A Muse and a Maze: Writing as Puzzle, Mystery, and Magic

by Peter Turchi

With his characteristic talent for finding the connections between writing and the stuff of our lives (most notably in his earlier hit Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer ), Peter Turchi ventures into new, and even more surprising, territory. In A Muse and a Maze , Turchi draws out the similarities between writing and puzzle-making and its flip side, puzzle-solving. He teases out how mystery lies at the heart of all storytelling. And he uncovers the magic—the creation of credible illusion—that writers share with the likes of Houdini and master magicians.

In Turchi’s associative narrative, we learn about the history of puzzles, their obsessive quality, and that Benjamin Franklin was a devotee of an ancient precursor of sudoku called Magic Squares. Applying this rich backdrop to the requirements of writing, Turchi reveals as much about the human psyche as he does about the literary imagination and the creative process.

With the goal of giving writers new ways to think about their work and readers new ways to consider the books they encounter, A Muse and a Maze suggests ways in which every piece of writing is a kind of puzzle. The work argues that literary writing is defined, at least in part, by its embrace of mystery; offers tangrams as a model for the presentation of complex characters; compares a writer’s relationship to his or her narrator to magicians and wizards; offers the maze and the labyrinth as alternatives to the more common notion of the narrative line; and concludes with a discussion of how readers and writers, like puzzle solvers, not only tolerate but find pleasure in difficulty.

While always balancing erudition with accessibility, Turchi examines the work of writers as various as A. A. Milne, Dashiell Hammett, Truman Capote, Anton Chekhov, Alison Bechdel, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Antonya Nelson, Vladimir Nabokov, Charles D’Ambrosio, Michael Ondaatje, Alice Munro, Thomas Bernhard, and Mark Twain, elaborating and illuminating ways in which their works expand and deliver on the title’s double entendre, A Muse and a Maze .

With 100 images that range from movie stills from Citizen Kane and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to examples of sudokus, crosswords, and other puzzles; from Norman Rockwell’s famous triple self-portrait to artwork by Charles Richie; and from historical arcana to today’s latest magic, A Muse and a Maze offers prose exposition, images, text quotations, and every available form of wisdom, leading the reader step-by-step through passages from stories and novels to demonstrate, with remarkable clarity, how writers evolve their eventual creations.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Art

248 pages, Paperback

First published May 13, 2014

Reviews

[Shilo Quetchenbach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous. Thought-provoking. Enlightening. Inspiring. A must-read. An original and inspired take on composing fiction. Deserves at least 6 stars.

Very dense, beautifully written and beautifully formatted, with accompanying puzzles, quotes, and anecdotes. Some gems:

"We live permanently in the recurrence of our own stories, whatever story we tell" - Michael Ondaatje

"To be the victim is, in some ways, to have something to savor, and to heal is to lose the distinction that comes with being wronged." - in reference to Alice Munroe's "Royal Beatings"

"What's to be found in a labyrinth isn't at the end; the power is in the passage, in the darkness and light and in the discoveries we make. When we emerge, we're essentially in the same place, the same external world, where we began - but changed by where we've been."

"We have to go along with a crazy idea, our own, even when we don't remember how we got it, we must go along with this crazy idea all the way, bring it to realization in the teeth of all the doubts and all the rules and all the recriminations, despite everything. We bring this idea to realization in order to bring ourselves to realization." -Thomas Bernhard

"The idea demands fulfillment... Suddenly one's head is full of nothing else, one has become the incarnation of one's idea. And now one begins to reap the benefits of all one's suffering... It all turns out to be useful, and the worst of the horrors are most useful of all." - Thomas Bernhard

"Our deepest pleasures as artists result not only from surmounting but from continuously engaging with the difficulties that represent our greatest ambition."

"The way we see the world is the lens that defines us."

"Precision is not opposed to mystery; precision is necessary to define mystery."

"Simply omitting information doesn't create a sense of mystery or tension. ... if the reader isn't provoked to want to know more, the story has no forward momentum, no sense of urgency."

"Syntax creates meaning. It can provide clarity, but it can also create mystery and tension."

[Will]

Turchi slays hard here. Very much looking forward to his other books.

[Jose · Rating 4 out of 5]

He showed us how to go from literature to puzzles; now we need somebody to give us the other way around.

[Michel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Muse and a Maze (Amuse and Amaze) is a book about books.

[Poetic Diva504 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book for writers who write longhand, and are scatterbrains. I had been looking for ways to structure my hand written novels, what to keep, what to throw away, so I filed everything away. I would recommend this book to any writer who wants to produce a smooth sailing stream of consciousness weaved into a plot. I checked this book out from the library, but this book is worth paying full price to have on my shelf.

[Karen Warren · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's quite hard to categorise this book - partly writer's manual, partly literary criticism, partly something of its own. It is about how the reader constructs a story and how the reader deconstructs it. About why we like stories, and how we approach them. The author likens stories to puzzles, but often they are puzzles with no fixed answer...

As a writer I found this book gave me lots of food for thought.

[Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has a number of good writing tips, and it's interesting to read the analyses of books reviewed, but it is jumbled together and is only loosely related to puzzles, mystery, and magic. Yes, Mr. Turchi includes those bits, but they seem forced. This is an interesting book and likely will help fiction writers improve their writing. In short, this book is good but not great.

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! What a great read. I had to read slow to absorb everything, but this was a really stunning book that made me thinking about both reading and writing in a different way. Much more helpful and thought-provoking than many conventional writing books I've read.

[Diane Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly compelling, even for this non-writer. i enjoyed the short deconstructions of various works of literature.

[Bryan Cobbs · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up for the “writing as magic” angle, but was let down in that regard.

[D. F. Salvador · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read for writers and lovers of fiction!

[Julie Larios · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating book. Bottom line: Though the writing of fiction often resembles puzzle-making, it is different in this respect - it allows for mystery (of character, of motivations, of plot) at the end, rather than offering up neat "solutions." I love how Turchi writes - erudite but humorous and unfussy. He's no literary snob - he understand the pleasure found in genre fiction, but he asks us to consider how a story can present characters and situations more like life itself, a little messy and mysterious. Perfect book for people who find "how-to" craft books limited, because it's about a way of being in the world, whether you're reader or writer.

[Jacqui · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Muse and a Maze made me re-think everything I thought about writing. Such a fresh and unique take on how we construct stories, narrative and why challenging ourselves to write with more intention creates a more satisfying experience for writer and reader. Finding the flow between too easy and too hard and then pushing that boundary isn't an easy task, and figuring out how to do it is a puzzle in itself. Needless to say, I bought the book because it is one that I will come back to often. Plus, it has some great puzzles scattered throughout, and I couldn't write in my library copy.

I can't wait to reach Turchi's other book, Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer.

[Dallas Crow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like his stunning Maps of the Imagination, this book is literary criticism that is neither dry nor pedantic and appeals highly to the visual imagination. Trinity University Press has done another beautiful design job (as they did with Maps of the Imagination), incorporating charts, games, puzzles, and numerous illustrations that enrich the reading experience.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely and thoughtful exploration of the craft of writing as puzzle-making, which totally makes sense. It's a wonderful concept to muse upon, the book is a beautiful object in its own right, AND there are puzzles strewn about the writing, which is awesome. I will very likely buy my own copy (not least because I couldn't mark the library book up, and I so wanted to).

[Carl · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thought provoking musing (with puzzles) about how writing can be a puzzle, a mystery and magical. Has many moments of deep contemplation. A small caveat is that some conclusions seem to be a bit forced to fit the writer's purposes.

[Thomas Gizbert · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice book! Insightful without being clever and readable without being dumb. It's the type of book to make you look anew at the books you've read, while at the same time giving recommendations for new ones. Recommended.

[World Literature Today]

This book was featured in the Nota Benes section of the May 2015 issue of World Literature Today Magazine.


http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2...