The name itself -- "sudoku" -- suggests something Japanese and exotic, a game that somehow connects us to a Japanese sense of logic and clarity while not requiring Japanese language to comprehend. The truth is less culturally exciting and more prosaic. In fact, everything about sudoku is prosaic -- that is one reason we like it. "Sudoku" was "invented" by Howard Garns, an Indianapolis architect, in 1979 and given the truly ordinary name of "Number Place." It was picked up in Japan by the Nikoli publishing company, and after being renamed "Sudoku," meaning "single number," it became popular throughout Japan, where it was eventually offered in national newspapers like Asahi Shimbun. The game became really popular, however, when it was picked up by the press in Great Britain in 2004, where it became featured regularly in The Times. From Great Britain, "sudoku" spread rapidly throughout the world, but it has remained most popular in the U. K. and North America.
"Sudoku" is invariably labelled "addictive," not just on book jackets for advertising purposes, but in every short-hand description of the game. This proves once again our delight in pathologizing every thing in which human beings engage. (The fact
is that many mundane things -- like eating -- are merely addictive too). Addiction is apparently the normative state of things now, and if you do anything, either occasionally or frequently, that is not "addictive" you must be some kind of a pervert.
I do not so much think of it as addictive as I see it as a marker in my day. Just as we all use markers in speech (e.g., "so" and "well," and President Obama's now famous "annnnd"), I use sudoku as an interruption or marker in my day. I use it as a way to wake up in the morning, while having a cup or two of coffee. I use it after walking the dog, to catch my breath. I use it after dinner, as dessert. I use it as punctuation between tasks -- especially household ones. "Sudoku" is also handy, in the way that crossword puzzles are handy, in allowing one to ignore the poverty of stimulation one gets in airports or on planes or in any waiting room (it beats reading old "Macleans" and "Car and Driver" at the doctor's office).
The game is supposedly also useful in keeping your brain active. But I have noticed lately that I don't so much think through the puzzles anymore than look for the 20 odd combinations of number layouts, and just start filling it in. I am not bragging; if you have done as many of these as I have, you would do it too.
But why is it so popular? Well, not trusting my own instincts, I looked up a few internet sites on this issue. They say: First, it is a simple game; single number 1 through 9, and the rules are simple. Secondly, there is only one right answer, and in proceeding through the puzzle you are giving yourself immediate evaluative feedback -- uh, that is, you know how you are doing all of the time. To make it harder, I sometimes do not write little "possible" numbers at the top of every box, but insist that I memorize the combinatorial possibilities. My friend Erin gave me an electronic sudoku player one time which required this tactic; it was difficult and good, until I wore out the machine. Lately I have started timing myself, to add an external challenge to the whole thing. Thirdly, each puzzle is different from any other you have done. Lately, I have exhausted all of the "difficult," "bizarrely challenging," and "evil" puzzles (they are given many different names), and have found myself buying what appear to be "new" sudoku books that are merely reprints of old puzzles. Believe it or not, my poor feeble brain actually remembers many of these formerly-done-puzzles (I cannot remember the names of people I have known most of my life, but I can recognize old sudoku puzzles; I am to be pitied and censured). The saving factor is that even if it is a puzzle you did before, you start it differently and solve it in a different pattern. Fourthly, some argue that because the puzzle is self-correcting (that is, when you have to do something else after putting the same number in the same column or row or square -- twice), you can go back and try to correct your mistakes. I have now taken a very Calvinist -- unforgiving -- approach to my sudoku. If I have made a mistake, I mark a bold "bar-sinister" line across the whole thing and give it up. I suppose Catholics and Anglicans can do the same sudoku over and over, occasionally saying "oops" everytime they make a mistake; ah, the joys of absolution.
Now, having said all of this, I leave you with this sudoku happening that I found on the internet:
"In June 2008, an Australian drugs-related jury trial costing over $1 million (AU$) was aborted when it was discovered that five of the twelve jurors had been playing Sudoku instead of listening to evidence."
Now do you take Sudoku seriously? Next time, think about what your airplane pilot is actually doing.
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