EXPRESS YOURSELF
The Manufacture of Mystery
Writing the unexplainable
A puzzle has a solution and wants to be solved. A mystery has a solution but doesn’t want to be solved. An enigma doesn’t have a solution and doesn’t want to be solved.
As children we love a puzzle. Be that a wooden one with slide-together pieces or one of the puzzle books with fun stories and fiendish conundrums inside. The result of completing a puzzle is the satisfying ‘click’ of logic, the ringing chime of a solution as the elements come together to create the whole picture and reveal an answer. Because fundamentally this is what we want, the bell-like ring of an answer. Like Pavlov’s dog the ringing bell is what we crave, not the nourishment. Puzzles are designed this way. The answer is in mind when the puzzle is created, and you want people to arrive at the solution as if finding it naturally but there will always be the guiding hand. The shapes on the edges of the pieces, the clues that are connected by a gossamer thread of reason. The design of the puzzle implies reason, leading to an end that is ultimately curated. Like a magic trick that you are privy to the working of, there is an excitement to the conclusion of a puzzle as you glimpse the thread as it catches the light and you tumble toward its end. In the end, it is a game, a blueprint of another’s mind. A puzzle…
