The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life is the newest effort by author and human lab-rat A.J. Jacobs. After previously attempting such feats as reading the entire Oxford English Dictionary and spending an entire year living by all of the precepts of The Bible, here Jacobs takes a crack at learning about humanity through the unlikely prism of puzzles. Are they just time-wasters or do they have something profound to say about the way our minds work?
Jacobs introduces himself as a keen but novice puzzler, the kind of person who does the New York Times crossword occasionally but is by no means a pro. However, after the unexpected high of appearing in the crossword himself, albeit as a difficult Saturday clue, he begins to take up the puzzle more seriously. Soon he is branching out to other word games and brain-teasers.
The book is structured methodically, with each chapter focusing on a different style of puzzle followed by some representative samples. In each chapter Jacobs sets his sights not just on learning about that particular puzzle but on mastering it by solving the most difficult example he can find. He introduces the reader to several experts and through interviewing them examines what makes the puzzle work and what makes them invest so much time on it. Jacobs talks to Rubik’s cube speed-solvers, chess champions, corn-maze operators, and Japanese puzzle-box constructors.
Jacobs is obsessed with difficulty. He relishes in attempting the nearly impossible, like the hardest British-style cryptic crosswords, jigsaws with tens of thousands of pieces, and Medieval riddles that have stumped scholars for centuries. He also takes on the legendary Kryptos, a cipher encoded on an art installation at CIA headquarters that no one has been able to crack for over 30 years.
Confession time: while I read the whole book, I have not finished The Puzzler. In addition to the sample puzzles at the end of each chapter, there is also a puzzle contest attached to the end of the book with 20 different puzzles for the reader to solve, leading to an ultimate solution. In addition to that there is apparently a hidden message in the book’s introduction leading to a password to an online site featuring even more puzzles and a chance to win $10,000.
I have to admit I found a lot of the contest puzzles impenetrable. Even the puzzle types I’m best at proved frustrating. I solved the crossword, kenken and sudoku quite easily, but each has some kind of meta-puzzle included that’s supposed to lead to a code word and I’m absolutely stumped there. Other puzzles I could barely get started on before running into a brick wall. It was kind of a sour note to go out on. As for the $10,000 contest I basically decided to punt because that’s the kind of thing I know I’m terrible at.
While it was interesting to meet the champion puzzlers and puzzle-makers that Jacobs encounters, his obsession with difficulty was a little wearying and, in my opinion, got in the way of actually learning about the puzzles. But maybe I’d feel different if I was better at solving them.