Chapter 19 The Thief With No Choice - The Thief's World

Rodden Barr, the New York thief—don’t worry, there are nine volumes in Mr. Bullock’s series. Let’s take our time, starting with the Taj Mahal, and the Tajma in India, which is on the other side of the world from New York. Let's talk about the pure white mausoleum of Kazakhstan. This majestic mausoleum, built of pure white marble and listed among the seven wonders of mankind, recently wrote at the beginning of an article by Yu Qiuyu, a famous mainland writer: "The Taj Mahal was built on the cliff of the river beach, according to the Shah Jahan's plan, his own mausoleum will be built on the other side of the river, with pure black marble corresponding to the pure white of the Taj Mahal, and a half-black and half-white bridge will be built in the middle to connect. This plan that has not been realized in the end is more like A fairy tale for adults, from the perspective of the river bank, the Taj Mahal is indeed calling to the other side..."

Shah Jahan, who loved his queen Taj Mahal deeply, was later imprisoned by his son usurping the throne. Therefore, there is only one Taj Mahal, which is pure white, but some people "predicted" that there must be another one in the universe. The Taj Mahal, just as magnificent, was built with the same generosity of marble, except for one thing, the marble is pure black - the strange thing is that the prophet who makes this is not a magician, a psychic, a mystic, a fantasy novelist or a psychopath Sang, but an orthodox physicist who has pursued faith and integrity all his life. Why do you get crazy and make such crazy predictions?In fact, it makes sense.We know, and not only we know, even elementary school students know that an atom is mainly composed of three major parts: uncharged neutrons and charged protons make up the nucleus, which is surrounded by negatively charged electrons. However, over time, some physicists thought, guessed, and then theoretically asserted (193-1931) that there must also be negatively charged protons and positively charged electrons in the vast and mysterious universe , this is the so-called "antiparticle theory" - what is interesting is that although there are not many, they really found these tiny particles that are exactly the opposite, so they took the lead in deducing the perfect electron theory, and then let physicists use it Dirac, who developed the principle of invariance under charge conjugation and successfully found antiparticles, became famous all over the world on the spot.

In the vast universe, a pure black perfect Taj Mahal—— If there are anti-particles, shouldn’t there be anti-earth, anti-solar system, anti-galaxy and even anti-universe?Of course, there are too many people who do this idea and dare to do it arbitrarily without credible theory support. I remember my daughter was fascinated by Fujiko Fujio’s Tinker Bell (now named Doraemon by the Japanese side) when she was a child. One of them Then Nobita (Nobita Shinta) and Tinker Bell boarded the spaceship taken out of the four-dimensional space pocket, and accidentally landed on a planet whose everything is exactly opposite to the earth. There came out a Nobita wearing a skirt, and everyone shouted. He's a genius-

In this way, we can somewhat understand why physicists want to make such a dramatic claim: Maybe, in the opposite corner of the universe, or even in another so-called anti-universe, there is a Taj Mahal of pure black marble, right? ! If this kind of "thinking in the opposite direction" belongs to a certain degree of human nature, it must also be reflected in the vast universe of criminal reasoning. In other words, since there are so many people who write about detectives who solve crimes, there must be someone who writes about criminals who commit crimes. Why is it generally only to the level of thieves?Why not just write about the criminal who committed the murder instead?In fact, of course there are, such as Kane's famous book "The Postman Always Rings the Bell Twice", but one thing is very important, just as the imagination of physicists must be constrained by physical theories, detective novels also have their disadvantages. Too much violation of norms, the most fundamental point of which we can call "readers' basic expectation of justice" - the core character in detective mystery novels, ordinary readers can tolerate him more or less as being rough or cowardly or perverted It is not perfect, and even violates the basic laws and moral standards of society to a considerable extent, but in the end that bit of justice is still unwilling to give up.

Generally speaking, it is not easy for cold-blooded murderers to hold on to this final bottom line, but thieves can. How can it be done?In fact, it is quite simple. In the long history of mankind, many people have discovered early on that the party responsible for maintaining the existing order often does not represent justice, but even greater injustice.As far as China is concerned, at least until the Spring and Autumn Period, the old Confucius, who we used to call a sage, had the so-called "bangyoudao" and "bangwudao", and he further clearly extended that when "bangwudao" Those who choose to stand on the side of those in power are unrighteous and shameful; on the Greek side, the most famous discussion is Plato's. The dialogue started with the definition of "justice". The reason why Socrates in the book The reason why he took such pains to construct an ideal country in line with justice is because he wanted to refute Thrasymachus’ statement that “justice is the right of the strong”—in other words, countries in the real world are very likely to be unjust. The laws and moral norms used to maintain the country are equally likely to be unrighteous.

Similarly, religion is also very likely to be unrighteous, if we have read a little bit of medieval history—or at least cared about the actual situation in Taiwan over the years. When the party that maintains the established order is the "bad guy", based on the simple principle that "the opposite of injustice is justice", these thieves and robbers who are empty-handed and even robbed their homes and thus provoke and shake the established order, become criminals on the spot. The merciful saint in wolf's clothing—this is the 18 heroes of Liang Shanbo, Robin Hood, and Arsen Robin.

Of course, it is not difficult for prudent people to discover in the real human history that the principles of negative and negative are not often established in the reality of life, and the opposite of injustice is mostly injustice, or even worse. Great injustice—that's right, but let's just leave this true and sadly dull discovery in the reality of life where it belongs.Where we are now, basically by the fireside after dinner, at the head of the bed before going to bed, and under the cool starry sky on a summer night, we are not completely ignorant of the reality of life, in fact we have only just learned from there. Coming back from being exhausted, we intentionally want to leave by ourselves, talk to each other about some pleasant things, and hope to have a good dream after falling asleep later, do you really think that we will be so stupid that we can’t figure ourselves out like Zhuangzi? Is dreaming true or false?

Generally speaking, thieves have many essential advantages compared to detectives who guard stubborn and rigid justice: thieves are more chic, freer, and more gorgeous, and they simply bring back the characteristics of early adventure novels for urbanized detective and reasoning novels. A mysterious and vast interest. These innate advantages are the only reason why Arson Robin can roughly compete with Sherlock Holmes. The sophistication and sophistication of the novels, and so on, for all the points by which we can measure the success or failure of novels, the novels of Arthan Robin are far from rivals of the novels of Sherlock Holmes, and no reviewer in history has regarded these two groups of novels as equals. Things on the same level, however, these facts don't prevent there are plenty of people who prefer Arsen Robin - just because the thief is more "charming".

How charming?Although Sherlock Holmes is portrayed as a private detective who is born with pride, can compete with princes and nobles with a commoner, and is basically only guided by his own conscience and justice, he is still a gentleman and can only do what a gentleman can do (probably except using cocaine, but this adds nothing romantic, only psychological imagination).Arsen Robin is different, he came from the "other side", he came and went without a trace, he completely canceled all the rigid laws, false moral codes and status etiquette, and freely penetrated through the royal family , prisons, and all the walls of the houses of the rich.His transparency and fluidity flattened these layers of isolation and alienation society that prevented us from breathing and seeing the sunrise and sunset of the horizon into a vast land again, calling out how much each of us hides deep inside. This kind of anarchic longing for freedom (regardless of what political ideas you believe in intellectually), and a sense of comfort that all beings are equal, is the most instinctive nostalgia for being born.

The wonderful thing is that for an omnipotent thief, the equality he accomplished is not the kind of smashed-up anarchists, which seems to be indelible, dilapidated and poor, which makes people suspicious, but a kind of dream-like The luck and prosperity that fell from the sky—he kept throwing gems, pearls and gold coins into the bowls of beggars, into the hands of widows, and into the homes of every kind and gloomy family in the slums. The lightless world instantly glows with the warm color of happiness and happiness. In this wonderful world of thieves, there is no inflation problem of excess money supply, no problem of effective vocational training for long-term poverty eradication, and no basic economic problem of scarcity and scarcity of resources.In his imagination, the human world is rich enough, and the general poverty comes from the greedy possession of a few "upper class" people. As long as the wealth and treasures hoarded by these people are released, the spring breeze will naturally thaw, and the warmth and smiles will naturally fill the world. He is a great resource allocator and the most efficient one-person social welfare and insurance assistance system in the human world.

By comparison, what can that poor Brit Holmes do?Isn't it just passively catching prisoners and beating flies and mosquitoes?You see, once the criminal is lurking, doesn't he have nothing to do but live on drugs and blame himself?Yes, his fee is not low compared to the average person, but to put it bluntly, how much can it be?I gave the old beggar at the entrance of the alley more than that. Of course, he would occasionally come across priceless emeralds, crowns, black pearls, etc., but what's the use?Afterwards, shouldn't the property be returned to the original owner, obediently sent back to the white hands of those princes and ladies? If you have freedom but do not violate the rules, if you have goods, you can buy anything, if you have equality and everyone is honest and kind, and more importantly, all the women you meet here are beautiful, intelligent, and kind, but strangely innocent—— A heavenly dream world not created by God but stolen by thieves. But such a "sweet and beautiful" world, people with a little knowledge or reason will not believe it is true, just like you must know that to have a good hot pot soup base, you have to use bones (beef bones, pork bones) bone, chicken bone, or even add rishiri kombu, dried saury, etc., as you see on Japanese ramen shows) take time to cook, can't just rudely pour a bottle of cheap kimchi; you know There must be fraud in that kind of tempting job that requires no experience, no education, no need to work from 9 to 5 and easily earn 200,000 a month. The world of genre novels can be fake, dreamy, and bragging, but readers still have a ruler in their hearts, the ruler of reality, which is stacked with all their complete or broken knowledge, information, impressions and even breaths about the world of life. It is formed and internalized into a natural feeling when reading. It is not someone who deliberately makes trouble for others or makes trouble for himself-you can ask Freud, how can there be any dream that does not leave real elements? The trouble is, whether we like it or not, humans do increase our knowledge of reality and our penetration of the mysteries every moment of the day, largely heeding Max Weber's famous "disenchantment" of explorers and scientific work Those who go to the mountains and seas will make our blue asteroid have no "secret land" on the surface (our domestic "bard" Luo Zhicheng has successfully set foot on the South Pole); The secrets of the body can be dug out (we have all seen the affair and nude photos of Jacqueline Kennedy and Princess Diana, may they both rest in peace); the introduction of major museums and Sotheby's auction not only let us know the true nature of Pokémon Its worth also lets us know its property ownership -- what a boring world, isn't it?In such a world, even if you steal the world's largest diamond "African Star" on the King's Watts, besides turning on a small light every night and secretly hiding under the covers and admiring it repeatedly to make yourself feel good, what else can you do? To whom?Do you have the heart to cut it?Even if you have the heart, can you do such a hard thing? A long time ago, some Japanese literary critics lamented: the shrinking of Japanese literary creativity (indeed, it has shrunk beyond human form, if we have read more or less Japanese literary works in the past two decades), the main reason is that there are no more secrets in this society—— If you are not too picky, this kind of emotion is more or less correct. A large number of literary achievements in the second half of the 20th century are concentrated in Central and South America, Eastern Europe and even Africa. Feeling that the tribes are constantly being wiped out, we don't know how long these fertile lands can last without desertification like today's Western Europe, the United States and Japan. The dream worlds of Robin Hood and Arson Robin are getting ridiculously fake. The boundaries of the great kingdom of thieves in the past must be adjusted to move closer to the real world. Without this necessary compromise, the unrestrained, free, gorgeous and mysterious adventures that have made countless readers yearn for in the past will lose their credibility. Disappeared as a whole, only to be used to deceive children who don't know the world - today, the stories of Robin Hood and Arthan Robin have basically become children's books, comics and cartoons, which is no accident, meaning that they are no longer Part of an adult fairy tale any more. Moving closer to reality in order to preserve the fairytale - so the elegant New York thief Bernie Rodenbaud officially enters the scene. What is true elegance?My personal definition is that smartness plus real integrity and kindness, the rest is not that much help or hindrance. It doesn't matter if you are poor, as long as you are not so poor that you have to do sympathetic injustices in order to survive-Rodenbar is not a wealthy thief, but he is like a farmer in normal seasons. Will eat the spring as seeds for replanting, and in his ordinary New York abode, forever keep a fake passport and thousands of dollars in necessary cash, in the hope that one day the unfortunate wind will make him run away. It doesn't matter if you are timid, as long as you are not so timid as Taiwan's usually majestic and cowardly representatives of public opinion, official consortiums, scholars and cultural people, you don't have to keep doing it until you survive. There is no sympathy for infidelity -- Rodden Barr is a cowardly thief. He is afraid of knives, guns, and all weapons that can injure and kill people. In prison.In the criminal case that he was accidentally involved in, he had to find a way to assist the police in solving the case and arrest the real culprit. Of course, it was mainly for self-help, but at the most fundamental level, we still see the moving spirit inspired by his chivalrous inability to fully retreat. courage. And Mr. Rodenbaud is the most peaceful thief at the same time. Even the police who technically sometimes have to suspect that he is a murder suspect believe that he actually does not hurt anyone—not only does he not hurt anyone, he does not hurt any living things, just like As he himself said, the only thing he has killed in his life is time; as he himself said, of course he also tried his best to spray insecticides to prevent cockroaches and bedbugs, but this should be morally different from killing them directly. difference. Mr. Rodenbaud is also the smartest thief, and I don't mean that he can solve the case cleverly and get out of trouble every time (you can see this as a necessary general rule of detective novels to some extent), but his humor and Funny, and his endlessly amusing conversations with Catherine, the short lesbian who owned his pet shop and would become his partner, the kind of humor and slapstick that are essential to all good writing (tragedy included) , like Italy through the lens of Di Sica or Fellini, or New York through the lens of Woody Allen. Burglars can&t be choosers, thieves who have no choice, thieves who cannot help themselves, thieves who are destined to be thieves, thieves who are born-even if they are so smart, upright, timid, and peaceful, he is still a thief, a man who walks in life all the time The thief of the border is full of dangers, but as Mr. Rodenbaud said to himself, how can you keep the fish from swimming and the birds from flying?