Review: To the Back of Beyond by Peter Stamm
I’ve made a nice discovery in this Swiss author. Told in short chapters alternating between the daily progress of an abandoning husband and his abandoned wife, the writing is terse and well-paced but uneventful until suddenly we are taken by surprise by an unexpected and entirely satisfying twist.
Nothing is explained or justified. You are left to simply imagine what it would be like to either abandon or be abandoned. Captivating!
What a summer that was. There was really nothing else I could do in that heat but read. Here’s a selection of the books I got through. I really should take more time to review them properly as they were nearly all excellent.
There were more, but memory fades.
I dropped into Goodreads to see what people thought of the so-called classic because I for one was deeply disappointed. I had read it before but so long ago that I didn’t remember much, not even that it was so disappointing.
Before writing this review, I had a look at some of the 1-star ratings and was not at all surprised to see that many are by women. I know that if I were a woman I’d be very angry about the disgusting way women are treated in the book. Actually, as a man I am too.
I would sum up what I’ve read as occasionally very funny, often repetitive, occasionally on the ball as social criticism, misogynistic in the extreme, but mostly juvenile nonsense for young boys who can’t get it any other way.
Actually, there’s not much more to say. It doesn’t deserve to have so much ink spilt on it. Imagine, 20,354 reviews (as of today) on Goodreads.
Review: Germinal by Émile Zola
So I felt like reading a classic. Reputed to be Zola’s premier work, I decided to give it a go and now I know what it means to be a classic. What an amazing work! I should have expected no less from the author of J’Accuse but following exposure to the Zola musical (… Les Misérables) I confess I had feared melodrama.
We spend 500 pages in the company of miners, middle-management and mine-owners and frankly their world is no less savage than the world Solzhenitsyn described to us except that the prisoners are free men who choose to be there (since they’ve nowhere else to go). Apparently Zola did a week’s research by going to visit mines in the north of France but I have to say he came across to me as an expert, so elaborate were all the technical details described. We spend time down in the mines, watching children, women and men doing back-breaking work in wet and extremely hot conditions. We see the wretched hovels they live in and (to my surprise) the daily promiscuity which seems to be their only relief. I was ready for the wretchedness but not for the full-tilt action which carries the reader along. We’re back in a time (1860’s) when Marx has spoken and the worker’s are beginning to assimilate his ideas. The First International (Workingmen’s Association) is in existence. Anarchism is in the air. And idealists like the book’s hero Étienne Lantier are making the first tentative steps to redress the balance between labour and capital. We also meet the easy monied classes and I found Zola to be fairly even handed (if occasionally ironic) with his treatment of them.
This is not, in my view, a modern book. It is a tale, but, well told and worth your time.
Spoiler: Best words include: RAISE, IRATE, ARISE
Like many others, I’ve been playing around with Wordle to identify an optimum strategy. There are dozens of articles out there on the internet and people have many interesting approaches. However, nearly all of them disappoint me in one particular respect:
I stopped enjoying Scrabble a long time ago once I’d learned that the spirit of the game had been destroyed by a Scrabble Dictionary containing a vast number of words that no normal person would recognise or use. The game changed from a word game to a memory game. Now all the experts have a vocabulary of words that they never use except when playing Scrabble. That same malaise is indirectly threatening Wordle.
I say indirectly because it is clear that the Wordle solutions have been kept strictly within the bounds of a reasonable vocabulary; and this to the extent that it even seems that 4-letter words in their plural 5-letter form have not been candidates for solutions (although they are accepted as guesses). Bravo to the developer and the NYT for sticking to the spirit of a word-game.
However, Wordle uses two dictionaries: a solutions dictionary of 2,309 words that is used to set the wordle for each day and a validations dictionary of 10,657 words that are considered legitimate guesses in addition to the solutions. See footnote 1 for my reservations about the latter.
Most researchers seem to be content to use both dictionaries. I disagree for two reasons:
Some commentators have used thought experiments (or common sense) to explain why their approach must be good. I think they overlook the fact that Wordle is, in fact, very easy (especially when not using Hard Mode) and when they get good results that seems to justify their analyses. Other researchers analyse reported games to reach their conclusions about what represents good play. Their conclusions must be tainted by selection bias since people show off good results (including lucky ones). Still others use computer simulations to learn what works best in terms of minimising guesses. I prefer these last approaches but I reject their reliance on the validations dictionary. All of them, as far as I can tell, play Wordle in easy mode; i.e. they allow the player to ignore letters revealed previously in order to widen their search.
My approach is closest to the last category but slightly different. My simulation works exclusively with the solutions dictionary, only guessing words which are in the dictionary to ascertain which guesses will pare down the solutions dictionary to as few words as possible in one guess. See footnote 2 for some remarks in this regard. I then use the highest performing words to guess every possible second word. I’m interested here, not in finding a second word (which, of course, depends on what has been learned from the first) but in measuring which initial guesses will lead, on average, to very small solution sets after two guesses. My simulations use Wordle’s Hard Mode; any letters revealed must be used in subsequent guesses. If a word has repeated letters, I never use it as a first guess since it makes no sense to not spread the net wide for information. (It surprised me to discover that as much as 31% of the dictionary was made up of words with repeated letters.)
We have 1 chance in 2,309 of winning in one guess (if we stick to the solutions dictionary). My simulations calculate that , if we played any random first word (again, from the solutions dictionary), we reduce the solution set, on average, to 176 words before our second guess. I’m looking for words that do much better.
My approach proceeded by taking each word in the solutions dictionary in turn as the first guess, and then evaluating it against every other word in the dictionary as if that word was the wordle being sought. Evaluation means using what is revealed to count how many words remain in the dictionary and finding the average for all words. On average the dictionary was reduced to 176 words by the first guesses, but some first guesses were much better than others. This was a very computational intensive procedure involving almost 4 million evaluations.
Some words drove down the solutions dictionary size enormously. Here are some really good performers who reduced the set to less than 80 words before a second guess was tried:
Note the number of anagrams or near-anagrams in the lists showing very clearly the letters that need to be investigated early. Importantly, I think you can probably recognise and define every word in this list, so that we remain within the spirit of a word-game.
Some words touted on the internet didn’t fare nearly as well, such as AUDIO (average 182)
In a similar vein, some words were (unsurprisingly) shown to be very poor first guesses. I note with a smile that CHUMP made this list, one of the words I chose (randomly) for a previous article. You need to assiduously avoid:
Assuming we chose one of the best words for my first guess, I wondered how many words would be left, on average, after our second guess. Remember, we’re playing in Hard Mode, where we must use any previously revealed letters in our guesses. So we need to identify those words which are frequently available after the eliminations of the first guess and which produce very reduced dictionaries after the second guess. Using somewhat subjective cut-offs I identified 63 which were each still available to more than 15% of the full dictionary and which produced dictionaries of less than 6 words (on average):
BRUNT CAROL CLOSE COUNT COURT CRUST ELITE FIRST FOIST GIANT GRUNT HEIST HOIST INTRO ISLET MOIST NOISE NORTH OLDEN ONSET POINT POSIT PRINT ROOST SCONE SCORN SCOUT SHALT SHEET SHIRT SHUNT SINCE SINEW SINGE SKIRT SLEET SLEPT SLIDE SMITE SNIDE SNOUT SONIC SOUTH SPELT SPILT SPITE SPLIT SPURT STONY STORY SUITE SURLY TERSE THORN TONIC TORCH TORSO TORUS UNITE UNSET UTILE WORST WRIST
There is sufficient diversity in this list that some of the words from this set will be available to the player, whichever word they chose for the first guess (and despite the prevalence of letters frequently used {A, E, R, S, T, N}) and that these words will greatly reduce the dictionary.
So I ran a simulation (230,000 games) where I used the above methods to choose the first and second guesses and then played random choices from the remaining dictionary against every possible wordle and I got the following result:
| Out in | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Fail |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| %age success | 0.03% | 5.72% | 35.84% | 38.23% | 14.97% | 3.93% | 1.28% |
Interestingly, the failures mainly arise from a particularly pathological type of rhyming word. They share the characteristic that they differ by only one letter in the same position and that these letters are among the less common and so are frequently found last. The following 7 suffixes account for six or more words and therefore you can fail even after getting the entire suffix by your second guess. There are 20 further suffixes with five and between them all they account for 38% of all failures :
If BOUND was the wordle and you chose POUND as your first guess, playing in hard mode you still have a 17% probability of failure!! It’s just bad luck. I remember WATCH coming up a while ago in the game but I was lucky enough to choose it early.
So that’s my analysis. Use it if you like but please bear this in mind:
The research above was my response to intellectual curiosity inspired by the game. If I am truly honest though, I’d have to say the a strong adherence to the spirit of the game would mean ignoring the conclusions revealed above and choosing your words as the spirit moves you. It’s a game and some of the fun is to be found in toying with it. Personally, I like to start with any mad word (of five different letters) that comes into my mind, usually aiming for less popular letters in the hope that I don’t reveal good ones too soon and be obliged to use them in all subsequent guesses. I still rarely need to go to a fifth guess.
Footnote 1 – Validations Dictionary: While the solutions dictionary is an excellent collection of words that should be recognisable to the average english speaker, the validation dictionary is a travesty containing foreign words, technical terms, archaic words, abbreviations and complete nonsense words such as CRWTH, CWTCH, GRRLS, GRRRL and PHPHT. I find the inclusion of these words to be against the spirit of the game, especially when we know that the solutions have been chosen with care to suit an average english speaker. Recommendations from people who analysed play have included words like ARLES, LARES, RALES, RAILE, REAIS, SOARE and ROATE. I have never used any of these words in conversation nor could I define any of their meanings. Plurals have also been recommended when we know they will not be solutions and an anagram might do the job as well; e.g. STARE instead of RATES. Using a validation word in a guess is an immediate concession that you will not find the solution on this turn, even by chance. The validations dictionary would be perfectly acceptable if its vocabulary were chosen with the same care as the solutions dictionary. However, it has no place in my simulations since it will never change the count of words surviving evaluation.
Footnote 2 – Perfect Information: Clearly this approach is a perfect information approach in the sense that I’m assuming the player knows all the 5-letter words in the solutions dictionary … and no others. That is most unlikely. Although I imagine that most players will know the full dictionary, it is more than likely they will know words that are not in the dictionary, hence the need for the validations dictionary so they are not frustrated to have a legitimate word rejected by the app. This means that there are other possible guesses which will reduce the solution space. However:
1) Allowing words which are not in the solutions dictionary won’t change the averages I have calculated for words already in the solutions dictionary except to the extent that a player will occasionally lose a turn because they tried one of them; the words chosen remain the best (even if not as good as advertised) since all words carry this risk
2) Some of the new words may perform better at reducing the solutions dictionary words but I’m inclined to doubt this on the basis that it was a set of anagrams or near-anagrams that won the above contest and words that I consider legitimate validations dictionary words (i.e. recognised by and used by the average english speaker) will be structured very similarly to words in the solutions dictionary. Arguably some 4-letter plurals will be good as the letter S is important.
The findings in the article below have been superseded by a better analysis in this article.
You probably discovered when playing basic Wordle that it was easy. My previous article explained that a niaive strategy [search broadly three times and you’re almost inevitably there] suffices. So you started to play in Hard Mode. On the face of it, this narrows the scope of your search so it may get harder. I decided to test this. My advanced program makes its first guess randomly, taking care to use a word with five different letters. The second guess chooses a word from the database after it has been filtered using anything learned from the first guess. Again, if it can, it selects a word with five different letters. The third guess takes the same approach, updating the database as information about letters and their positions is gained. I ran it first on the same 16 words we looked at using GREAT, NOISY and CHUMP. Actually, very little has changed. We started with a random word. We followed with a second random word but we possibly don’t get a full five new letters but in compensation we do start trying to place discovered letters in their good position. Likewise for the third word. Here’s the first absolutely random run of the program:
Wordle: 'POINT'
Guess # remaining words including:
FAKES 289: BIDDY, BIGHT, BIGOT, BIJOU, BILLY, BIMBO, BINDI, ...
TOUGH 7: BOOTY, COOPT, DOTTY, JOINT, MOTOR, POINT, ROBOT, ...
JOINT 1: POINT, ...
finished with 4 guesses
Wordle: 'ROBOT'
Guess # remaining words including:
TILES 72: ABBOT, ABORT, ABOUT, ACTOR, ADAPT, ADOPT, AFOOT, ...
ABBOT 1: ROBOT, ...
finished with 3 guesses
Wordle: 'CRIMP'
Guess # remaining words including:
TUMOR 30: ALARM, BARMY, BERMS, BREAM, BRIMS, CHARM, CRAMP, ...
CHARM 3: CREME, CRIME, CRIMP, ...
CRIME 1: CRIMP, ...
finished with 4 guesses
Wordle: 'KNOLL'
Guess # remaining words including:
DUSKY 58: ABACK, ACKEE, ANKLE, BAKER, BATIK, BIKER, BLACK, ...
CRANK 4: KNIFE, KNOLL, KNOWN, TOKEN, ...
KNOLL 1: KNOLL, ...
finished with 4 guesses
Wordle: 'SUGAR'
Guess # remaining words including:
AUDIO 11: BUBBA, BULLA, BURKA, BURQA, BURSA, CULPA, CUPPA, ...
LUNAR 1: SUGAR, ...
finished with 3 guesses
Wordle: 'WHACK'
Guess # remaining words including:
DECRY 194: ABACK, ACING, ACTIN, ANTIC, ASPIC, ATTIC, BASIC, ...
POUCH 4: CHICA, CHICK, THICK, WHACK, ...
THICK 1: WHACK, ...
finished with 4 guesses
Wordle: 'MOUNT'
Guess # remaining words including:
AMEND 1: MOUNT, ...
finished with 2 guesses
Wordle: 'PERKY'
Guess # remaining words including:
BRUIN 266: ACRES, ACTOR, ADDER, ADORE, AFORE, AFTER, AGGRO, ...
FARTS 11: CORED, CORER, CORKY, DORKY, MERCY, MERGE, MERRY, ...
CORKY 1: PERKY, ...
finished with 4 guesses
Wordle: 'COULD'
Guess # remaining words including:
COINS 37: COACH, COBRA, COCKY, COCOA, CODEC, CODED, CODER, ...
COMER 9: COACH, COCKY, COCOA, COOPT, COTTA, COUCH, COUGH, ...
COTTA 5: COCKY, COUCH, COUGH, COULD, COYLY, ...
COYLY 1: COULD, ...
finished with 5 guesses
Wordle: 'THOSE'
Guess # remaining words including:
BOWED 62: AEONS, AFORE, ALONE, ANOLE, AROSE, ATONE, AZOLE, ...
EXTOL 7: ATONE, QUOTE, STONE, STORE, STOVE, TEMPO, THOSE, ...
THOSE 1: THOSE, ...
finished with 4 guesses
Wordle: 'EXIST'
Guess # remaining words including:
BLOCK 694: ADAGE, ADAPT, ADDED, ADDER, ADEPT, ADIEU, ADITS, ...
DREGS 28: AMUSE, ANISE, ASHEN, ASPEN, ASSET, ENSUE, ESSAY, ...
ASHEN 5: EXIST, MESSY, SETUP, SPITE, SUITE, ...
SETUP 1: EXIST, ...
finished with 5 guesses
Wordle: 'SHARD'
Guess # remaining words including:
EXPOS 96: ANGST, ANTSY, ARTSY, ASANA, ASSAY, ASTIR, ASURA, ...
SHIFT 3: SHALL, SHARD, SHARK, ...
SHARD 1: SHARD, ...
finished with 4 guesses
Wordle: 'PLEAT'
Guess # remaining words including:
BEAKS 139: ACHED, ACTED, ACUTE, ADDED, ADDER, ADDLE, ADEPT, ...
AMEND 10: CHEAP, CHEAT, CLEAR, CLEAT, FAERY, GREAT, OPERA, ...
TREAT 4: CHEAT, CLEAT, PLEAT, WHEAT, ...
WHEAT 2: CLEAT, PLEAT, ...
PLEAT 1: PLEAT, ...
finished with 6 guesses
Wordle: 'SKILL'
Guess # remaining words including:
DOYEN 380: ABACK, ABUTS, AFFIX, ALARM, ALBUM, ALGAL, ALIAS, ...
BRUSH 60: ALIAS, ASPIC, ATLAS, AXILS, CALFS, CALLS, CALMS, ...
FLATS 1: SKILL, ...
finished with 4 guesses
Wordle: 'CYNIC'
Guess # remaining words including:
TOPIC 6: BASIC, CIVIC, CUBIC, CYNIC, MAGIC, MUSIC, ...
CYNIC 1: CYNIC, ...
finished with 3 guesses
Wordle: 'AROMA'
Guess # remaining words including:
CHEAT 232: ABAYA, ABYSS, ADIOS, ADMIN, ADOBO, ADORN, AFFIX, ...
FLAWS 58: ADMIN, ADOBO, ADORN, AGGRO, AGING, AGONY, AGORA, ...
AUDIO 9: AGONY, AGORA, AMONG, ANNOY, APRON, ARBOR, ARGON, ...
ARBOR 1: AROMA, ...
finished with 5 guessesIt’s pretty impressive! Only 4 of the 16 words required more than 4 guesses. Maybe this was a fluke so let’s do it 1000 times and average the result. The table below shows the average number of guesses required and the distribution of scores for each wordle. I think it clearly illustrates that Hard Mode Wordle is very easy too with only 42 of the 16000 games played resulting in failure against random play. When run against 250 randomly chosen words, failure rate is about 6%
Guesses
Wordle Avg 1 2 3 4 5 6 >6
------------------------------------------------------
'POINT' 4.5 0 3 119 381 386 108 3
'ROBOT' 3.9 0 11 252 576 159 2 0
'CRIMP' 4.1 0 3 168 539 260 30 0
'KNOLL' 4.1 0 7 200 534 241 18 0
'SUGAR' 3.9 0 26 253 554 162 5 0
'WHACK' 4.0 0 27 230 458 253 30 2
'MOUNT' 4.1 0 12 166 523 277 22 0
'PERKY' 4.4 0 16 154 330 392 102 6
'COULD' 4.2 0 5 173 494 287 37 4
'THOSE' 4.2 0 13 205 464 251 65 2
'EXIST' 4.1 0 15 165 523 257 39 1
'SHARD' 4.5 0 26 140 280 394 146 14
'PLEAT' 4.4 0 6 142 372 375 98 7
'SKILL' 4.2 0 4 123 594 263 16 0
'CYNIC' 4.1 0 5 199 543 231 22 0
'AROMA' 4.3 0 6 173 432 312 74 3
' 250 ' 4.5 0 10 146 366 286 128 64If we assume the words in their database are recognisable to the average player, Wordle can be played with a fairly ‘blind’ strategy and in that sense it is easy to play, even in Hard Mode. If NYT wants to make it harder, they should stop signalling that letters are in their correct position; i.e. use only yellow flags. I estimate that the effect of that is to increase the failure rate from 6% to about 38%.
I’ve been playing Wordle for about a month. It’s enjoyable and the design idea of one-puzzle-per-day is inspired. This week, people have been complaining that it has become more difficult since the NYT acquired it. The purpose of this article is to show that Wordle is not difficult and that a simple strategy will almost always solve it rapidly. Indeed I adopted this strategy within days of beginning to play, eventually abandoning it to play in Hard Mode (where any revealed hints must be used in subsequent guesses) to increase the challenge. I will extend this article to deal with Hard Mode soon.
A simple and effective way to play World is to choose three words whose letters do not overlap. I chose GREAT, NOISY and CHUMP (since dummies could be great noisy chumps). Now, when ever you begin a new puzzle, try GREAT as your first guess. Then, regardless of how you score, try NOISY next and finally, again ignoring your score, try CHUMP. Clearly this strategy requires no brain-power whatsoever … up to this point. Now, however, I claim that you will usually have sufficient information to find the word on your fourth guess or occasionally you will need one further considered choice before concluding on your fifth.
To test this out, I asked my computer to apply this strategy. I downloaded a file containing about 2,500 five-letter words. (Wordle is said to have about 2,500 words in its database). Then, for each of 16 words which have been set by Wordle in the past month, the program scored them against GREAT, NOISY and CHUMP. Using the scores (green, yellow and black) to filter out impossible words from the database, it looked to see what words remained. Here are the results (explained below):
Wordle: 'POINT'
Guess # remaining words including:
GREAT 28: BLUNT, BOOST, BUILT, BUNDT, CLOUT, COOPT, COUNT, ...
NOISY 2: JOINT, POINT, ...
CHUMP 1: POINT, ...
Wordle: 'ROBOT'
Guess # remaining words including:
GREAT 11: BLURT, BURNT, BURST, COURT, FIRST, ROBOT, SHIRT, ...
NOISY 2: COURT, ROBOT, ...
CHUMP 1: ROBOT, ...
Wordle: 'CRIMP'
Guess # remaining words including:
GREAT 54: BRICK, BRIMS, BRINK, BRINY, BRISK, BROCH, BROIL, ...
NOISY 4: BRICK, CRICK, CRIMP, DRILL, ...
CHUMP 1: CRIMP, ...
Wordle: 'KNOLL'
Guess # remaining words including:
GREAT 295: BIDDY, BIJOU, BILLS, BILLY, BIMBO, BINDI, BINDS, ...
NOISY 7: BLOND, BLOWN, CLOWN, FLOWN, KNOCK, KNOLL, KNOWN, ...
CHUMP 5: BLOND, BLOWN, FLOWN, KNOLL, KNOWN, ...
Wordle: 'SUGAR'
Guess # remaining words including:
GREAT 2: CIGAR, SUGAR, ...
NOISY 1: SUGAR, ...
CHUMP 1: SUGAR, ...
Wordle: 'WHACK'
Guess # remaining words including:
GREAT 209: ABACK, ABAYA, ABYSS, ACIDS, ADIOS, ADMIN, ADOBO, ...
NOISY 21: ABACK, ALBUM, ALPHA, AWFUL, BABKA, BLACK, BUBBA, ...
CHUMP 1: WHACK, ...
Wordle: 'MOUNT'
Guess # remaining words including:
GREAT 28: BLUNT, BOOST, BUILT, BUNDT, CLOUT, COOPT, COUNT, ...
NOISY 3: COUNT, DONUT, MOUNT, ...
CHUMP 1: MOUNT, ...
Wordle: 'PERKY'
Guess # remaining words including:
GREAT 123: BERMS, BERRY, BERYL, BIKER, BONER, BORED, BORER, ...
NOISY 8: BERRY, DECRY, DERBY, FERRY, MERCY, MERRY, PERKY, ...
CHUMP 2: PERKY, REPLY, ...
Wordle: 'COULD'
Guess # remaining words including:
GREAT 295: BIDDY, BIJOU, BILLS, BILLY, BIMBO, BINDI, BINDS, ...
NOISY 8: BOFFO, COMBO, COMMO, COMPO, COUCH, COULD, POUCH, ...
CHUMP 1: COULD, ...
Wordle: 'THOSE'
Guess # remaining words including:
GREAT 83: BELTS, BENTO, BENTS, BESTS, BETEL, BITES, BUTTE, ...
NOISY 1: THOSE, ...
CHUMP 1: THOSE, ...
Wordle: 'EXIST'
Guess # remaining words including:
GREAT 22: BEFIT, BESET, BIDET, CIVET, COMET, COVET, DEBIT, ...
NOISY 2: DEIST, EXIST, ...
CHUMP 2: DEIST, EXIST, ...
Wordle: 'SHARD'
Guess # remaining words including:
GREAT 80: ABHOR, ACORN, ACRID, ADORN, ALARM, AMOUR, APRON, ...
NOISY 19: ASURA, BARBS, BARDS, BARKS, CARBS, CARDS, CARPS, ...
CHUMP 2: SHARD, SHARK, ...
Wordle: 'PLEAT'
Guess # remaining words including:
GREAT 6: BLEAT, CHEAT, CLEAT, PLEAT, SWEAT, WHEAT, ...
NOISY 5: BLEAT, CHEAT, CLEAT, PLEAT, WHEAT, ...
CHUMP 1: PLEAT, ...
Wordle: 'SKILL'
Guess # remaining words including:
GREAT 295: BIDDY, BIJOU, BILLS, BILLY, BIMBO, BINDI, BINDS, ...
NOISY 5: BLIPS, CHIPS, CLIPS, SHIPS, SKILL, ...
CHUMP 1: SKILL, ...
Wordle: 'CYNIC'
Guess # remaining words including:
GREAT 295: BIDDY, BIJOU, BILLS, BILLY, BIMBO, BINDI, BINDS, ...
NOISY 2: CYNIC, VINYL, ...
CHUMP 1: CYNIC, ...
Wordle: 'AROMA'
Guess # remaining words including:
GREAT 39: ARBOR, ARDOR, ARILS, ARMOR, AROMA, ARROW, ARSON, ...
NOISY 6: ARBOR, ARDOR, ARMOR, AROMA, ARROW, BRAVO, ...
CHUMP 1: AROMA, ...
For example, in the case of AROMA, after GREAT was tried, all but 39 words in the database were eliminated. After NOISY, only 6 remained and following CHUMP, AROMA remains the only possible choice!!! Altogether, 12 of the 16 cases reached the only possible word after 3 guesses (or only 2 in the case of THOSE and SUGAR). Of the remaining 4, very few possible words remain. Naturally there are opportunities to short-circuit the action. For instance, only a true dummy would guess CHUMP in the first example when clearly enough information (O,I,N andT) has been gathered to reduce the possibilities to either JOINT or POINT.
Needless to remark, no program or database is required or should be used to apply this strategy. The program was only run to illustrate that sufficient information has been gathered by elimination or identification, so that very few plausible words remain. However, you must use your head to find the word.
So, as you can see, the basic version of Wordle is easy. Indeed, there is no reason why you should choose my three words. Here is a a different set (SWING, PROUD, CHEAT), chosen this instant only on the basis that there are no overlaps. They do even better than the first set, finding every word, some without a third guess.
Wordle: 'POINT'
Guess # remaining words including:
SWING 23: AMINE, AMINO, BLIND, BLINI, BLINK, BRINE, BRINK, ...
PROUD 1: POINT, ...
CHEAT 1: POINT, ...
Wordle: 'ROBOT'
Guess # remaining words including:
SWING 674: ABACK, ABATE, ABAYA, ABBEY, ABBOT, ABHOR, ABODE, ...
PROUD 40: ABHOR, ACTOR, AORTA, BORAX, BORER, BOXER, BOYAR, ...
CHEAT 1: ROBOT, ...
Wordle: 'CRIMP'
Guess # remaining words including:
SWING 90: ABIDE, ADIEU, AFIRE, ALIBI, ALIKE, ALIVE, AMIDE, ...
PROUD 1: CRIMP, ...
CHEAT 1: CRIMP, ...
Wordle: 'KNOLL'
Guess # remaining words including:
SWING 110: ACORN, ADMAN, ADORN, ANCHO, ANKLE, ANNEX, ANNOY, ...
PROUD 3: ANOLE, KNOCK, KNOLL, ...
CHEAT 1: KNOLL, ...
Wordle: 'SUGAR'
Guess # remaining words including:
SWING 3: STAGE, SUGAR, SURGE, ...
PROUD 2: SUGAR, SURGE, ...
CHEAT 1: SUGAR, ...
Wordle: 'WHACK'
Guess # remaining words including:
SWING 45: ALLOW, ARROW, BAWDY, BELOW, BOWED, BOWEL, BOWER, ...
PROUD 10: BYLAW, BYWAY, CHEWY, FATWA, JEWEL, WATCH, WHACK, ...
CHEAT 1: WHACK, ...
Wordle: 'MOUNT'
Guess # remaining words including:
SWING 59: ALONE, AMEND, ARENA, ATONE, BLAND, BLANK, BLEND, ...
PROUD 2: COUNT, MOUNT, ...
CHEAT 1: MOUNT, ...
Wordle: 'PERKY'
Guess # remaining words including:
SWING 674: ABACK, ABATE, ABAYA, ABBEY, ABBOT, ABHOR, ABODE, ...
PROUD 4: PAPER, PARTY, PEARL, PERKY, ...
CHEAT 1: PERKY, ...
Wordle: 'COULD'
Guess # remaining words including:
SWING 674: ABACK, ABATE, ABAYA, ABBEY, ABBOT, ABHOR, ABODE, ...
PROUD 1: COULD, ...
CHEAT 1: COULD, ...
Wordle: 'THOSE'
Guess # remaining words including:
SWING 497: ABASE, ABETS, ABUSE, ABUTS, ABYSS, ACHES, ACRES, ...
PROUD 20: ALOES, ATOMS, BLOBS, BLOCS, BLOTS, BOOBS, BOOKS, ...
CHEAT 1: THOSE, ...
Wordle: 'EXIST'
Guess # remaining words including:
SWING 51: ACIDS, ADIOS, ADITS, ALIAS, AMISS, ARIAS, ARILS, ...
PROUD 13: ALIAS, AMISS, AXILS, BAILS, BAITS, BLISS, CHITS, ...
CHEAT 1: EXIST, ...
Wordle: 'SHARD'
Guess # remaining words including:
SWING 118: SADLY, SAFER, SALAD, SALES, SAUCE, SAVED, SAVES, ...
PROUD 1: SHARD, ...
CHEAT 1: SHARD, ...
Wordle: 'PLEAT'
Guess # remaining words including:
SWING 674: ABACK, ABATE, ABAYA, ABBEY, ABBOT, ABHOR, ABODE, ...
PROUD 8: PATCH, PEACE, PEACH, PETTY, PLACE, PLATE, PLAZA, ...
CHEAT 1: PLEAT, ...
Wordle: 'SKILL'
Guess # remaining words including:
SWING 19: SHIFT, SHIPS, SHIRT, SKIES, SKILL, SKIRT, SLICE, ...
PROUD 8: SHIFT, SKIES, SKILL, SLICE, SMILE, STICK, STIFF, ...
CHEAT 1: SKILL, ...
Wordle: 'CYNIC'
Guess # remaining words including:
SWING 53: ACTIN, ADMIN, AMNIO, ANTIC, ANVIL, AUXIN, BINDI, ...
PROUD 15: ACTIN, ANTIC, ANVIL, CABIN, CHAIN, CINCH, CYNIC, ...
CHEAT 1: CYNIC, ...
Wordle: 'AROMA'
Guess # remaining words including:
SWING 674: ABACK, ABATE, ABAYA, ABBEY, ABBOT, ABHOR, ABODE, ...
PROUD 11: AROMA, BROCH, BROKE, BROME, BROOK, BROOM, BROTH, ...
CHEAT 1: AROMA, ...
Review: Poussière dans le Vent (Dust in the Wind) by Leonardo Padura
I sit down to write this, still shaking with the emotion of finishing another masterpiece by Padura. He moves me like no other writer because he transports me to Cuba. A mere three-week visit, several years ago, left me with a feeling for the island that few other places have instilled in me and Padura never fails to reflect that feeling with 100% accuracy. It’s uncanny!
So I’m never going to let pass the opportunity to read a Padura work and I grab them when the arrive in their French translations, too impatient to await the English versions which always arrive much later.
This long novel is about exile and it resonates with my Irish soul since my compatriots were still emigrating in droves as recently as in my younger adult days. We’ve emerged into prosperity and education with the support of our great neighbours in Europe. Sadly Cuba is unlikely to emerge; if you’re an American reading this, hang your head in shame, because their poverty is directly down to your bullying country.
Padura tells the story, over a quarter century, of a small group of Cuban friends, most of whom eventually feel it necessary to leave (flee?) their homeland and he does a tremendous job of examining their motivations and sentiments. We get a heightened picture of a people rich in education but economically destitute. We see the oppression of independence akin to Stasi controlled East Germany and yet we also see a people who are terribly proud of their heritage. All this was blindingly obvious to me when I visited Cuba but Padura explains it profoundly. We come away understanding why they leave, but also why they stay! Padura himself has stayed so he must know why, but he has also lived through the history that drove so many away and he knows why so many go. And he understands both positions.
The one criticism I have of Padura (and I have it for all his books) is that women are described as (often intelligent but always as) sexual objects. This must offend many female readers. It offends me, a male reader. Curiously, in this book he addresses the subject of sex head-on. What I took away was summed up in the song Common People by Pulp:
You’ll never watch your life slide out of view
And you dance and drink and screw
Because there’s nothing else to do
I don’t buy it. Too facile.
However, don’t let that put you off. Don’t approve but rise above it and you’ll learn about an amazing country and its people.
Le Metropol by Eugen Ruge
Several years ago I read In Times of Fading Light, also by Ruge. I remember only that it was readable but it had no great impact on me. This is not the case here; this book is un-put-down-able.
Presented in novel form, because the facts are interpreted and decorated by the author, this is the ‘true’ story of a minor character in the Stalin Purges as she waits with her husband for more than a year in a hotel room to learn what will become of them. The story is filled with a cast of young European idealists (using their real names) who moved to Russia in the early 20th century in support of communism and who found themselves caught up in Stalin’s hysteria in the 1930’s. It’s about denunciations and ostracisations as people run for cover. It’s about millions of good people being subdued by mere thousands of bad ones.
In an epilogue, the author fleshes out for us how he developed the story from research in his grandmother’s file in the Russian archives, much in the way the opening of the Stasi archives was described in that marvellous film The Lives of Others. We learn how most of them ended up executed or murdered in work camps and the amazing destinies of some who were exiled but unable to return to their home countries because they were communists.
Oh, the pleasure of holiday reading. No distractions. Time to waste.
This was a nice collection, mainly light-hearted with few of great distinction. A few police procedurals, two court cases, some general silliness and some worth remembering.
Miracle à la Combe aux Aspics by Ante Tomić (Croatia) … a light-hearted romp through the antics of a family of Croatian hill-billies searching for wives. Silly but entertaining.
Terra Alta by Javier Cercas (Spain) … a police procedural where the investigator is a minor player in the squad. Different.
Impossible by Erri de Luca (Italy) … an investigating magistrate questions a political activist suspected of a murder. Intelligent conversations but all a little too pat for me.
L’Île des Âmes by Piergiorgio Pulixi (Sardinia) … a police procedural in a location that was new to me. Challenging!
Ritournelle by Dimitri Rouchon-Borie (France) … novel based on a true court case arising from the mindless violence of a group of thugs. Sickening and compelling.
L’Anomalie by Hervé le Tellier (France) … fantasy exploring the idea of a bifurcation in time where the same airplane lands twice, after a three month interval, producing a kind of parallel universe for the affected passengers. The idea was fun for a while but I think the author failed to sufficiently exploit a good idea. The style reminded me of Andreas Eschbach, but I think he’d have drawn more out of it.
★★★ Le Silence des Carpes by Jérôme Bonnetto (France) … the best so far! A guy whose life is coming apart takes off to the Czech Republic on a whim and rediscovers himself through immersion in Czech culture and a diverting missing persons project. Quite a gem! Intelligent, imaginative and completely plausible.
Eichmann à Buenos Aries by Ariel Magnus (Argentina) … a fictionalised account of Adolf Eichmann’s secret life in Argentina until he was “renditioned” by the Israelis to stand trial in Jerusaleum. Heavy going and not a great read.
★★★ La Rose des Vents by Andreï Guelassimov (Russia) … interesting piece of (fictionalised but ‘true’) naval history where a Russian naval crew disguised as merchant seamen take a flat bottommed cargo ship across two oceans to reach their own eastern coast in a voyage of exploration to see if the River Amur is navigable (and therefore suitable to defend the territory against the aspirations of the Chinese and the British).
★★★ Le Metropol by Eugen Ruge (Germany) … a fiction based on the show trials in 1936/7 USSR. We follow a minor character lodged at the State’s expense in the ‘luxurious’ Hotel Metropol awaiting her fate at the hands of the State. All about her, early morning arrests are sweeping up ‘enemies of the nation’ and everyone is denouncing everyone else. A MASTERPIECE. See also.
Asynchronists 