Word Freak

This week was huge for World Cup News. You've probably clicked your way to this website to get just that. Because I am a very dedicated blogger, I will now go into details concerning my opinion on this integral subject: I don't have one. I was too busy reading a book about Scrabble.

For those of you looking to get out of the world of mainstream sports for a good dose of “who the hell knew this existed,” pick up Stefan Fatsis' WTF masterpiece, Word Freak. You will plunge so far into the depths of Scrabble obsession that the light of normal, functional day seems impossible. The classic living room pastime actually has a fathomless past, present, and future internationally. It's hard to believe, but there are newsletters, clubs, tournaments, and heated debates and grudges based on the game. There are relationships, marriages, divorces based on the game. There are people who consider themselves “Professional Scrabble Players” - who live to hear the clinking of small wooden tiles, and find the meaning of their lives in the OSWD (Official Scrabble Word Dictionary). When player Joel Sherman is named the World Scrabble Champion, he says, “Its the only thing I've ever put a lot of hard work into. It's the one thing I'm really good at, and if I can't accomplish something in this field, it's unlikely I'll accomplish something in any other field. So this basically validates my existence. I'm not kidding.”

And Joel Sherman is hardly the most Scrabble obsessed character we come across.

But lets take a step back. Word Freak's subtitle is Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive SCRABBLE Players. Obsession is the key word here. When we begin, Author Stefan Fatsis is a relatively well known sports writer and reporter for the Wall Street Journal, a “normal” human being researching a story on the lives of competitive Scrabble players. Within the enigmatic lives of G.I. Joel, Joe Edley, Matt Graham, and a motley cast of other characters, Fatsis takes us from the touching to the hilarious to the horrifically embarrassing. These characters, along with Fatsis' genuine interest in the game, determination to understand and succeed, are what make the story worthwhile.

But with time, “genuine interest” is a bit of an understatement. Even the most intense Scrabble enthusiasts that I know hardly do more than own a deluxe board and have friends over to play once a month. I would consider a well made cheese dip to be over the top in terms of preparation. I had no idea that such a level of Scrabble obsession existed; but the reader gets a front row seat to watch Fatsis' transformation from mild mannered, regular working citizen Clark Kent to pre- and suffix memorizing, intensely self deprecating, weekly tournament traveling Scrabble Superman. Over the three years of narrative, Fatsis morphs into an entirely different person. He begins as any reporter would when studying a new subject – eager, curious, slightly frustrated at his lack of knowledge. From there, we watch as the game slowly takes control of his life. The tide comes in sudden, overwhelming bursts, and Scrabble inches up the sand of Fatsis' conscious until its all he cares about. He's eating, sleeping, breathing Scrabble. He has taken a sabbatical from his job to “write this book” - which he fully admits doesn't matter as much as conquering the game – and his regular friends can't understand a word he's saying anymore. This is probably because all of his time is going towards learning words formed from all consonants, studying sheet upon sheet of anagrams, and playing thousands of games of Scrabble. His thought process has become hilariously annoying.

“I'm staring at EEGLNS.

Instantly, I think FEELINGS. Then the song “Feelings” comes into my head and I can't get it out before its suck on one of those endless loops, distracting me during a close game. 'Nothing more than FEELINGS', it screams, and I can't even play the word, or any other bingo, on a tightly packed board. I oepn things up for GLENS to a triple-word score saving E ('...trying to forget my...'), and draw BFFOT, and the song is still there ('...FEELINGS of love...'). I make my (brilliant) play OFFBEATS ('...wo, wo, wo...'), draw a challenge, pull the X and the second blank, slap down PAX for 55 ('...again in my heart...'), and wind up winning 454-289.

I do the math. From the time “Feelings” began its tortuous soundtrack, I outscored my opponent 237 to 63. I never realized how much I loved that song.”

At this point, the transition to Scrabble expert is almost complete. According to Fatsis, the average person has between 15,000 and 20,000 words in their everyday vocabulary. But hardcore Scrabble players memorize over 120,000 words in order to get an edge on their opponent in tournaments – memorizing complicated patterns and sequences at each step. First, they learn the two letter words, then the threes. The fours and fives are more complicated, with mixes and balances of vowels and consonants to take into account. Getting to the sixes and sevens takes an obscene amount of dedication. These people spend their lives hunched over wrinkled sheets of paper or continuously playing against the computer, searching for patterns and anagrams not yet noticed. And for what? Little to no media attention, a permanent residence in their parents' basements, and less attention at a singles bar than a bank teller.

Whether it woos the ladies or not, Scrabble is intense. I had no idea how mathematical and scientific the game was. To the mere human, it is a board made of heavy, glossy cardboard and a tile bag containing 100 small wooden pieces. But to the Scrabble elite, it is the elixir of life. Every game is an equation waiting to be answered, a question demanding a response. They play with a time limit, similar to competitive chess; Fatsis uses the similarities between competitive Scrabble and Chess often throughout the book, although professional chess garners far more respect. There is another easy distinction between chess and Scrabble that seems glaringly unfair: luck. So much of Scrabble is about the luck of the draw. To have a rack filled with consonants with only one or two vowels? Bad luck. To go an entire game without seeing an 'S' tile? Worse luck. To play against an opponent who gets graced with both blank tiles? Death.

It's easy to be drawn into this eccentric little world. I dare you to read and not fall for the characters; sharp, determined, and irresistibly odd, their adult lives revolve around a board game. Some of them are so damn smart and likeable that you want to slap them for being unable to hold down a regular job or a girlfriend – just give up the game! You can live a normal life! But a life without Scrabble wouldn't be a life for this crowd. Within the ranks, there are different levels of Scrabble devotion. “How Scrabble players [play] is a bit like how people arrange a collection of books. Some players are random – paperbacks mixed with hardcovers, fiction with nonfiction, travel with sports. They'll anagram some sevens, read the dictionary, flashcard the fives, whatever rings their buzzer at a given moment. Others are Dewey-Decimal anal... and set out to learn words in a rigid sequence, often for a fixed amount of time during a specific part of the day. Some players... hate studying. Their method is the equivalent of leaving the books stacked in piles on the floor until forced to put them away.” No matter their preferences, the players all have one thing in common – they won't (can't?) live without the game.

There's more to the story than the characters. Fatsis somehow makes the Scrabble play by play tense and passionate as a Superbowl, graceful and calculated as a ballet. The way he describes tournaments, its impossible to understand how the world has not caught on to this intellectual phenomenon. I could just picture college students gathered in a sports bar, watching the National Scrabble Tournament around pitchers of Natural Light. “Play WARBLES! WARBLES!” One would scream, in jeans and a fraternity hat. The bar would erupt in boos when the player laid down the tiles to form “WALKER”. What, you can't see it?

Despite its comedy, Word Freak, a cross between an article, a report, and a novel, lacks a steady pace. When we're in the present day, tagging along with Fatsis to tournaments and club meetings, the pages go by in a snap. But at other times, Word Freak drags. Fatsis is brimming with unbelievably impractical and detailed Scrabble knowledge. Have you ever wondered how the game was created? How it was marketed? Exactly how many games were sold in 1973? Neither was I, but I was fed all of that information a hundred times over. There are pages and pages and pages of facts ranging from Alfred Butts, the original creator of the game, to the duel between Hasbro and Mattel, who own the rights to the game nationally and internationally, respectively. What could have just been a summary of the game over time turned into a the long-winded relative at Christmas that nobody wants to sit next to. You keep checking your watch and glancing over your shoulder, but he never notices. He just keeps talking. Multiple times, I found myself drowning in dates, useless names, and strange diction. If Fatsis had cut the history down a bit and kept the book more present day, perhaps it would have been a bit easier to get through.

History lesson aside, Fatsis' journey is absolutely addicting. It has everything. Passion, sacrifice, unparallelled vocabulary (what more could you ask for?). There's action, emotion, challenging intellectual sequences. Somehow a simple board game becomes a symbol for so much more. One theme that I found the most entertaining and, at times, touching, was the deep connection between the players. These guys are a ragtag little family. And even players that have never met are aware that they're kindred spirits. Take, for example, Fatsis' coverage of the 1999 World Scrabble Championship, which he attends as a reporter, not a player. Looking around the setting for the tournament in Melbourne, Australia and watching teams from 29 different countries prepare to square off against each other, he remarks: “That these people have come together to celebrate the English language even though some of them speak it as a second or third language, and sometimes just barely, makes the scene both touching and bizarre.” The entire book is just that, a touching and bizarre celebration of the English language, and for those that revel in it. Fatsis' writing and reporting crosses lines of nationality, gender, creed, and social class. These people are in it for the glory, the passion, the diction, the money – a multitude of reasons. But more than anything else, they are here to celebrate language and sportsmanship. Even if Marlon, a player known for his dangerous temper, curses out an old lady or two.

Fastis' journey through Scrabble Wonderland is also marvelous for its honesty. Fastis never claims that he slipped into the world unnoticed just to become an effortless champion in a matter of weeks. The man puts his nose to the grindstone. He studies for hours a day, works his ass off, and loses touch with the outside world. He loses more games than he wins. He admits annoyance at the ever farting, sneezing, and phlegm-coughing G.I. Joel, one of the top players in North America. He accepts and admits that obsession with a board game is a tad pathetic and unhealthy. Like many of the most intense players, he dramatically announces a break from the game...only to find himself walking into the park the next afternoon with the board tucked under his arm. And he admits the hypocrisy – what a wonderful change of pace from an author! As his rating climbs from the amateur division eventually into the expert, he becomes less and less like his pre-Scrabble self; but he is so self aware, that he is able to discuss it openly. By the end of the book, its clear that poor Stefan Fatsis will never be the same again, and he has embraced it. He is now one of the aberrant (10 points, assuming you're enough of a schmuck not to use any double/triple word/letter scores).

The book is just as unexpected and unconventional as its subject matter. Is it a memoir? A novel? A very long article? Can you really call Scrabble a “professional sport” when the cash prizes are low, there are hardly any spectators, and most of the competitors are unemployed? And of course, the basic question still remains – what on Earth would inspire someone to write a book about tournament Scrabble? Take a chance on Fatsis and find out.

Whether or not you find the subject pointless, Word Freak is damn well entertaining. And besides, someone had to give seldom used words like RIVIERE (a necklace of precious stones – 10 points, plus bonus for bingo), SWITCHEROO (winning high praise for creativity – 18 points, plus bonus for 10 letter word) and SAPROZOIC (feeding on dead or decaying animal matter – 20 points plus bonus for 9 letter word) their time in the spotlight. Play on, Scrabblers, play on.