MGWCC #776 — “The × Factor”

[docison]

Submitted and hoping to be beamed. I had a terrible time getting it printed at my hotel in Boston, but finally a wonderful concierge took pity on me when I admitted to being a Crosswordaholic and that it would calm me down before the marathon.... I think he was a bit concerned as he had it delivered right to my room.

Welcome to Boston! I am glad the concierge took pity on you - i could have helped from brookline in a pinch... hope the race goes great and it stays dry!

[BarbaraK]

I submitted last night and still not beamed up. Confirmed I had the correct answer, tried to submit again and confirmed I’ve already submitted - e-mailed Matt but no answer.
Does the form sometimes swallow entries, chew them up and spit them out???

You're currently on the "Overall" tab but not on "This Week", which means your answer was rejected as incorrect. I'm sure Matt will reply to your email when he has a chance, and he's usually more than fair about these things.

It’s just odd that a fellow muggle on this thread who is on the leaderboard confirmed my answer was correct!

Could be that Matt just accidentally hit the wrong button. Emailing him is the best way to figure out and get it fixed.

[Berto]

You're currently on the "Overall" tab but not on "This Week", which means your answer was rejected as incorrect. I'm sure Matt will reply to your email when he has a chance, and he's usually more than fair about these things.

It’s just odd that a fellow muggle on this thread who is on the leaderboard confirmed my answer was correct!

Could be that Matt just accidentally hit the wrong button. Emailing him is the best way to figure out and get it fixed.

Turns out I entered my correct answer incorrectly . Won’t get into the nitty gritty for fear of spoilers, but graciously beamed aboard!

[Jacksull]

I didn’t see my name on the list so I assumed I picked the wrong answer. Turns out I made a stupid mistake in submitting the answer.

D’oh!

[HunterX]

Awaiting transporter beam. Given the hour in the states right now, I doubt I’ll appear anytime soon.

While I understand people’s uncertainty over the answer, I was very confident because I remembered… well… yeah. Though I did look up the title to make sure I didn’t submit it incorrectly.

[MikeyG]

I'll make the first post here. Excuse the waxing philosophical in advance.

Answer is A MILLION LITTLE PIECES (571 - highest Week 2 since FLOUNDER about a year ago), which served as bookends to my high school career:

I was not an avid reader in high school. I read books casually then because you had to, but - as silly as this sounds - I didn't think people still wrote books. I mean, obviously, there were bookstores and the like, but it was a stunning realization that new books were still written? I thought we studied literature, this ancient artifact, as a way to connect us to our ancestors. No one's written a book since 1930, right?

Now, obviously, that's a bit extreme, but I felt that was a little bit of the messaging that was telegraphed, implicitly or otherwise. I love the classics, and I can't wait to read more. However, new books are still being written, and many are gorgeous, poignant, and incredible testaments to literature. Who knows? Maybe in 2100, they will enter some sort of canon. (I do my best to allude to at least one new book in every meta if possible.)

The book from this meta came out when I was a high school freshman; I paid no attention to it. (The first book I ever read that was then less than 10 years old was Life of Pi, written in 2001, which I read for summer reading in high school in 2005; the average year of a high school novel I read was 1819. Of course, exclude Shakespeare and Greek epics, and you're at 1945). But I do recall the controversy that served as a bookend toward my latter end of high school when we realized this memoir was fabricated, if not in whole than in significant parts. And it definitely brought up the question about when the line gets blurred between fact and fiction, especially when we think the latter is really the former. (To that end, you could argue this is the most infamous meta answer since KEN LAY a while back!!)

I have since fallen in love with the written word, starting in about 2019, and I do love memoirs: great ones that come to mind from recent years are Crying in H Mart, I'm Still Here, and Know My Name. And I would love to reread the classic memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Now if you told me that any one of these memoirs in which I've invested emotionally was fiction in part or in whole, it would complicate things. Would I be inclined to view my literary experience through a different lens? I don't know.

But, regardless, I wouldn't even be ruminating on this if it weren't for a meta, so crosswords are not just some idle diversion (even though their ability to entertain is relatively unmatched, except when the Cubs get 20 hits in a game like last night...against the As but still), they provide food for thought, and I welcome the feast.

Okay, off the soapbox...for now, haha.



Mikey G

[Joe Ross]

[madhatter5]

I was not an avid reader in high school. I read books casually then because you had to, but - as silly as this sounds - I didn't think people still wrote books. I mean, obviously, there were bookstores and the like, but it was a stunning realization that new books were still written? I thought we studied literature, this ancient artifact, as a way to connect us to our ancestors. No one's written a book since 1930, right?

Silly Mikey. You can't make foppish allusions to books written after 1930 to sound sophisticated in public discourse, which is the whole point of a literary education.

[MikeM000]

I'm happy I didn't do an immediate submit when I saw the prompt. My wife watched this show sometimes and I'm 50/50 on which title I would have sent in right away.

[woozy]

I was surprised to find there have only been about 100 Oprah Book Club books (I thought it was a book every month) so I guess searching all of them for a book with one million in the title wasn't as unreasonable as I had first felt it was. But I disliked that "million" was the only hook and there was absolutely nothing to connect the "little pieces". But I figured eventually the "Debbie Downer" and "Take Root" were hints (um, do you think Matt has assumed most people were more familiar with this book than was actually warranted?). And I figured not so many people would have gotten it so quickly if there were more than one title with "million" in it.

[HoldThatThought]

I was not an avid reader in high school. I read books casually then because you had to, but - as silly as this sounds - I didn't think people still wrote books. I mean, obviously, there were bookstores and the like, but it was a stunning realization that new books were still written? I thought we studied literature, this ancient artifact, as a way to connect us to our ancestors. No one's written a book since 1930, right?

Mikey G

I don't want to carry this conversation too far off-topic, but Mikey's remarks resonated, and definitely deserve further comment.

I am also a prolific reader - but I almost only read purely for entertainment, not erudition, not to confirm my political biases, and certainly not for appearances, or snob appeal. Frankly, I choose my books because I'm going to enjoy reading them. I don't care if a book is "literature", per se, or part of the canon, and I don't care a whit, honestly, if a novel has "stood the test of time" or brilliantly embodies the angst of surviving a world of loneliness. I don't really want to read about what it might be like to grow up as a Kurdish immigrant in Andermatt, Swtizerland, and - when I want to relax with an eminently readable, page-turning book, I don't want to better understand the factors that led to the implosion of Theranos.

I thoroughly respect that many (most?) other people approach their reading hours differently, but I just want to set my books aside and think "that was fun to read. Now I can go back to the world where all those other things exist.

I think what I'm saying is "I don't consult a list of World's Greatest Literature" to choose my next read, and I don't think I'm necessarily a better person for having read "Red Badge of Courage", "Don Quixote", "Call of the Wild", "Wuthering Heights", "The Great Gatsby", "The Metamorphosis" or "The Grapes of Wrath". (I did read all of those, and more, and wrote all the papers, too).

I'd also like to say that I hated most Hemingway, and, finally, that anyone who has - or is - actually struggling through and enjoying "The Last Chairlift" is made of sterner stuff than I am.

[MikeM000]

In response to @HoldThatThought ....

Not only do I like what you said, but I'd also add/suggest to you (if you aren't doing it already) that you read (or re-read) children's or YA novels, as their main concern is getting their story and characters across in clear, concise language. I've done so in recent years along with my kids with some of their assigned reading...Charlotte's Web, Mrs. Frankweiler, Tangerine, The Outsiders, Hatchet, The Giver, etc.

I like to mix things up but haven't gone in on many classics recently...been reading Taylor Jenkins Reid novels, series by Louise Penny & Sue Grafton, memoirs by musicians like Chris Frantz & Jeff Tweedy, hipsters like Sloane Crosley, and am slowly making my way through histories of things like Watergate, the Seattle Pilots, the 1876 election, and the works of modern-day Facebook hero Heather Cox Richardson.

[ZooAnimalsOnWheels]

"A Million Little Pieces" was the first thing to pop into my head after I did the math, but I was looking for confirmation. When I saw TEENY in the grid at 45A, I thought I would find PARTS or something similar. But, yeah, the fact that this was the only title on the Book Club list that would fit was good enough.

I have since fallen in love with the written word, starting in about 2019, and I do love memoirs: great ones that come to mind from recent years are Crying in H Mart, I'm Still Here, and Know My Name. And I would love to reread the classic memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Now if you told me that any one of these memoirs in which I've invested emotionally was fiction in part or in whole, it would complicate things. Would I be inclined to view my literary experience through a different lens? I don't know.

I really love Mary Karr's The Liars' Club, having grown up in Texas, although in far different circumstances. She also begins her later memoir Lit with "Any way I tell this story is a lie...", but that's more an acknowledgement that everyone has their own version of events. She ran drafts of her memoirs by the other people involved to see that her memories weren't too far afield.

[HoldThatThought]

In response to @HoldThatThought ....

Not only do I like what you said, but I'd also add/suggest to you (if you aren't doing it already) that you read (or re-read) children's or YA novels, as their main concern is getting their story and characters across in clear, concise language. I've done so in recent years along with my kids with some of their assigned reading...Charlotte's Web, Mrs. Frankweiler, Tangerine, The Outsiders, Hatchet, The Giver, etc.

I suppose this is meant to be a slam, but I'm not well enough read to recognize snark and dripping sarcasm.

My further lack of urbanity and culture must be blamed for my failure to realize that an admission that I do my recreational reading, purely for pleasure, would insult other people. I suppose that, somehow, I unwillingly acknowledged that I am entirely unread and unlettered; in fact, I'm actually a yokel from the sticks.

Next?

[MikeM000]

Next?

No, I was being totally serious. You were talking about reading for enjoyment rather than worrying about a canon of books you must read, and I was saying that it can be really enjoyable to read books meant for a younger audience because they aren't written with lofty arty goals in mind, but instead just trying to get plot/character/theme across in a highly readable way. Sorry that you misinterpreted; I was completely on your side...

[HoldThatThought]

Well, okay, then. The Phantom Tollbooth is a good read.

Just to be clear; I read, a lot. All day long, really. And, I write. But when I read in my free time, I read a whole lot of "crap". Jonathan Kellerman, John Sandford, Richard Osman, Tim Dorsey, Carl Hiassen, Julie Schumacher, David Sedaris, Jasper Fforde....many others. Every so often, I challenge myself to read scholarly treatises like "Infinite Powers", or Daniel Kahneman's "Noise", and I wind up frustrated by the lengths I'll go to avoid picking them up again. Sometimes I read things because "I have to": like the new John Irving. Like I said..."made of stronger stuff than I."

I won't get started on this, but I watch TV the same way. I love horrible 50s and 60s scifi, Birdemic: Shock and Terror (the worst film ever made), noir, British, and even Indian police procedurals, and other, purely escapist crap. This is how I relax, and it works for me.

[woozy]

So... hmm. Am I the only one thinks getting "one million" shouldn't be enough? I mean, what about "little pieces"? There was nothing in the puzzle to lead to that.

Also either I am vastly under-estimating or matt is vastly over-estimating the book's notoriety. I'm not sure which.

Any way, I don't think it was a 1. It's wasn't difficult and I got it but it certainly wasn't the locked lead pipe slam dunk Matt seems to think it was.

[Joe Ross]

So... hmm. Am I the only one thinks getting "one million" shouldn't be enough? I mean, what about "little pieces"? There was nothing in the puzzle to lead to that.

Also either I am vastly under-estimating or matt is vastly over-estimating the book's notoriety. I'm not sure which.

Any way, I don't think it was a 1. It's wasn't difficult and I got it but it certainly wasn't the locked lead pipe slam dunk Matt seems to think it was.

50 x 20,000 = MILLION is given by the puzzle. It is both obvious & intentional.

The clue - "This week’s contest answer is an Oprah’s Book Club selection." - references a finite set of books. Only one book in that set is related to the word MILLION. That book is A Million Little Pieces.

Notoriety has nothing to do with this book being the answer nor in finding it. The smallest amount of research - looking at the list of Oprah's Book Club selections - is needed to conclude that A Million Little Pieces is the only answer.

It is a locked lead pipe slam dunk.