shlevy

I’m enjoying Unsong quite a bit, but I have to say its quality of, for lack of a better term, deliberate nerdsnipery turns me off some. I’m fine when catching some subtle reference or figuring out a narratively significant fact from little clues acts as a little extra whipped cream on an otherwise delicious literary sundae, but Unsong feels set up to make trying to solve all the mysteries, catch all the hints, and disambiguate all the references a central component of the reading experience (a feeling confirmed by the fandom I’ve seen in the comments and tumblr posts here and there).

I’ve never really liked riddles. They’re artificial in ways that make them significantly different both from intellectual problem solving when no other agents are involved and from genuine interactions with a possibly untrustworthy agent. The trickery with words, phrasing that would absolutely be considered lying in normal contexts and is obviously intended to give the wrong impression while remaining technically true, the deliberate obfuscation of certain relevant facts to make the task hard enough combined with the deliberate revelation to make the task possible, and the general sense that a good riddle is one that makes both the riddler and the successful riddled feel particularly clever (and possibly a little subversive/smart-assed?) combine to make a game I just don’t want to play. It feels like an archetypal arms race: riddlers and riddled develop more and more sophisticated tricks, frameworks, etc. that don’t help with anything but winning the game. And there’s something off-putting to me personally about temporarily treating friends and loved ones as untrustworthy/to be outsmarted (I similarly don’t like games with bluffing).

This is a hugely personal preference, of course. There’s not anything wrong with liking riddles. It just means certain things are not for me. And there’s enough of a story enjoyable on other terms in Unsong for me. But I wish this aspect were toned down some.