In the humanities and sciences, the role of the analogy has always been an important one. Integral to religion, mathematics, literature, and the Law, is it any surprise that the good folks at Educational Testing Service (ETS) spend a great deal of time and effort composing the analogy section of the GREs? If anything, most of postbaccalaureate education seems to be the fine act of making and understanding relations/hips. Of course, it has been said by those recently privy to the experience: ETS takes it to a new level. Perhaps they have Mark Z. Danielewski on retainer.
Mark Z. Danielewski relies heavily on analogies to provide meaning and structure within the text. This is neither a new or innovative device in and of itself. What I’m struck by is not how many connections seem to be present in the text (through the benefit of the footnotes, appendices, etc.) but how many of those connections are incredibly complex or just slightly irregular. Though he cites Derrida (111-113), Danielewski seems to move beyond simple binary oppositions. His pairings play with ideas that aren’t quite opposites or synonyms. Sometimes they may be from the genus, but their relationship is distinct and often tenuous. This produces a fun house effect in some places, pause for thought in others, and still others simply fall flat.
Though they may not be central to the text as a whole (but then again it may, wait and see), I keep returning to the appearance of riddles and jokes in the text. Chapter IV discusses the issue at length, even going so far to quote from a fictional source. “Riddles: they either delight or torment… It’s beneficial to consider the origins of ‘riddle.’ The Old English rœdelse means ‘opinion, conjure’ which is related to the Old English rœdon ‘to interpret’ in turn belong to the same etymological history of ‘read.'” (33). Riddles require reasoning and interpreting, and (not unlike the analogy section of the GRE) may be ultimately unknowable. Riddles become the object of tension, jokes the release of that tension. But that is not to say that jokes are diametrically opposed to riddles. Jokes may also delight or torment. In the cold hallways of the house, Tom begins telling joke after joke to alleviate the tension of being alone or potentially alone in the company of a Monster. The punch lines of his jokes rely on making connections between two different things; like riddles, they require reason and deduction to make that jump. Tom may entertain himself with these stories, but what does it signify that he addresses them to “Mr. Monster”? Does it mean anything that there may be a creature present without the ability to reason in the same sense Tom can? In that circumstance, do his jokes become riddles? What does it mean if this Monster can get his jokes?
When one does not know what it is, then it is something; but when one knows what it is, then it is nothing. What is it? [1]
[1] Answer: A Riddle
2 A Monster