scudder (for us readers, he is also an immortal), starting with Eliot's famous poem, the first stanza of which is titled For "burial of the dead": The hard-hearted private detectives after the American Revolution emphasized realism, so they often showed a special style of one time and one place in the investigation, and the poor detectives they wrote would occasionally waste money and go to other cities because of the needs of the case, but In general, they were born and bred in this country, pursue crimes to subsidize their families, and cannot be national, international, or even global citizens like classical detectives. Although Lerry Quinn lives in New York, he handles cases all over the United States; the bearded Poirot described by Agatha Christie even goes to other countries such as Egypt, Switzerland, and Mesopotamia.

The hard-liners settled down and relocated, and over time, they formed a group of heroes on the map of detective novels.Many cities that are lucky (or unlucky, because they represent more crime) have representative "city detectives". ·Grafton’s Kensey Melhong (translated by Xiaozhitang Publishing House in China into Jinsi Meifang, I personally don’t like this translation very much, I always don’t feel like the firm, independent but warm single female private in the book Tan, like living in Kaohsiung dancing pornographic years old golden silk cat foreign girl, this can not but be said to be my little regret for Xiaozhitang) and can only be in the second place; similarly, San Francisco is of course still a big city. Hsu Hammett's ruthless Sam Spade; Boston, the bean city on the east coast, is Rob Parker's tough guy Spencer, the heir to Marlowe; There is Sarah Parecki's women's rights representative detective VI Huasowski; and in the Indian reservation on the border with Utah in Arizona in the far south, there are also two generations of Indian tracking experts. Chee, defending the tranquility of their homeland in Tony Sillerman's pen, trying not to let the murders of the white world pollute the last living place of their people.

As for the best Greater New York City for murder, it is, of course, our walking crime troubadour, Mr. Matthew Scudder. Even if these detectives did not catch any real criminals for the local citizens and the city police department, their credibility and prestige can still penetrate the black and white letters and flood into real people.For example, if you get off the subway at Berg Street Station in London, as far as you can see, every tile on the wall is printed with the famous profile silhouette of Sherlock Holmes wearing a hunting cap, biting a pipe, and a tall hooked nose; Reasoning missionary Zhan Hongzhi said that when he went back to Boston, he saw a bookstore named "Spencer", and he walked in without hesitation.In Boston, it would be called Spencer's Bookstore, but what else would it be if it wasn't a speculative fiction store?Does anyone still think it's Spencer, the social Darwinist who misread Darwin's theory of evolution and is no longer remembered unless he is scolded?

The famous anthropologist Levi-Strauss wrote a short essay describing his views of New York in 1941. The end of the essay reads: Of course, we feel that all these vestiges are being attacked, almost crushed and buried by the mass culture - a mass culture that has reached such a high level of development in the United States that within a few decades it will be will reach Europe.New York lays before our eyes a prescription table, thanks to which, in an increasingly aggressive and dehumanizing society, those who find it utterly intolerable, can learn the incalculable benefits afforded by an illusion. improvised means of numbers, the illusion that people feel capable of escaping from this reality.This is probably the reason why we are fascinated by the thousands of aspects of life in New York.

Here, we have to admire Levi-Strauss's cleverness and insights. After half a century, this passage still looks like it has just been printed, with the new fragrance of ink and paper.If I have not misunderstood too much, Levi-Strauss here combines a word we are used to pejoratively, "escapism" with another word that we are used to regard as one of the highest values ​​​​without reasoning, "freedom" , Linked up beautifully. Give me liberty or give me death, this is a positive and forceful response to this unbearable situation by a small number of called people with lofty ideals; and choosing to escape, to be honest, is the last resort method that more ordinary people in history are more familiar with .Whenever the pressure of politics, economy, law, natural environment, and even social class identity is "aggressive" and reaches "totally unbearable", death and escape will start separately, and those who die less generously will be left behind for us. Models and maxims, while thousands of people who fled gradually filled North and South America, Australia and New Zealand, and every corner of the earth that is still crowded-it is not an exaggeration to say that the reason why the world before us is A large part of growing up like this is the result of escaping reality.

There are also many people who dream of escaping to the moon or Mars or some unknown planet with only letters and numbers. However, the capitalist society of the twentieth century has given us another new kind of unfreedom, which Levi-Strauss represented by the pressure of "group culture". Of course, this is only a designation of a certain aspect. Max Weber The term focuses on its layer-by-layer structure like a rational labyrinth, calling it an "iron cage"; Milan Kundera directly appeals to feelings, calling it "the inescapable heaviness of life"; Calvino To take it a step further, Medusa, the Gorgon in Greek mythology, who turns to stone when you stare at her, "I sometimes feel like the whole world is hardening to stone: it's a slow petrification process, though There are degrees of difference in people and places, but no soul is spared, just as no one can escape the cold gaze of the Gorgon Medusa."

All in all, this is a pervasive, obscure, anonymous, and inhuman suffocating heavy weight based on rationality. It is difficult for you to argue, and it is not easy to find an object to revolutionize and defeat (Marcuse in the 1960s , Adorno, and a group of young people who were young and full of youth tried, but failed), let alone arouse the oppressed single class to form a revolutionary army (Marx's high hopes for the proletariat ended here).Against a tangible and unreasonable tyrant, you can be a man of lofty ideals, and you can more or less find comrades who are in the same boat; but against an invisible rationalization structure, you can often only be a lunatic, a loser, or a tramp, and you can act like an atom. .

Speaking of it, Levi-Strauss's "prophecy" is considered polite. He said that within a few decades, Europe will be shrouded in it.In fact, decades later, even Asia appears to be included.When the global village is constructed in this way, escape is forced to a metaphysical level, and we usually can only choose to exile ourselves spiritually. This is what Levi Strauss said, the weird city of New York gave us a way of life; it is precisely what Levi Strauss may not have read (otherwise he should have written to tell us later), New York homeless detective Mr. Matthew Scudder. Having said that, I can't help quoting some of Italo Calvino's speeches.The wise Calvino did not use such words as "escape" and "exile", which are heavy against heaviness and easy to be misunderstood. He chose "lightness", which glows with a layer of joy, and makes the embarrassment of escape Transformed into a dance - Calvino beams but proceeds cautiously to develop his Medusa simile: In Greek mythology, "the only hero who can cut off Medusa's head is Perseus - he wears sandals with wings. was able to fly. Perseus never looked directly at the Gorgon's face, but only at her image reflected in the bronze shield." Calvino said he couldn't help seeing the myth as an allegory.This fable expresses the relationship between the poet and the world: "He relies on the wind, he relies on the cloud, and only fixes on what is presented by indirect vision, that is, the image captured by the mirror." Next, Calvino talked about what Perseus did after he successfully cut off the head of Medusa: He did not discard this terrifying head, but put it in his bag and carried it with him, which became his future victory against the enemy. "The strength of Perseus lies in his refusal to look directly—however, he does not refuse to look at the 'reality' in which he is destined to live; he takes this 'reality' with him, accepts it, and It treats it as its own unique load." This was not enough, Calvino went after Ovid and found another story about Perseus and Medusa's head: it is said that after Perseus successfully slaughtered the sea monster and rescued Andromeda, he wanted to Wash your hands well, and in order to properly place this terrifying head, he spread the leaves first, and then placed the twigs of aquatic plants, carefully placing Medusa face down, however, a miracle happened at this time, " As soon as those small aquatic plants were touched by Medusa, they immediately petrified and turned into corals, and the fairies in the water rushed to bring twigs and seaweeds to decorate the corals, and placed them in front of this terrible head." So far, in order not to damage the rich meaning of the myth, Calvino is unwilling to explain further. But from this, we also understand part of it: it turns out that so many great writers who seem to be light and refuse to look at reality directly still carry the terrifying head of Medusa with them.Milan Kundera, who escaped from Prague but entered Western Europe with a lot of reluctance, has more elements in his novel Weapons of Defeat and less ornamental coral; Calvino, who is more playful, is at the other end of the spectrum. He tends to put down his weapons and make tree after tree of beautiful coral to bequeath to the world. After these marvelous names, may I venture to continue with Bullock and his Matthew Scudder who also refuses to look at the heavy reality? —at least, I sincerely suggest, this gives us a good clue to a more accurate understanding of Scudder. I also like the image through the lens in the book used by Levi Strauss: escape from reality, this is an adventure journey into the unknown and uncertain, waiting ahead, there is gorgeous freedom, but there is also the danger of being smashed, you The only thing that's certain is that you won't be slowly turning to stone. This time, Mr. Matthew Scudder walked through a mirror marked "Love" - ​​I remembered that in an interview book called After Hours, it was said that once Robert Pike and Lawrence Bullock, two contemporary hard-boiled private detectives, were interviewed on television.The host first asked Parker whether his tough guy Spencer and his beautiful girlfriend with a Ph.D. in psychology would get married?Pike's answer is flatly negative, "They love each other, but they will never 'catch' each other." The same question was asked of Scudder and Elaine Maddie, and Bullock's answer was very vague. I know, maybe, one day these two people feel that the time is right, they may actually get married, but, Bullock added, even if they do get married, "it doesn't mean that they will live happily ever after. ". Well said, isn't it?I still can't help but end with Calvino's words: "Every light thing in life that we choose and value will soon reveal its true weight, which is unbearable. Perhaps, only the liveliness of wisdom , to avoid such judgment.”