No Joy in Puzzleville
Socrates believed that education consists of extracting knowledge already inborn within all of us. This may be spiritual claptrap, but it’s a comforting sentiment and it feels nice to say it. And we get that same nice feeling whenever we are challenged by a difficult puzzle.
The New York Times crossword is not only the most difficult puzzle in American newspapers, it is also the most joyful. Those two things go together. The idioms, the wit, the broad cultural literacy required to solve it—all of these elements combine to create an exhilarating Aha! experience. It comforts us because it reminds us of things we already know, things deep inside us we feel we’ve known since before we were born.
The puzzle this past Friday was more difficult than usual. Under normal circumstances that would simply mean more time, greater focus, and, in the end, a more deeply satisfying experience. Something was different this time, though, and I wasn’t the only one to notice. A lunch companion asked, “Hey Dean, what was wrong with today’s puzzle?” The answer that jumped first to my lips: “It was joyless.”
First, there was ETATIST. Who says that? The English word is “statist.” Then came FOSDICK. Fosdick? And then LIBERTYPOLE. Huh? These are words that I and everyone I know would never, ever use. I wondered if they were provided by some crossword compiling software. It seemed as if the puzzle was obscure for the sake of difficulty, rather than difficult for the sake of satisfaction. The whole affair was less Aha! and more Wha?
I don’t intend to disparage the constructor. After all, contributors to the Times online forum expressed how happy they were with the challenge. And so I’m forced to come to unflattering conclusions about myself. Perhaps the joylessness of last Friday’s experience means that I have become one of those people who want to be reinforced in who they have been rather than to be stretched into becoming someone new. That’s the first sign of losing the battle of being alive. My hypothesis will be confirmed should I ever tune the radio to an oldies station.
The New York Times crossword is not only the most difficult puzzle in American newspapers, it is also the most joyful. Those two things go together. The idioms, the wit, the broad cultural literacy required to solve it—all of these elements combine to create an exhilarating Aha! experience. It comforts us because it reminds us of things we already know, things deep inside us we feel we’ve known since before we were born.
The puzzle this past Friday was more difficult than usual. Under normal circumstances that would simply mean more time, greater focus, and, in the end, a more deeply satisfying experience. Something was different this time, though, and I wasn’t the only one to notice. A lunch companion asked, “Hey Dean, what was wrong with today’s puzzle?” The answer that jumped first to my lips: “It was joyless.”
First, there was ETATIST. Who says that? The English word is “statist.” Then came FOSDICK. Fosdick? And then LIBERTYPOLE. Huh? These are words that I and everyone I know would never, ever use. I wondered if they were provided by some crossword compiling software. It seemed as if the puzzle was obscure for the sake of difficulty, rather than difficult for the sake of satisfaction. The whole affair was less Aha! and more Wha?
I don’t intend to disparage the constructor. After all, contributors to the Times online forum expressed how happy they were with the challenge. And so I’m forced to come to unflattering conclusions about myself. Perhaps the joylessness of last Friday’s experience means that I have become one of those people who want to be reinforced in who they have been rather than to be stretched into becoming someone new. That’s the first sign of losing the battle of being alive. My hypothesis will be confirmed should I ever tune the radio to an oldies station.
posted by DO at 9:58 AM
6 Comments:
I don't know what a "liberty pole" is (or at least I didn't before I Googled it), and I didn't solve that puzzle so I don't know how FOSDICK was clued, but I well remember "Fearless Fosdick" from Li'l Abner (it was a comic-within-a-comic, a Dick Tracy parody).
I think "liberty pole" is an okay entry, even though I had to look it up; I don't mind learning words like that in puzzles. I really don't like "etatist" as an entry, though, even though I'm looking right at it in the dictionary. I mean, in an abstract way I like learning that there are fucked-up French words we've kept in the dictionary all this time, but that's somehow NOT the kind of word I like learning from doing the crossword. It's hard to put my finger on the difference. As for "Fosdick," well, that's one of those entries where, if it's part of your cultural vocabulary, you smile and put it in the grid and feel pleased with yourself, and if it's not, you get it from the crossings and you feel irritated the whole time.
I never constructed themelesses, but I'm familiar with the constraints on them, and I have to wonder if there was anything else going on in the grid that made up for there being the sort of stuff that made you and your lunch companion unhappy with it? Stacked long entries, a tiny number of entries, some really clever long entries, anything that would offset crap like "etatist"?
Your thoughts on how the puzzle brings our core knowledge to our fingertips are pretty interesting, in light of the controversy that ensued when Will took over editing the puzzle. Were you solving it then? There were a LOT of unhappy longtime solvers.
Yes, I was solving the puzzle in the Maleska days. When Will Shortz took over, it was like that moment in The Wizard of Oz that switches from black & white to color. It wasn't until then that I realized just how much Maleska's puzzles required a level of arcana that simply does not intersect with real life. In the old days, I just assumed that puzzles were supposed to piss you off and make you feel small and out of it. Friday's puzzle was slightly Maleskish.
Yeah, some people used to really like those filled-with-obscurities Maleska puzzles and have never really gotten behind the common-words-clued-in-sneaky-ways style favored by Will. I've done Eric Berlin's puzzles before (and he is a friend of mine...but then, I do know a high percentage of the crossword constructors in the world at least casually, so this shouldn't be surprising) and don't consider Maleskity one of his usual traits, but I guess I have to try Friday's puzzle now.
That "anonymous" comment was by me. No idea why it didn't accept my name and web page.
The Shortz era means occasionally resorting to obscurity to otherwise save an interesting grid fill, because sacrificing the entire puzzle for one word would be a shame. It also means lively entries from all over, from classical literature to rap music.
During the Maleska era, esoterica was the rule of the day, and pop culture? Fuggedabouddit.
I wasn't crazy about ETATIST, but it's the kind of word that when you look at the answer you can mske out how it was derived. And Fearless Fosdick was a hilarious strip; I got that one pretty quickly. I don't think you can call out the Maleska dogs on this one.
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