to jack

Thoughts after reading "White Noise"

"White Noise" represents a frequency that is difficult for the human ear to receive. Human beings are not aware of it, but this sound is omnipresent and approaching, like death and fear. It also symbolizes the hollowness of the value of human existence in a society with an explosion of media information.

▲"White Noise" book and video.

"White Noise" author profile
Don DeLillo was born in New York in 1936 to an Italian-Catholic family. Attended Fordham University in New York. DeLillo is the author of numerous books and has received numerous awards. "White Noise" published in 1985 is his most famous masterpiece and is hailed as the pinnacle of postmodernist literature; critics call it a "postmodern elegy" and the American version of the "Book of the Dead". Chinese version The guide Nanfang Shuo called it "a new classic of postmodern death fear."

"Fear has many eyes and can see what is beneath the earth." - "Don Quixote"

Hidden worries in the ordinary

Dear Jack, as the male protagonist in "White Noise", what do we see in your eyes?

You are middle class and wear the aura of a high-level intellectual. As a university professor, you live in "Blacksmith Town" in the middle of the United States. You are the head of the "Hitler Studies Department" at the town's "College on the Hill". You have a stable income, a safe living environment, and a well-off and ordinary family.

With a record of five marriages, your family is a model of postmodern American "reorganized families"; you live with your current wife, Babe, and your four children from multiple marriages. Although adolescent children are difficult to deal with, you pride yourself on being open-minded and able to accept diverse opinions; you often use the "ritual" of watching TV together on weekends to unite the family. You are also a generous father who understands the indispensable spiritual significance of "consumption" in postmodernism. Shopping at your leisure can bring a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction to your family. Your family, your job, and your life couldn't be more ordinary or more stable.

However, I see fear in your eyes, like a looming dark cloud. Jack, you are afraid of death.

You and your wife, Babe, are both afraid of death. The most common conversation among you is: "Which of us will die first?" You have an inexplicable fear of "death". You both want to die before the other, and don't want to be the one left to suffer alone. As an intellectual, Jack, you understand that everyone is mortal. But you just can't be rational in the face of death. Your wife also said that everyone will die, but "I just don't want to be afraid."

▲"White Noise" represents a frequency that is difficult for the human ear to receive.

See yourself through the mirror of story

Dear Jack, as a reader and an audience before a play, I feel like I am looking in a mirror. In your eyes, I see the reflection of the world in me. See the living beings in post-modern society and read about their worldview. Occasionally, when I glance out of the corner of my eye, I seem to be able to see my own figure swaying and wandering.

The small town where you live was forced to evacuate due to an accident of a tanker truck on the highway, causing the "Neodin" poison gas to leak. You are carrying a whole family and are stuck in a traffic jam. On the way, you get off the car to refuel. For just two and a half minutes, you are exposed to colorless, odorless but poisonous air. "Only inhaling a small amount of Neodin, the seeds of death are implanted in my body. Death already exists in my body. The only question now is whether I can survive it."

In the real world, Jack, a virus called COVID-19 was like a dark and thick paint can that was overturned and the entire earth was instantly blackened. Silent viruses can lie dormant in anyone's body and attack at any time. From Asia, Europe, and then the Americas... it began to spread regardless of race, nationality, or class. Now, in the real world, we are also racing against the epidemic. We wanted to know: Is there a way science can beat it? Is there any way the economy can outperform it? Is there any way politics can outperform it? Is there any way human nature can outperform it?

The sense of security gained through consumption

We use various methods to resist the disaster and panic caused by the epidemic. You spend and shop to fill the hole left by the beast of fear. In the spacious and bright shopping mall, you and your family shop around, shopping for immediate needs and future possibilities. You say, "My sense of worth and self-esteem began to expand. I felt filled up, and I discovered new qualities about myself, and found a person I had forgotten about who actually existed." Crisis tests human nature. In the real world, we also use various methods to buy security.

When people cannot prevent death from plundering, they rely on constant possession to resist its attack. From the shortage of masks at the beginning, to the shortage of hand sanitizer and toilet paper... until all the shelves in hypermarkets and supermarkets were wiped out. Those who are strong and have full wallets are striding forward pushing full shopping carts, like soldiers returning in triumph with their trophies; those with white hair and chicken skin and shy bags are holding baskets on the empty shelves. They staggered around, like the remnants of people who had been washed away by the war, living in panic.

The beast of fear is gestating inside you, growing tentacles, grabbing all kinds of external information, rumors, fake news..., feeding itself, and growing stronger day by day. As long as the fear of death exists in human genes, there will always be room for this beast to survive.

Staying away is a way to escape fear

You said: "That night, another Friday night, we gathered in front of the TV as usual and ate take-out Chinese food. There were floods, earthquakes, landslides and volcanic eruptions on the TV. Despite the family activities on Friday night It's just routine, but we've never been more focused... Every disaster makes us greedier, waiting for the next bigger, more devastating event to happen. "This is another way you eliminate the fear of death. Try─as death gets closer to others, it gets further away from you.

When the epidemic began to break out in a city in China, we on the other side of the world began to repost, take screenshots, and re-create various information and news on the Internet. It seems that only in this way, the fear of death no longer has nothing to rely on and no reference. Every time I refresh the screen, it's like swimming in the overflowing flood, floating and sinking. Among all the noise of words, where can we find the quiet whispers of peace of mind? Where is the life-saving rope to help us escape from the disaster?

▲Due to the panic caused by the epidemic, many people have gone shopping and stocked up to fill their gradually lost sense of security.

Survivor Theory and Religious Answers

Your wife is so afraid of death that she sells her body without telling you in exchange for the banned drug "Dai Le" that can suppress her fear. After you found out, you found the man who developed "Dale" and shot him.

Are you just jealous? Or do you want to try the "cannibal theory" that your colleague Murray told you? Two options, the murderer or the dead: "If he is the dead person, then of course you are the living person. Killing one person is equivalent to adding a point to your life; the more people you kill, the more points you accumulate. The number is more.”

But you didn't become a murderer after all. You take the man you shot to a Catholic hospital for emergency treatment. There you meet a nun and ask her, "What does the church say today about heaven?" You wonder whether religious faith can save you from the fear of death.

Unexpectedly, the answer given by the nun with a wrinkled, old and shriveled face will surprise you: "Do you think we people are stupid?" You thought, "Nuns believe these things. Whenever we see nuns, we feel happy and cute." And a sense of joy, because they remind us that there are still people today who believe in angels, believe in saints, and all that traditional stuff.”

But the nun's answer disappoints you: "People without faith need people with faith." The icon is "hanged for others." You want to find a refuge in faith that can save you from the fear of death. You hope that even if you don't believe it, as long as someone believes that death is not the final end, it is possible to defeat the beast of fear...

Jack, your conversation with the nun made me think: me as a Christian. Are you ready to talk to unbelievers? I found myself and sentient beings suddenly far away and sometimes close, and their images intertwined and overlapped. If you are afraid, I may be too. At this time when the epidemic is spreading and people are panicking, how can I be the light and salt and give you what I have but you don’t have?

In your world, God does not exist, and people are their own masters. You can define life on your own terms and decide how to live it. But no matter how you live, the final outcome is death. So you are afraid of death. If you look into the root cause, you still don’t know why you were born and why you want to live? Also, what happens after death?

▲The epidemic will eventually end, but death is not the end. What lasts forever now is faith, hope, and love. (Photography: Su Wenzhe)

If you don’t know death, how can you know life?

Jack, the social phenomena you experienced are projected into the real world and are still ongoing today. There is not much difference between the world you and I live in. We are both a world full of noise. The noisy operation of technological products, the chatter of media programs and advertisements, the noise of consumption and shopping, the absurd discussions in academic halls... All kinds of sounds mix into white noise, coming from all directions, trying to destroy us. Jack, your story reminds me what kind of main melody Christians in the Internet age should use to sing to the world; how Christians behind the keyboard can penetrate the white noise and make the truth message sound not harsh but The sound comes in, and the lingering sound lingers?

You feel sad for humanity and for the strange role you played in this disaster. Jack, how I hope that there is someone in your world who can tell you with confidence: "Don't be afraid!" How I hope that this person can make you understand that our existence is not accidental, but a matter of love. reasons. We are not living without a purpose in this world; we are not just cells evolving randomly and meaninglessly. Before we were born, we were already loved and cared for.

How I hope, Jack, that the person you met in the hospital was not the old nun who only regards religion as "other people's opium" and sees herself as a "religious actor" who plays for unbelievers. How I wish that at that time, a Christian who had experienced true love could reach out to you with warm hands, pray for you, open the Bible in his hand, and tell you that Jesus loves you.

Jack, if you were in my world, I hope I'd be ready to talk to you. I want to tell you that there is a God in this world and He loves us. Whether it’s the threat of a virus or the threat of poisonous gas, nothing can separate us from God’s love. You can safely bring your fears to Him.

I sincerely hope that, Jack, you still have a chance to see the true light and remove the darkness of fear. The epidemic will eventually end, but death is not the end. What lasts now is faith, hope, and love. In the real world, I also pray that I am not a spreader of the epidemic, but a spreader of love.

Zien, co-worker of "Genesis Literary Training Bookstore". I wrote compositions when I was young, and articles when I grew up. I used to write for myself, but now I give the pen to God. Cooking words to quench hunger cannot bring real spiritual satiety, but I would like to contribute five loaves and two fishes and bake word cookies to "appetite" readers, and then be willing to come into contact with the truth of faith and taste the taste of the Lord's grace.