What makes puzzles so alluring? A.J. Jacobs looks for clues
Perhaps it’s fitting that the new book by A.J. Jacobs is missing a piece. For “The Puzzler,” he’s diligently explored the world of Rubik’s Cubes, crosswords and Sudokus. He’s logged hours in the air, recruiting his family to represent the United States in Spain at the world jigsaw championship. (Team Jacobs came in second to last.) He’s constructed and competed in scavenger hunts and talked chess with Garry Kasparov. Yet his sprightly, farreaching book was completed too late to make much room for Wordle, the puzzle phenomenon that went viral in late 2021. Nothing has helped us find our covid-era Zen, it seems, quite like spending a few minutes every day looking for a secret fiveletter word.
Even without Wordle, there’s room for a book like this from Jacobs, who specializes in stunt titles like 2004’s “The Know-It-All” (for which he read an encyclopedia) or 2012’s “Drop Dead Healthy” (about his pursuit of optimal fitness). The fans of games like Wordle - for which the New York Times paid a reported seven figures in January are clearly seeking something. But what? I’m not sure myself, and I’ve long been among the seekers. I complete at least four crosswords daily, plus Spelling Bee and Wordle (and occasionally its mean cousins Quordle and Octordle). Finishing a Saturday crossword in under 10 minutes gives me a ridiculously deep sense of pleasure; my ongoing haplessness at cryptics wounds my ego. “The Puzzler” recognizes and celebrates the frustration and obsession.
But explaining that obsession is a little tougher, and though Jacobs doesn’t avoid trying, he’s mostly here to have fun. He’s mastered an avuncular, jokey, at times corny tone: Heading to Spain for the jigsaw contest, he quips that “speed-solving jigsaws sounded weird and paradoxical, like a yoga tournament or a napping derby.” And his choices in topics often spotlight the more peculiar examples in the puzzle world: the person who can finish a Rubik’s Cube in a second using his feet, the owner of a heart-crushingly difficult Vermont corn maze, and puzzlers like Jim Sanborn, the creator of Kryptos, a 1990 sculpture in a courtyard at CIA headquarters. It contains a code that’s yet to be completely cracked. When Jacobs tells a Kryptos message board he’s visiting the sculpture, the solvers have absurdly picayune requests. “Look for odd-colored patches of grass,” one suggests.
The puzzle-world pros that Jacobs interviews have a few ideas about their fixations. Sometimes it’s a craving for simplicity: “Life is a puzzle,” crossword constructor Peter Gordon tells him. “With crosswords, there is one correct answer.” Sometimes it’s escape: One competitive jigsaw-er says, “I prefer solving jigsaw puzzles to solving people puzzles. The pieces don’t talk back.” Sometimes it’s selfimprovement: “There is so much faulty thinking, and puzzles can help us think better,” says math and logic-puzzle pro Tanya Khovanova.
Jacobs is particularly enchanted with that puzzling-as-self-improvement theme. “Puzzles can make us better people,” he asserts.