One aspect of The Shell Game that dragged me into the world of unfounded speculation is the way the various pieces commented on relationships. I’ve decided to return to today to stretch these insights and briefly consider them in the context of how a written work’s structure has a relationship with the underlying material. For example, the question of when a writer should give up on an innovative form and return to a standard structure could be thought of in terms of the origins of the relationship. If the new structure grew out of a need for support, the partnership of structure and material should end as soon as the material no longer requires support.
Another rule of thumb might be to consider the level of effort. Although most relationships require a certain level of maintenance work, there does come a point in any relationship where the question of why so much effort is required becomes a relevant concern. A relationship is supposed to... just work, right? A writer who begins stretching, compromising, or distorting the vision of the work for the sake of meeting a certain structural concern should give this note some thought.
To close with an unrelated note, one of the authors noted in The Shell Game that algebra is the gatekeeper for higher levels of math. This is a truth I likely recognized back when I studied math in college. I was reminded of it once more when I recently tutored a college student for a couple of hours. I suspect most subjects operate with a similar construction – the ‘lower level’ concepts are easy enough to dismiss in the classroom because as students we failed to understand the importance these building blocks would have later on in our studies.
For my notes on this book, please follow this link.
