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Fwd: Pale Fire Puzzling
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I just read the Preamble to Perec's _Life, A User's Manual_ and found
it most appropriate to a reading of _Pale Fire_.
The entire Preamble can be found here:
http://www.roland-schluetter.de/puzzles.asp
Here is a portion:
"The art of jigsaw puzzling begins with wooden puzzles cut by hand,
whose maker undertakes to ask himself all the questions the player will
have to solve, and, instead of allowing chance to cover his tracks,
aims to replace it with cunning, trickery, and subterfuge. All the
elements occurring in the image to be reassembled - this armchair
covered in gold brocade, that three-pointed black hat with its rather
ruined black plume, or that solver-braided bright yellow livery - serve
by design as points of departure for trails that lead to false
information. The organised, coherent, structured signifying space of
the picture is cut up not only into inert, formless elements containing
little information or signifying power, but also into falsified
elements, carrying false information; two fragments of cornice made to
fit each other perfectly when they belong in fact to two quite separate
sections of the ceiling, the belt buckle of a uniform which turns out
in extremis to be a metal clasp holding the chandelier, several almost
identically cut pieces belonging, for one part, to a dwarf orange tree
placed on a mantelpiece and, for the other part, to its scarcely
attenuated reflection in a mirror, are classic examples o f the types
of traps puzzle-lovers come across.
From this, one can make a deduction which is quite certainly the
ultimate truth of jigsaw puzzles: despite appearances, puzzling is not
a solitary game: every move the puzzler makes, the puzzle-maker has
made before; every piece the puzzler picks up, and picks up again, and
studies and strokes, every combination he tries, and tries a second
time, every blunder and every insight, each hope and each
discouragement have all been designed, calculated, and decided by the
other."
----- End forwarded message -----
it most appropriate to a reading of _Pale Fire_.
The entire Preamble can be found here:
http://www.roland-schluetter.de/puzzles.asp
Here is a portion:
"The art of jigsaw puzzling begins with wooden puzzles cut by hand,
whose maker undertakes to ask himself all the questions the player will
have to solve, and, instead of allowing chance to cover his tracks,
aims to replace it with cunning, trickery, and subterfuge. All the
elements occurring in the image to be reassembled - this armchair
covered in gold brocade, that three-pointed black hat with its rather
ruined black plume, or that solver-braided bright yellow livery - serve
by design as points of departure for trails that lead to false
information. The organised, coherent, structured signifying space of
the picture is cut up not only into inert, formless elements containing
little information or signifying power, but also into falsified
elements, carrying false information; two fragments of cornice made to
fit each other perfectly when they belong in fact to two quite separate
sections of the ceiling, the belt buckle of a uniform which turns out
in extremis to be a metal clasp holding the chandelier, several almost
identically cut pieces belonging, for one part, to a dwarf orange tree
placed on a mantelpiece and, for the other part, to its scarcely
attenuated reflection in a mirror, are classic examples o f the types
of traps puzzle-lovers come across.
From this, one can make a deduction which is quite certainly the
ultimate truth of jigsaw puzzles: despite appearances, puzzling is not
a solitary game: every move the puzzler makes, the puzzle-maker has
made before; every piece the puzzler picks up, and picks up again, and
studies and strokes, every combination he tries, and tries a second
time, every blunder and every insight, each hope and each
discouragement have all been designed, calculated, and decided by the
other."
----- End forwarded message -----